Introduction
The Boudoir of the Burlesque Performer.
This project investigates a complexity of issues about the representation of the contemporary female, with emphasis on the Burlesque Stage Performer. This naturally led onto questioning both the idea of play between photographer, private space, intimacy, fantasy and the real, as well as the mystique of the performer.
This body of work has evolved from a deep-rooted curiosity about female sexuality and how this can be expressed in a positive way. The New Burlesque Revival in the 21st Century could be seen as a reaction to women wanting to have fun with their sexuality and celebrate their femininity through a staged persona.
New Burlesque is an art form that incorporates genres as diverse as fire performance, ballet, opera, contortionism and acrobatics. Extravagant costumes, music and lyrics are combined with humour, titillation and sometimes an intention to shock. Burlesque is all about the art of the tease, rather than the actual strip. The attraction for many of these women is that there is no dominant male structure behind these shows; they have full social and economic autonomy, completely unlike a striptease artist. Both physical and moral integrity are preserved.
These documentary photographs show the private interiors of the performer's bedrooms.
They play on the idea of what is real and what is fictional. The home-based domestic interiors are in themselves a theatre where the lives of the performers take on a different personae.
Collaboration with these women has been a journey of immense trust and respect. I did not seek to deconstruct either the female performer stereotype or their bedrooms but to explore how these women have taken on total responsibility for the acceptance of their image as well as of the fantasies linked to public representation of their 'acted bodies'.
Finally, these photographs offer the viewer subtle visual clues about the performer's private world and stimulate the viewer's imagination, but at the same time question the positioning of women's sexuality in western society today. For many women the energy of acting out a character and taking on a different identity is liberating and predominant. My initial curious questioning into how to express female sexuality positively has found answers and clarity through having been invited into 'The Boudoir of the Burlesque Performer'.
There is no particular order to the photographs. It is intended that the viewer spend time looking at the details of each interior, finding clues that only scratch the surface of the performer's true identity.
Debby Besford, 2011