Sex, Subversion, Lust and Limits
The battle between my twin muses continues apace. Like a holy dualism, they appear to be a single being from a distance, an august celestial body radiating light and perfection. Yet their manifestations are singular, idiosyncratic and rough. They drove me to London for the Burlesque Week, then back again for the thirteen hour Darktown Cakewalk at The Arches. Only now, three days later, can I rise again and reflect on their messages.
Both burlesque and Live Art promise subversion. My sister, who unfortunately discovered the London Burlesque Week website while searching for me, reminded me that there are still some people who make the connection between cabaret and more commercial striptease. While I am hoping that she will one day talk to me again without using the word “pervert”, she is right to point out that eroticism is a frequent part of burlesque performance. Frankly, if she’d seen the look on my face during Maleficent Martini’s routine, or what Empress Stah did at the end of her act, I doubt I’d be allowed to sleep on her couch next time I visit London.
Linder’s Cakewalk, on the other hand- here manifesting the goddess in her Live or Performance Art aspect- has an almost puritanical streak. Fashion, live music, dance and polemic, albeit the sort of polemic that is incoherent and allusive, were all melted into an endurance piece lasting from the morning ‘til midnight. The audience were led around The Arches’ chambers, trailing the mingled stories of Star, Muse, Witch and other Jungian archetypes. Linder herself represented the Jungian soul, the spiritual equivalent of director-performer. Guided by a terse aesthetic, the characters collided and recoiled, sometimes interacting with the crowd, other times lost in internal processes. Linder’s punk heritage was clearly recognisable, in an acerbic purity. This time, the burlesque performer put her clothes back on.
Ironically, both LBW’s Twisted Cabaret and Cakewalk embraced a similar subversive taste. The Cabaret was hosted by the intimidatingly intelligent Dusty Limits, who dropped in Weimar references almost to remind the audience how tame their modern decadence is. Maleficent Martini used her Royal Ballet training to reveal the occult continuity between pointe shoes and fetishism, corrupting recognisable choreography from the classics into something reminiscent of commercial striptease. Her aggressive music and perfect technique was proper burlesque, sharply satirising the polite arts and middle-class virtues of ballet, exposing it as a sexual thrill hidden in convention and hypocrisy.
Cakewalk was more complex, rolling out a vision of dissolution and reconstitution that faded in parts. Whenever the two drummers picked up a tribal beat, or the space was suddenly turned into a giant disco, the set pieces came to life: Rosalind Masson, as the Muse, had an incongruous, stunning fluidity and her sequences expressed the awkward flutter of the artist as he tries to imitate the grand designs plotted by the goddess. What was lost in immediacy- nothing here could match the day-glow pop of Les Romanesques' French pop or Lexi Sexx's broken glass fan dance- was gained in reflection. The Cakewalk offers no distinct answers to the questions it poses about cultural undergrounds or self-determination, or celebrity against creativity: it leaves a series of loose end and talking points.