“You’re taking a burlesque class?” my mother asks me over the phone. “But why?” I’ve been asking myself that same question for a while. I’m clumsy and awkward by nature. Overall, this seems like humiliation waiting to happen. But as I talked to my friends who are Chicago burlesque dancers, all of them have emphasized to me how fun and self-accepting burlesque can be. They have told me how performing the art of tease has given them self-confidence they’ve never had before and taught them to accept their bodies no matter what shape or size. So despite my misgivings, I am going to learn how to flaunt it with the best of them.
On Wednesday, I arrive at Arabesque dance studio in the pouring rain for the 8:30p.m. burlesque class. I give the woman at the counter $15 and nervously walk into the dance space. I feel awkward as the six women around me laugh and chat about their love lives or stretch in silence for class. Also, I seem to be the only one who forgot gym pants and am preparing to learn to shimmy and shake in a pair of jeans. Some of the women are in their twenties like me, but several of the women are in their thirties and forties. Everyone is different shapes and sizes. No one is the rail-thin blonde I expected to find in a seductive dance class.
The class is normally taught by Michelle L’amour, a nationally renowned burlesque dancer, but today she hurt her back while stretching. Instead the class will be lead by Sarah Keating, one of her fellow dancers in the burlesque troupe Lavender Cabaret. Keating is one of the women who told me how “There’s nothing more vulnerable than this,” she says. “You can do anything after this. It’s very empowering especially as a curvy dancer. It’s very good for me.” Well, we’ll see how good it is for me.
Keating steps to the front of the studio by the mirror and the rest of us line up along the back wall ready to begin. The music starts a quick, tawdry beat, and Sarah begins strutting forward, thrusting her hips side to side and slapping her thighs seductively. I am not as coordinated as I try to imitate her. My strut is more of a feeble wobble and every off beat sway of my hips threatens to throw me off balance completely. I look around nervously because I didn’t anticipate having so much difficulty with the first steps. I hope I am not the only student failing at seductive walking. A couple women are moving perfectly in time, their gestures poised, and they are even pouting their lips with playful suggestiveness. But in the corner I see a few other women stumbling and laughing together. Like me, they trip over their own feet as they try to turn in a circle while bouncing their hips at the same time.
After we finish warming up, Michelle brings around a bag of feather boas. We each pull one out. She wraps hers around her neck, and we all obediently follow suit. She demonstrates how to toss the boa, how to wrap it round our arms without accidentally tying it to ourselves (I only did it a few times) and how to swing it over our heads. A little over a half hour into the class, I’m starting to get the hang of it. I’ve figured out how to seductively drop my right shoulder so the boa slides to the floor and how to pull it through my fingers to the beat of the music. Even as I’m struggling to keep my moves up to tempo, I’ve gotten comfortable enough to push my shoulders back and chest out, lifting my chin as we practice walking on our tip toes with the boa draping in our arms. I don’t feel particularly sexy, but I’m able to laugh now at how ridiculous I think I look.
The class ends after an hour, and we all return our feather boas and sit on the floor to do our cool down stretches. As I reach for my toes and arch my back, I feel satisfied. I certainly lack the skill and coordination necessary to be successful, but I can understand why so many women describe it as “empowering.” In flaunting my very self-conscious sexuality for an hour, I stopped worry about how I looked or how poorly I was doing. While I’m not sure I’ll ever take a burlesque class again, I definitely enjoyed my experience. And should I ever need to dance with a feather boa, I’ll know all the right moves.
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Kristin Maun
Kristin Maun is the Windy Citizen Blog Editor and a senior at
