Canadian Theatre Review 158, Spring 2014 "Burlesque" now available

[Greenwood, Audrey]

Burlesque

Edited by Shelley Scott and Reid Gilbert

CTR#158 offers an extended conversation about burlesque in Canada, from archival photos and historical contextualization to the most current interpretations of what neo-burlesque can be and what it can do. The audacious urban experience of Montreal lives beside the off-the-grid exuberance of Lasqueti Island. The details of costume construction in ancouver are considered alongside legal definitions that dictatecostumes in Calgary.
The issue offers an in-depth exploration of Toronto's Operation Snatch, formerly The Scandelles, with two articles that chart the company's trajectory from burlesque to political cabaret, a Scandelles script, and an interview with founder Alexandra Tigchelaar. Also exclusively online, Adriana Disman has curated a dialogue among socially conscious performers using neo-burlesque for social change. Whether conveying the experience of a male burlesque performer or drawing parallels with the community-building appeal of roller derby, the authors in this issue dissect, interrogate, and expand the definitions of burlesque.
This issue contains:

The Politics of Burlesque: A Dialogue Among Dancers
Adriana Disman

http://bit.ly/CTR158a

"Teasing, Transgressing, Defining-Broadening the Spectrum of Sexy"
Shelley Scott and Reid Gilbert
Read the editorial for free! Click here<http://bit.ly/CTR158edit>

In Search of a Different History: The Remains of Burlesque in Montreal

Joanna Mansbridge

http://bit.ly/CTR158b

Taking Elin Diamond's and Rebecca Schneider's recent work in drama and performance studies as a starting point, this essay looks at two eras of burlesque in Montreal-the 1940s-50s and 2012-tracing a shifting landscape of popular entertainment, politics, religion, and social attitudes toward female sexuality. There is a central question underlying this examination: Why burlesque? Why now (or, rather, again?). I argue that burlesque offers an archive that evokes a different, more glamorous history than the one passed down to women by second-wave feminism. Burlesque also provides an alternative to popular culture's commodification of female sexuality, technology's mediation of social life, and heteronormative culture's privatization of sexuality, giving women-and men-a stage on which to make fun of our cultural fixation with sex and the female body. Both nostalgically looking back and eagerly reaching for the new, neo-burlesque repeats the past as it simultaneously reinvents it.

"Well, Melody, what is your skirt gonna turn into now?": An Interview with Melody Mangler
Ines Ortner
http://bit.ly/CTR158c

Melody Mangler is a highly acclaimed burlesque performer, teacher, costumer, and writer from Vancouver. In 2009, the Burlesque Hall of Fame recognized her talents with the "Best Debut" Award for her outstanding performance piece Venus in Spring. As a founding member of the Screaming Chicken Theatrical Society and their current artistic director, she contributes significantly to the Vancouver burlesque scene.

This interview centres on the role costumes play in Melody Mangler's performance process from their inspiration to their construction, and as a stage partner. The conversation covers various aspects of costume design: the historical burlesque, the connotation of fashion-before-function, the ingenuity required during the building process, and the technical complexity in the creation and play all burlesque costumes involve.

Mangler also speaks to the creative adjustments of conventions, the inherited satirical characteristic of the neo-burlesque as well as the significance of sex-positivity and body-positivity.

Backwoods Burlesque: Off-the-Grid Tsk Tsk

Bronwyn Preece

http://bit.ly/CTR158d

The Tsk Tsk Revue has become an annual one-night event-perhaps now more accurately described as a phenomenon-in the 350-peopled, entirely off-the-grid island of Lasqueti, BC, developing into a Gulf islands' touring show. Teeming with brazen backwoods humour and localized, alternatively-powered erotics, the Tsk Tsk Revue has rightfully earned a unique place on the national burlesque scene. The show spins both the term sexy and the status quo on their heads, highlighting the often-absurd moments of choosing to live off-the-grid and translating the many challenges that face the islanders into comedic fodder. Staging innovative low-tech stage tropes, costumes, and black light burlesque through a series of vignettes strung together by the colourful commentary of the show's creator and hostess, Jenny Vester, the Tsk Tsk Revue continually pushes the limits and tests one remote little island's limits.

