By Alex Kramer
The names of ther performers in this article have been changed to their stage pseudonyms in order to preserve privacy.
Auralie Wilde, a burlesque dancer and former dance major at the University of Iowa, is on a mission to change the conversation about sex and body positivity.
Wilde’s group, the Heartland Bombshells, will make its début at 9:30 p.m. Friday at the Blue Moose Tap House, 211 Iowa Ave., in a hybrid performance of theater, dance, and music.
During her time at the UI, Wilde recalled, she was frustrated with the lack of performance and creative control that she had as a student. After becoming disillusioned with academic dance, she came upon the world of burlesque and decided it was exactly what she needed. She soon bought a ticket to New York and spent the next few years performing as a member of various acclaimed burlesque troupes, including Bourbon and Lace Cabaret. Now, however, Wilde has left the big city behind to return to her hometown with the mission of giving the community a proper introduction to the art form.
For many, burlesque is a form whose artistry is inextricably masked by layers of provocative assumptions, sheathed in curtains of tantalizing intrigue.
“It’s the kind of thing where you ask 10 different people you’re going to get 10 different answers,” she said. “It’s a form of storytelling and self-expression, much like theater. It’s more about the ‘tease’ in ‘strip-tease.’ ”
Wilde said people are drawn to burlesque performances for a variety of reasons, ranging from an affinity for the show’s rockabilly-vintage aesthetic to a yearning for open, unabashed displays of sexuality for which, even in today’s society, people are often otherwise shamed.
But, Wilde said, it is predominantly the rebellious nature inherent to the show that draws an audience. For the performers, however, there is a great deal more meaning behind the dances.
Another performer, Robin LaReine, said that although the début is a jovial introduction to their new personas, the experience getting to this point has been highly personal.
“This has been a very internal process,” she said. “I think, for me, the message I want to get across is that I love myself. Growing up, I never really had that sort of self-love that I think a lot of people want. Burlesque has helped me get even more into that place where I actually do have a decent self-image and body-image that I would love to convey to people.”
LaReine said she can feel the difference between dance and burlesque. While she finds dance to be something she does for herself, burlesque is distinctly more performative and adds an element of audience engagement that she found to be absent in her 11 years performing and studying traditional dance.
Wilde’s vision is one of empowerment, both onstage and in the audience. Expecting raunchiness and over-sexualization from the first show she viewed, she was shocked by how enlightened she also left the show feeling. Now, Wilde would like to carry that feeling out of the performance hall and into the everyday.
“It’s a really important message to promote positive female sexuality in a society [that both] sexualizes us and makes us villains for enjoying sex,” she said. “You hear a lot on college campuses about slut-shaming, and I’ve seen a lot of judgments from well-meaning women who put other women down for their choices. [The show is about] bringing everyone’s awareness to and talking about how whatever kind of sex you want to have is OK as long as it’s consensual.”
