He could have done a much better job
Jun. 13th, 2002 10:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cassidyroseThe Big Burlesque show I was in last weekend was written-up by a chronicle reporter in today's edition. I am somewhat disappointed in the article, mostly because the title includes "It's not over until the Fat Lady strips".
For whatever reason that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I feel like the whole fat aspect of the show is being exploited is some way. I am also bothered that the author failed to mention that the show was not just stripping--we did actually dance and those of us who did solos are trained dancers (and incorporated such training into our routines). Also, many of us did not really "strip"---layers were removed, but in most my pieces that meant a robe was taken off to reveal a sexy, but full coverage, outfit (covers more than your standard swimsuit). In one number I wore a bra and denim shorts (with tights and boots).
He makes a passing mention to the dimension of tease in burlesque, but I don't think he really gets it. My solo was one of the best received numbers and the only skin that was shown during that was my arms, neck, upper-chest, and a bit of cleavage (my legs were showing, but were covered by dance tights and fishnets). He failed to note that we can dance and be sexy without stripping down to next to nothing. My costuming was strategic in that it was exciting and sexy without showing all that much. It was not a moral thing of my part, but it was a burlesque show, not a strip show. Perhaps he was so caught-up in the sexiness and the illusion that we were really showing a lot that he missied this. Yes, some people got down to pasties and g-strings (actually, that was only one person--maybe two-- out of many), but most were just sexily dressed.
It's not like I expected people ot only notice our dancing abilities, but some mention of the thought, time, and effort that obvisouly went into the pieces would have been nice. I mean, we didn't just get up and take our clothes off...we made it interesting. Frankly I think this guy was just blown away that fat women have sexy clothing and can wear them with confidence.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just cranky.
THE SCENE: A burlesque show that fills the stage It's not over until the fat lady strips
Jesse Hamlin
Thursday, June 13, 2002
The fleshy people were out in force Saturday night at the 848 Community Space in San Francisco, where Ms. DeMeanor, a Detroit dancer and self-described queer activist, staged herrollicking Fat-Bottom Revue.
It's a fun-filled burlesque show featuring women of size, as she calls them, or fat people, as she also calls them and herself. Ms. DeMeanor, whose real name is Heather MacAllister, travels the country putting on feel-good workshops and shows with big women.
They shimmy and grind as they peel off leather, lace and boas to expose a bounty of flesh, while keeping certain vital zones covered and left to the imagination. Sometimes they get up close to willing men and women in the crowd, who pop dollar bills -- occasionally proffered from the teeth -- into undulating undergarments.
"We're having a good time and affirming our sexuality, which has been unaffirmed and made negative in the popular culture," said Ms. D., a lively woman with a wide-hipped mermaid tattooed on her ample right thigh. She was chatting before Saturday's raucously entertaining show, where the mixed-gender crowd leaned toward the large and lesbian.
The gig was produced by Big Moves, a Bay Area organization that promotes size diversity in the dance world. It's run by Marina Wolf, a Santa Rosa freelance writer and waitress who teaches dance classes and directs and performs with the Phat Fly Girls, a hip-hop dance group featured that night.
One of the members is Marilyn Wann, a San Francisco "fat activist" whose book "Fat! So?" was published this
year. A cheeky blonde, she likes to offer "counter-propaganda" toprevailing images and attitudes about body size, "and if it means putting my ass on the line, I'm willing to do it," said Wann, who'd never stripped in public before. "Let's put it this way, it's the first time people have paid to see me do it."
The small, funky space was packed with people who'd plopped down $10 to $15 to whoop it up and support the women onstage. The master of ceremonies was the amusing Harriet Leider, a.k.a. Diva, a portly dame with a shaved head who appeared in "Torch Song Trilogy" and played a four-handed alien piano player on "Star Trek."
"Remember," she told the crowd, "good taste is timeless, and a good time is usually tasteless." Once you've had a big woman, she noted, "you'll never go back and you'll never go hungry. . . .Much poundage and cleavage will be shown tonight."
The lusty performances may have lacked polish but never enthusiasm. They ranged from classic stripper-jazz numbers to a campy over-the-top romp with sex toys and a hilarious erotic tussle on the floor between Ms. DeMeanor and Tallulah de Pluto. The latter is a very pretty 6-foot-2, 300-pound Berkeley belly dancer named Justine Sutton, who also did a terrific belly number involving her curly-haired boyfriend.
Jonathan Wright, who's getting a teaching credential at San Francisco State, was having a ball in the front row, slipping bills into the cleavage of dancers who lavished attention and other things on him.
"I came here because I love beautiful fat women," said Wright, 32, who happens to be Wann's boyfriend. "They're out here looking great, shaking it at the rest of the world and refusing to let anybody else say they're not beautiful. I got butts rubbed on my backside and (breasts) rubbed in my face, and it was awesome."
Carole Cullum, a San Francisco lawyer who sits on the city's Board of Permit Appeals, caught the show with her partner, social worker Kathy Brehm. They'd seen Ms. DeMeanor's revue last fall in New Jersey and loved it.
"They're our people," Brehm said. Added Cullum: "They're beautiful, voluptuous, fat women, and they really celebrate life."
For whatever reason that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I feel like the whole fat aspect of the show is being exploited is some way. I am also bothered that the author failed to mention that the show was not just stripping--we did actually dance and those of us who did solos are trained dancers (and incorporated such training into our routines). Also, many of us did not really "strip"---layers were removed, but in most my pieces that meant a robe was taken off to reveal a sexy, but full coverage, outfit (covers more than your standard swimsuit). In one number I wore a bra and denim shorts (with tights and boots).
He makes a passing mention to the dimension of tease in burlesque, but I don't think he really gets it. My solo was one of the best received numbers and the only skin that was shown during that was my arms, neck, upper-chest, and a bit of cleavage (my legs were showing, but were covered by dance tights and fishnets). He failed to note that we can dance and be sexy without stripping down to next to nothing. My costuming was strategic in that it was exciting and sexy without showing all that much. It was not a moral thing of my part, but it was a burlesque show, not a strip show. Perhaps he was so caught-up in the sexiness and the illusion that we were really showing a lot that he missied this. Yes, some people got down to pasties and g-strings (actually, that was only one person--maybe two-- out of many), but most were just sexily dressed.
It's not like I expected people ot only notice our dancing abilities, but some mention of the thought, time, and effort that obvisouly went into the pieces would have been nice. I mean, we didn't just get up and take our clothes off...we made it interesting. Frankly I think this guy was just blown away that fat women have sexy clothing and can wear them with confidence.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just cranky.
