18 Scene “I really enjoy exploring typically what you would expect from women and femininity and turning it on its head. There’s definitely a queer aesthetic to what I do. The drag aesthetic inspires a lot of what do – I wear a lot of big drag wigs. “Before burlesque was what you’d expect it, as from Dita Von Teese – the glamour, the striptease – way before that it was very political and satirical and had a lot more to do with the queer community than you’d expect, and now it’s definitely going that way again. “The cabaret scene generally is really so intertwined with the queer identity – cabaret sort of belongs to the queer community.” Burlesque performers tend to adopt a variety of personas along with the costumes to fit (Violet doesn’t make her own costumes, preferring to “leave it to the professionals” but does do a lot of customising, particularly with rhinestones). Among her personas has been a ‘50s housewife, although she has shelved that one, so how does she decide what depictions of femininity to portray?
VIOLET DELIGHTS. PIC BY ZEINAB BATCHELOR
“I really enjoy exploring typically what you would expect from women and femininity and turning it on its head. There’s definitely a queer aesthetic to what I do.”
BURLESQUE EXPRESS
Big wigs, lavish costumes and plenty of skin in the game. Ebullient burlesque performer Violet Delights strips down the essence of the art for Jaq Bayles ) Burlesque is a performance art form that,
according to its most famous advocate Dita Von Teese in Burlesque and the Art of the Tease, has its origins in Ancient Greece as “bawdy satirical satire”, and was also popularised in the States where it was otherwise known as striptease. Today it most commonly offers some sort of combination of satire or comedy, highly stylised character creations, song and dance and lavish costumes, which, of course, are most likely to be shed along the way. And it’s growing in popularity, with burlesque nights established across the UK. But what attracts people to the notion of getting their kit off in front of an audience – something which is the stuff of actual nightmares for many – and why is it so attractive to queer audiences?
Violet Delights has been performing burlesque since 2019 when she joined the burlesque society at Nottingham Trent University with a view to taking it up as a hobby and meeting new people. But she got “bitten by the bug” and it’s become a much bigger part of her life. So how did that tentative step into an unknown world evolve into a full-blown act? “At first you think ‘I could never do that, I could never get on stage’ – then you want to do it all the time. I moved to London and the burlesque scene was so welcoming and I was able to develop my burlesque personality. I like to combine the traditional glamour elements of classic burlesque and incorporate the drag elements, then also put a bit of a comedy twist on it.
“Throughout my life I’ve found it quite hard to feel sexy or feminine and had a quite complicated relationship with my body where I didn’t really like it. I didn’t realise how much burlesque would change that. Burlesque is so good for making you appreciate every single body, including your own. So many of the massive names in burlesque don’t have the typical body you would see on TV or in magazines. My acts really celebrate female sexuality in all its forms. I have an Eve act, from Adam and Eve, looking at how a woman was blamed for something a man did and it’s sort of an FU to that basically, Eve reclaiming her sexuality and becoming the snake, becoming the sinner and not caring.” Among new personas in the pipeline is an ode to the ’90s runway models who projected “such a powerful, strong personality”. Violet adds: “I always try to find ways to explore femininity and sexuality in different ways in my act. I really enjoy looking at women in the sense they can be powerful, vulnerable, they can be demure, they can be innocent, they can be a siren – they can be all of that and more.” A “typical” burlesque audience from Violet’s point of view is “people looking to have a good time and a lot of fun”. And many from the cabaret community can be always be found in the audience. “They always support each other, so you get burlesque dancers, pole dancers, drag queens. I’d say if you want to break it down to groups and their identities, it’s a lot of girls out with their friends, a lot of the queer community. The smallest portion would probably be straight
