If a Man Were Here

Dita and her teasing are world famous. Armed with a sixteen inch waist, a Lacroix corset and a life sized cocktail glass she has wowed the world over with her burlesque routines. If like me you have ever dreamt of trying to take on the corseted one herself, it is your lucky day: for £15 Danceworks offers hour-long drop-in sessions teaching the best of burlesque. So, I, armed with sunstroke, bad posture and a suppressed inner Athena take my two left feet along to a class.

Our seductress instructress is one Audacity Chutzpah, or Leela, as she is known off stage. Perked up on 6AM train-induced coffee, Chutzpah is all fun, frolics and feather boas as she leads the class in a warm-up exercise that ‘warms up our high heels’. Trying to release my inner goddess is all in the hips, the quiet clop of a seven inch heel and a gentle seductive wave of the arm apparently and walking about the parquet floor as gracefully as a ballerina, I start to feel a tad more Miss Demeanour, than Miss De’Ath.

Originally a mid-nineteenth century form of working class entertainment, burlesque meant something a little different than just the retrospective form of titillation we know today; known as ‘travesty’, it promoted a more forward-thinking female sexuality in an otherwise prudish Victorian society. The key is suggestion: “You don’t need to be a dancer,” calls Leela, coquettishly. “It’s all about facial expressions.” Two-left feet, here, breathes a sigh of relief. I am no dancer. I most certainly do not look good on the dancefloor and am a dancing embarrassment, but face-pulling, now that I can do. Amidst my pouting, pointing and suggestive winks I hear: “And now for the routine!” O heck.

The price for my complacency? A two-minute dance number to Son of a Preacher Man.
“All your poses need to look like something from a flip book. Imagine if you stopped on any one page, they’d always be beautiful,” explains our tutor, in between long exaggerated arm movements and lunges. “Keep ‘em guessing. Always wanting more,” she further advises. The routine moves between being coy prayer hands to a full blown Fem-Bot ‘boob shimmy’. “Knock ‘em dead, girls! If a man were here, he’d just die!”

Burlesque is not for insecure and a lesser person would be left a tad red-faced by such body conscious moves but aroud me are a few slightly ropey-looking girls that me and my companion deduce are here to spice up their boyfriends lives. For despite all the comedy, the playfulness and the camp scripts, burlesque is all about sex. No question about it. The fact alone that one of the requirements of the class was a pair of high heels puts Freud’s Castration Theory into perspective, and then there are the skimpy outfits and the subtle seductive elements of the routine to consider. “The great thing about burlesque is it is the only place where wobbling is allowed,” calls Leela, as we, as a troupe, shake our behinds as violently as possible.

One of the most liberating things you can do, even if I did look like I was doing the Macarena. If in search for your inner goddess, sign on the dotted line. It allows you to create a persona that is comfortable within your own limits, yet one hundred percent more smouldering then your real self. Dita-licious.

Contact Danceworks, 16 Balderton St, W1 on 07958 314107 for more details.
-Bucket List, August 2010-