Stuck to the Pole: Raven Virginia and the Redefinition of Burlesque in Calgary

Jamie Dunsdon

http://bit.ly/CTR158e

Raven Virginia thinks of burlesque and exotic dance as "sisters who come from the same rich and beautiful history" but cautions against confusion between the two forms. Raven and her ensemble, The Garter Girls, gained experience vocalizing the distinction between their brand of revival burlesque and the style of stripping, or "exotic dance," performed at strip clubs when, in 2010, the provincial liquor commission categorized both performance styles as "nude entertainment" under its licensing guidelines. This article explores the impact of that decision on burlesque performance in Calgary, examines public (mis)perceptions of revival burlesque, and defines the artistic values and performance aesthetics that differentiate revival burlesque from exotic dance, using the Calgary burlesque scene as a case study. It also outlines some of the challenges of setting standards of quality within an artistic practice that has little internal hierarchy and rarely receives external review.

Are You Staring at the Size of My Gimmick? Applying Burlesque Conventions to a Different Anatomy

Jay Whitehead

http://bit.ly/CTR158f

A former "boylesque" performer explores his personal experiences within the Toronto-based male burlesque company Boylesque TO, examining the presentation of male bodies in traditional and contemporary burlesque. Can men in Burlesque reclaim aesthetic dignity for the male body through the emulation of a traditionally female art form, or does their presence in the burlesque community simply serve to further "expose" the male physique, in all its shapes and sizes, to socialized reactions from its audience? In popular culture, and the performing arts, the performer's penis remains a source of shock or hilarity, a symbol of depravity or comedy. Does its presence in a traditionally female performance style simply encourage this further, remaining appropriate for only size-jokes or covered eyes, or can it help the male member become a truly sensual object in the spirit of traditional burlesque?

Neo-Burlesque and the Resurgence of Roller Derby: Empowerment, Play, and Community

David Owen

http://bit.ly/CTR158g

In both neo-burlesque and roller derby, there is a two-way communication between the audience (both male and female) and the performers/athletes that celebrates what the women (and sometimes men) on stage and on the track are doing. Using interviews with several burlesque performers and derby players, I demonstrate that there is a sense of community at both events between performers and audience, and that the art form of burlesque is not about monetary gain or exclusively for the pleasure of men. The burlesque performer is continually in communication with the audience through eye contact, performer-initiated physical contact, and invited audible response. I draw a parallel to roller derby as another outlet for women to express themselves outside of a traditional patriarchal frame for an audience of both women and men, paying particular attention to the acceptance of a wide range of body types, the creation of community, and a celebration of strength and skill not usually associated with women.

Extinguishing the "Temptation of Monetary Inducements": The State Regulation and Stigmatization of Adult Entertainment Recruiters on Post-secondary Campuses in British Columbia

Becki Ross and Oralia Gómez-Ramírez

http://bit.ly/CTR158h

In this article, we explore the directive issued in August 2012 by the Minister of Advanced Education in British Columbia to ban "aggressive" adult entertainment recruiters from campus job fairs. We argue that the Liberal minister's move to differentiate "appropriate" and "safe" employment from the purportedly perilous behaviour intrinsic to "exotic dancing" deflects attention from the economic crisis facing most post-secondary students. We contend that exotic dancing is being used as a convenient scapegoat, a bottomless container for fear and anxiety eminently exploitable in the service of moral governance masquerading as state advocacy. Some students already work in the sex industry, including the world of commercial burlesque. The minister's message to university and college presidents in British Columbia reads as a cynical, desperate ploy a) to exploit fear for political gain, and b) to obfuscate the grave, deepening crush of debt shouldered by post-secondary students.

