COVER

ARTS Vancouver burlesque festival aims for inclusion

by Charlie Smith

Vancouver International Burlesque Festival performers Foxy Lexxi Brown (left) and Androsia Wilde (photo by Chelsea Stuyt) will demonstrate how their art form can express Black identity.

Vancouver burlesque performer Sugar L’Estrange chose her performing name for several reasons.

“I’m pretty sweet and friendly Voilà! A star was born. L’Estrange is one of dozens of burlesque performers who are participating in this year’s Vancouver International Burlesque and bubbly, but at the same time quirky,” she tells the Straight by phone in advance of this year’s Vancouver International Burlesque Festival. “I like darker things and kind of have a goth vibe sometimes.”

She admits to also being cheesy and weird. And the name L’Estrange came to her not only because it’s a play on the Bellatrix Lestrange character from the Harry Potter stories but also because it has a French twist.

“It’s an homage to my New Brunswick heritage, for sure,” L’Estrange adds.

There’s also a story behind the image of her in macaroni and cheese on the cover of this week’s Georgia Straight print edition. She follows an artist named Tyler Varsell on Instagram and spotted a collage of some old pin-up photos of a woman sprawled out in what appeared to be nachos. L’Estrange decided to ask a local photographer of burlesque performers, Jon-Christian Ashby, if he could replicate something like this.

“He cooked some mac and cheese— Kraft Dinner,” L’Estrange recalls. “I brought my great-grandmother’s casserole dish that had been handed down to me. We put it in and we shot the casserole dish. Then he shot me in some poses against a backdrop and then he put them together. It was really fun.” Festival, which will return to live performances for the first time since 2019. The VIBF begins on Wednesday (April 6) with an industry-appreciation night, including an awards show at the Rio Theatre, where L’Estrange will perform. The following

night at the Havana Theatre, it’s TIT Talks, with TIT standing for “teach, inspire, and transcend”. Among the presenters will be festival headliners Judith Stein, Lola Frost, and Foxy Lexxi Brown. On Friday (April 8) at the Vancouver Playhouse, the Glamorama Gala will take place, once again featuring Frost and Brown as well as many other performers.

The fun continues on Saturday (April 9) at the Vancouver Playhouse with the Showpony Soiree. In addition, there is a workshop series taking place the same day at Showpony Studios.

L’Estrange has been dancing since the age of 2, but after moving to Vancouver several years ago, she drifted away from dance. In 2018, she saw a Harry Potter–oriented burlesque show by Geekenders and she was hooked.

“I said, ‘I need to get into this.’ I was obsessed,” she recalls with a laugh.

She saw an ad for burlesque lessons and, she says, the rest was history.

“I like that it’s an avenue for people of all ages and all creeds and all body sizes to dance or perform in any way because you don’t have to have a dance background to perform,” L’Estrange says. “You can have a theatre-arts background—or no background in anything—and just get up on-stage and just bring your own twist to it.”

She points out that as dancers age, they might gain a few pounds, but that’s still accepted, encouraged, and celebrated in burlesque.

“I love to see the inclusion there,” she declares, “and that I could see other people that look like me on-stage. We still have a way to go as far as full diversity and inclusion in the Vancouver burlesque scene, but I know that we’re working hard to get there. And there’s a lot of really cool BIPOC-inclusive collectives coming out. So it’s really cool to go to those shows and see their twist on burlesque.”

One of those collectives is Diasporic Dynasty, which was cofounded by Androsia Wilde. An immigrant from the Bahamas and a former Emily Carr University of Art + Design student, Wilde discovered her passion for burlesque in 2014. Again, it was through Geekenders, of which she’s now co-artistic director with the founder, Fairlith Harvey.

“She asked me if I was interested in being in one of their Star Wars shows and I said yes,” Wilde tells the Straight by phone. “And so my first show with them was the Empire Strips Back. It was our Empire Strikes Back burlesque parody and I was their Lando Calrissian.”

Wilde has since gone on to demonstrate how burlesque can be an art form for expressing one’s Black identity. One of her most treasured characters is Storm from the X-Men. Wilde describes Storm as “an iconic Black superhero who doesn’t want to be revered as a goddess and is able to control the weather and be utterly badass”.

She paired that character with an Angélique Kidjo song, “Shango”, which is about Yoruban orisas, which are personifications of deities or spirits in West Africa.

“I’m a giant nerd about this,” Wilde quips.”This is a song that is inherent to a

This is a song that is inherent to a Black diasporic experience.

– Androsia Wilde Black diasporic experience.”

At the 2019 VIBF, Wilde debuted a number called “Tribute to Obeah Man”, which was inspired by legendary Bahamian guitarist Tony McKay, who referred to himself as Exuma the Obeah Man.

“It combines that unique Bahamian perspective with the different intersections of my personality and my life,” she says.

Even though the video exists of her performance, she says she can’t remember being on-stage because she was so immersed in the performance. She finds burlesque appealing because she can prioritize stories about Black characters from pop culture. It also offers a response to her everyday experiences in Vancouver of being reduced to one aspect of her identity.

“I am more than my Blackness,” Wilde emphasizes. “I get to use burlesque to remind people of my Blackness, but this time on my own terms.” g

The Vancouver International Burlesque Festival begins with an awards show on Wednesday (April 6) at the Rio Theatre and continues with performances at different locations from Thursday (April 7) to Saturday (April 9). For more information, visit VIBF.com.