When you hear the word Burlesque, you might think of the movie ‘Burlesque’ starring Cher and Christina Aguilera.
However, this movie is not a true reflection of the real form of Burlesque!
Burlesque refers to performances in a variety show format. These were popular from the 1860s to the 1940s, often in cabarets and clubs, as well as theatres, and featured bawdy comedy and female striptease.
The Burlesque movement has transformed over the years and is very present today, even in our very own conservative South Africa.
Miss Oh! is one of those woman, who is carrying on the tradition of the true form of the modern Burlesque, in the art of the tease.
This vivacious lady is a versatile solo, sultry, story-telling, shimmy-shaking, comedic, strip-tease burlesque performer, a co-producer of The Tournament of Tease SA and regularly performs with “Vintage Cheek” and with Michael Lesar’s electro-swing club night “Let Swing It”.
I met up with Miss Oh, who is a very attractive, unassuming woman, and could be your sister, friend or even mother. Sitting next to her, one would never think that this poised, graceful, lady-like woman transforms into the vixen that is Miss Oh!
So what makes a conservative lady decide to be a strip tease artist?
Miss Oh:
“I don’t think I was ever that conservative actually. I had never heard of Burlesque until I went overseas and saw it for myself, so I think because I had never seen anything like it, I was just astounded and mesmerised. I loved it and decided to see what else was out there.”
“In 2008 a close friend persuaded me to come along to a club night in one of our favourite places on Bricklane. This was in London. This petite lady came out with her pointe shoes and this beautiful performance art piece with her feather fans and a strip tease and it was amazing. This was in London. I enrolled myself into the Burlesque Baby courses and have never looked back.”
Did you ever have a moment in your life, when you were younger, when you thought you could be a performer?
Miss Oh:
“I was enrolled to do ballet classes from the age of 4 years to 17 years old. I also gymnastics. I have always been on stage and I did gymnastics. I always wanted to be a dancer when I was younger, and I also wanted to save the world. At 12 years old, I wanted to be a Vegan and conservationist. I never really pursued that and just went overseas and lived there for almost 9 years, travelling. I did the odd dance class here and there.”
“There was always going to be something physical in what I did and creative and this embodies all of it. You are free with it on stage. You don’t have to go to auditions, you can do what you want. Sometimes there is a line, but if it’s art, where is the line.”
“I still have the ambition to save the world, and instead of dancing, I’m strip-teasing!”
There is obviously a lot of physical preparation to do with this form of performance. But I would assume that there is also a lot of emotional and mental preparation involved. Most women cannot even take off their clothes in front of even one man, what did you have to go through, to get to a point where you were emotionally able to perform in this very revealing and vulnerable profession?
Miss Oh:
“Growing up in South Africa, with this rape stigma, I didn’t really wear revealing clothing much. I went to live 
in the Caymen Islands and saw how comfortable the women are in their own skin over there. A lot of Americans vacation there and most are obese, but they are all so comfortable with themselves, and this made be become more comfortable with myself. It is so hot there and the lifestyle is so different, that everyone is more revealing in what they wear. I was taken a back at how comfortable everyone was. Living there for a year and a half, made me became comfortable with myself as well.”
“Then after that, I lived in London for a year. I found Burlesque there and that was an astounding moment in my life.”
“You have a 4 week strip tease class and you go through all the skills; glove peel, stocking peel, how to unbutton your shirt, how to do the dance moves and then the last class is a nipple tassel twirl. You only know these girls for 4 weeks and everyone is usually very uncomfortable, but there was this one lady, very voluptuous, who got her boobs out first and shook them around and we all started to do so, as we saw how comfortable she was and became comfortable with ourselves too. It is such a liberating feeling. Everyone is the same at the end of the day and we all come in all shapes and sizes and we all have nipples, so who cares.”
South Africa is a very conservative country. You were very brave to bring it here. Was it difficult to break out into Burlesque here?
Miss Oh:
“I researched Burlesque while still in London and upon my return to South Africa, I found that there was already a company here called ‘Black Orchid Burlesque’ in Cape Town and starred Diva Disaster, who comes to Johannesburg regularly to do her workshops. I had been back for 4 months and saw that this workshop was happening and decided to go, to see what the community was about.”
“She had been doing it with Scarlett Hearts since 2007 , and they both were also teaching pole dancing. Which is huge now. I met an amazing group of people. But the burlesque here was very different to that in the UK. We decided to start our own group called The Curtain Call Revue and we did that until everyone went their own ways. Everyone drifted. I then started my own thing called ‘The Adventures of’, and brought drag into it. We were lucky that there was a small following and although the Suicide Girls are a separate form of entertainment, they followed us as well as another group called Circus Gothica. They did a very alternative burlesque dancing, like The Pussy Cat Dolls.”
“Neo burlesque is the new burlesque movement, Moving away from the 1800s to 1930s. The strip tease movement with burlesque is what we are bringing out today.”
Where is the line between stripping, like at Teasers and Burlesque?
Miss Oh:
“I don’t have a problem with strippers, they are there to entertain and make their money, although I think they make more money than Burlesque dancers do. Burlesque artists put their money into their performance pieces and their costumes. We are doing the tease element in stripping, we are teasing. We don’t just take our clothes off and dance around naked, the point it to tease. There has to be the art of reveal and conceal.”
Do you strip full frontal?
Miss Oh:
“Just nipple caps and G strings or nipple tassels.”
“I know that abroad some performers strip completely, but this is usually for charity events, or they do it in the name of art- and sometimes for the extra shock factor.”