Re-Vamping History: Neo-Burlesque and Historical Tradition

Alexis Butler

http://bit.ly/CTR158i

Considering two performance trajectories that have emerged from the varied dramaturgical history of the burlesque genre, epitomized by superstar Dita Von Teese and by the Toronto collective The Scandelles, this article demonstrates how neo-burlesque can usefully be divided into that which approaches burlesque as a noun and that which deploys it as a verb. Where Von Teese's recreationist approach relies on, and reifies, notions of "the historical" to contain and contextualize her act as more tasteful than contemporary stripping, The Scandelles' active burlesquing, which relies on irony, camp, and social criticism, calls the very essence of such monolithic narratives into question. Ironically, while the performance of The Scandelles has often been considered to be more akin to the "avant-garde" than to the neo-burlesque, I will show that it is, in fact, strikingly similar to the earliest, and least contemporarily familiar, years of North American burlesque.

An Interview with Alex Tigchelaar, Formerly Sasha Van Bon Bon of The Scandelles

Alexis Butler

http://bit.ly/CTR158j

Alex Tigchelaar, formerly Sasha Van Bon Bon of the Toronto neo-burlesque collective The Scandelles, discusses the early days of Toronto neo-burlesque, her classy vagina, social renegades & queering history, sobriety, and other stops on her journey towards artistic confidence.
"You're Just a Stripper that Came Out of a Time Machine": Operation Snatch's Queer World-Making and Sex-Working Class Politics"
Sarah Mann
http://bit.ly/CTR158k
This essay explores the queer world of Toronto's Operation Snatch (formerly known as The Scandelles), focusing in particular on two of their productions related to sex work, Les Demimondes and Neon Nightz. The essay details the performances, which focus on prostitution and exotic dance, respectively, and discusses whether performances about sex work ought to be considered queer performance art. Arguing that Operation Snatch's performances constitute "queer world-making," this essay considers how Operation Snatch leverages affect to engage their audiences in the composition of a queer "world" that critiques popular and burlesque images of sex workers, in which their critical self-representations as sex workers can come to life. By adapting burlesque's ironic "gaze back" to the "world-making" capacities of cabaret, Operation Snatch produces sex work-related performances that can critique sex workers' marginalization in both popular and burlesque culture.
Script
Neon Nightz
Alexandra Tigchelaar
http://bit.ly/CTR158l

Neon Nightz examines paradoxical notions of worship and intimacy in the sacred yet profane places in which we explore the ideologically linked emotions of desire and shame. It asks the question, is the strip club so different from the holy confession? When oppression, rather than necessity, is viewed as the mother of invention, what do people invent to subvert its tyranny?

It brings together female archetypes that are simultaneously revered and reviled and exposes the myths used to typecast women and the modern applications of religious allegory. It reveals what happens when The Virgin meets The Whore without interference of the masculine saviours who both contrive and condemn them. What happens when the whore speaks for herself, refuting what Louis Althusser would deem the imaginary relationships forced on the real conditions of her existence? If we took this concept, and refused to present it through coy symbolism but insisted on an application where "whored" bodies were also front and centre, we would have to see these spaces for all their complexities.
Views and Reviews
http://bit.ly/CTR158m


Canadian Theatre Review is the major magazine of record for Canadian theatre. It is committed to excellence in the critical analysis and innovative coverage of current developments in Canadian theatre, to advocating new issues and artists, and to publishing at least one significant new playscript per issue. The editorial board is committed to CTR's practice of theme issues that present multi-faceted and in-depth examinations of the emerging issues of the day and to expanding the practice of criticism in Canadian theatre and to the development of new voices.
For more information about the Canadian Theatre Review or for submissions information, please contact:
Canadian Theatre Review
University of Toronto Press, Journals Division
5201 Dufferin Street, Toronto, ON M3H 5T8, Canada
Tel: (416) 667-7810 Fax: (416) 667-7881
Fax Toll Free in North America 1-800-221-9985
Email: journals at utpress.utoronto.ca<mailto:journals at utpress.utoronto.ca>
www.canadiantheatrereview.com<http://www.canadiantheatrereview.com>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://artsservices.uwaterloo.ca/pipermail/candrama/attachments/20140416/86a70bd5/attachment.html>