Gloves are Essential
The lights were lowered again after the first performer for the night stepped behind stage and the host, Bob, a tall, bleach blonde, full-figured woman walked onto the stage. She explained that the next performer was making her debut that night, and that we should make sure we clap and shout especially loud so that all she could hear would be our encouragement. Not the nervous thoughts, second-guessing and rapid eye movements that one expects from a first time on stage. Especially a first time taking ones clothes off.
A few weeks ago, standing in front of the Virgin Megastore at Union Square, my friend conspiratorially informed me that she had been taking classes at the New York School of Burlesque. Classes would soon be coming to a close, but she would soon be doing a performance. Would I be interested in going? I agreed—excited to get to see what my friend had gone so far as to take courses in. Now, while I had a friend in college who threw around the term around often, and it prompted the thought of carnivals (Carnivale-style) and bordellos, I wasn’t quite sure what Burlesque meant. Was it like a stage performance? Some sort of erotic/exotic dance technique? A bunch of girls walking about in corsets and being provocative? Somewhere in the back of my mind had the notion being both more respectable and less respectable than a stripper. I wasn’t too far off.
Standing in her favorite summer outfit, a bra and panties, Bob explained that Burlesque was made up of three parts: ribald comedy, strip and dance. And that the key difference between a stripper and a burlesque dancer (aside from the money) is that there’s just more to this form of performance art. It’s just as much about the overall piece as it is about the “boobs”. After this brief explanation, Bob asked us to clap as loud as we could, for the Burlesque World Premiere of Victoria Privates!
Hoots and hollers emitted from the crowd as the stage lights came back on, revealing a girl in her 20, with black hair pulled back into a pony tail, wearing a silk robe black heels and long black gloves. And though the Y (and a few X) members of the audience were fixated on the fact that this girl was about to dance and strip for them, I found that what was much more compelling were her eyes.
Yes, I know that it’s a cliché. “You can act it out with your eyes” you hear directors trying to tell young actresses to eventually get them to disrobe. But in this case, you couldn’t do much more while looking on stage but to be pulled in by her gaze. Holding everyone in the room hostage, she started seamlessly into her piece set to “Feeling Good” (Muse cover). And if I learned anything as the robe was throw to the side; it was that gloves are the most essential piece of the Burlesque trade. Next to pasties, seven performances in total that night (three by the same person) and three of them used gloves as one of the articles to be removed. While surgical gloves seem to not be the best so a seductive removal, long black satin is definitely in—as Victoria demonstrated for us all that night.
Revealing not only the amazing black and red outfit she was wearing underneath the robe, but also the body work she had all over, Ms Privates captivated the room every turn and twist of her frame. Leaving little to guess why Bob has gushed over her in the beginning, and knowing that she had not simply, as her teacher, trying to encourage a first time performer, but speaking the truth. And though she crowd roared and applaud as Victoria pulled off her top to reveal black and silver spinning tassels, it was evident that she had the audience from the moment she stepped on stage.