Men don’t usually see nudity as art, how do you maintain your power and integrity as a woman while doing this?
Miss Oh:
“We usually perform on stage, so we have that elevation. Some one pays to see a show. We are creating fantasy on stage. It takes the audience on a journey. You get all types of men, including the raucous, chauvinistic men, who actually change their opinion of you after you have done a performance piece. We usually have a Master or Mistress of Ceremonies, who will tell you what is going on in the venue. For example,’ you have come to see a Burlesque show and what the girls will do is disrobe and reveal, take off their clothing. Every time they take of their clothes, you must cheer’. What is great is the exchange of energy from the crowd. We haven’t had any real problems so far.”
“I was told once that I am going to hell by someone who came to watch this act, ironically, and so I have created this act around that. I am a conservative house wife, cleaning myself and I am cooking and then my spatula turns into a pitch fork and my batter turns me into the devil. Eventually I do my strip tease and take my red batter and smear it all over myself to transform into the devil.”
“People are also there to understand and think about the story line.”
“In the 1920s and 1930s, Burlesque was also about comedy and you had the funny man act usually as a filler in the show. The show Boylesque, has without realising it stumbled on this.”
“I would love to bring back the comedy to burlesque.”
You are kind of living a dual life. Are you able to separate yourself from Miss Oh! in your daily life and how have your friends and family reacted to this?
Miss Oh:
“My Boyfriend and I met at the Rosebank market when it still existed. I was selling corsets and fascinators. I would bring him literature about Burlesque, to read. I invited him to watch the 2nd show that I did and his comment was ‘that was more than I expected’. Almost 3 years on and he still comes to all the shows he can attend, when he’s not travelling; he’s an honourary member of Vintage Cheek.”
“When I first came back to South Africa, I had to show my parents what I was doing via Youtube, so they could understand. It was still confusing for them. I ordered the Immodesty Blaize DVD for them, where she gives the whole history of Burlesque as well as her show, so they watched that. My mom loved it, but my dad wasn’t that open to it. I then invited them to my first show. My father has only come to one show, I think that is enough for him. Even though he jokes with his friends that his daughter is a stripper, he does correct himself and say that it is a show. He thinks we charge too little actually. My mom gets very disappointed if I don’t do a nipple tassel twirl.”
You have different characters when you perform, are these characters fantasies, or is it just fun? How have you created these characters?
Miss Oh:
“I love my Feline character. In the final class in the UK, everyone had a back story for their characters and I didn’t . I just wanted to be this vixen; Miss Oh! My teacher, Marianne Cheescake wanted more from me. I couldn’t find anything. She told me to doodle, as I love drawing and I love drawing cats and eyes. I drew this cat and then she said ‘well there you go, there’s your story’. So I took that and put that into Miss Oh. So Miss Oh is originally this ex cat dancer who has escaped from the circus with her glorious panthers. That is why I love my Feline performance. It was essentially the birth of Miss Oh!.”
“You can take inspiration from anything. The last performance I did was a deer in the headlights. This came about because I wanted my colleague to perform and she refused as she said that then she will be a deer in the headlights. I told her she should then be the Deer but she refused and so I took that and became the deer in the headlights. You can take whatever you want and turn it into a burlesque routine.”
To show the difference between burlesque and just stripping, you have to have that theatrical element to it.
Miss Oh:
“For me I need that. I could never have gone on stage in the past as myself. I needed to create the alter ego, the story.”
“Now I am more comfortable and I do Michael Lesar’s Electro – Swing nights. So that actually pushed me to dance freestyle with my feather fans. The first time I danced for him, he expected me to dance for an hour. I think he thought I was a Go Go Dancer. The day before the event he asked how long I dance for and I said 10 minutes at the most. Now I actually perform about 15 to 30 minutes with his sets. Before I would have to put on more layers of clothing but now I can tease for a longer amount of time. It wouldn’t work in one of our shows as people would get bored but because you are at a club night with drunk people, they love it.”
“Not a lot of girls like the story telling as they are more classically trained dancers. They love the costumes and props and that is what they do. They usually focus on the dance moves more.”
“My troupe and I are involved in the story telling and so we are a variety burlesque performing group.”
“We consist of actresses, singers, drag artists, burlesque performers, comedians, fire performers and soon to be seen adult puppeteers.”
How do you choose a name, this alter ego?
Miss Oh:
“I like to look at the most extreme thing that you like or are passionate about. For example, if you like fruit or cocktails or food, colours, satins, materials. You can take those for example, so if you like flowers, you can use the name Rose and a colour, Rouge – Rose Rouge.”
“Generally first names are usually classic names, like Nancy or Betty, from the pin up era. So most girls take their first names from their Grandmothers. It is a conservative first name with a wild surname. The Burlesque performer I saw was Kitty Bang Bang and Kitty is short for Katherine. Or Kiki Kaboom – you can use sounds and descriptions as well.”
I guess it is personal.
Miss Oh:
“You have to look inside you. My first burlesque name was Baby Minx. It worked for then. But I changed it.”
“Some performers have changed their names a few times. I’ve always been a Miss O… I just added the ‘h’ to ‘Oh’ ”
Miss Oh! will be guest performing at Tanz Live, for Heat 3 of The Tournament of Tease, on the 3rd of December 2013!
(The Tournament of Tease is a competition and platform for newbies wanting to show off their burlesque skills, hosted by Mechant & Gentil Lingerie and Miss Oh!)
Find out more about Miss Oh! on www.miss-oh.co.za
