Embodied Transformations in Neo-Burlesque Striptease

Abstract

This article both argues for and contests the discourses of transformation that characterize the production and reception of neo-burlesque striptease. Through an experiential, ethnographic, and critical methodology, I reflect on how this genre engenders performances of transformation through the passage of dress to undress, at the performer–spectator exchange, and through shifting corporeal values, changing representations of female eroticism and the reclaiming of a nostalgic femininity within the neo-burlesquemise-en-scène. Yet in line with critical debates in cultural studies, I seek to question the extent to which utopian notions of transformation occur beyond the level of the “performance text” to incorporate change in the economic and social realities of neo-burlesque performers and audiences. In response I argue that neo-burlesque striptease is a site of class privilege in which performers have the necessary economic and intellectual capital through which to stage a critique of the striptease body, which could not necessarily be replicated in other sites of production. Yet I also recognize that neo-burlesque performance offers important opportunities for personal and social transformation through the ways in which women experience their disrobed bodies in an affirmative public space and through the creative control they exercise in the construction of their bodily display.