Redefining the colour of burlesque
“[Author] Toni Morrison said ‘If there is a book you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it,’” says 34-year-old burlesque performer, producer and story-teller, Dainty Smith, who has created her own story by creating Toronto’s first burlesque troop featuring only women of colour, Les Femmes Fatales.
The troop’s name was inspired by Smith’s love of old black-and-white films where the female villain, or femme fatale, almost always has a change of heart and repents—or she dies. Smith, who never saw herself as a conventional girl, always rooted for the femme fatales. “I didn’t see them as bad people, I saw them as survivors—women who had been through hell and back,” she says. “The femme fatales had war wounds and knew how to be glamorous in spite of those wounds,” Smith said. Smith is setting a new standard for women of colour in burlesque.
In her first few years of doing burlesque, Smith only knew of two other black burlesque performers: Coco La Crème and Coco Framboise, who had been on the Toronto scene for quite a few years. In the 1920’s women of colour first appeared on stage when “Black and White” venues became popular. During these performances, caucasian performers would go on stage and after they finished women of colour would take the stage.
For some, representation of blackness within burlesque isn’t a direct issue but understand the ignorance of the topic. For full-time burlesque performer and Dean of Toronto Burlesque University, Coco Framboise (Nikola Steer), there’s more to coloured burlesque representation than just the complexion of your skin. “There was an American performer, a black woman, who asked me about a gig that I got…I was invited to be a headliner for the Australian Burlesque Festival’s national tour and this woman asked me how I got this booking…she said how come you’re getting these bookings? Why am I not getting these bookings?...it was a really uncomfortable thing because of all these reasons.” Being a producer herself Framboise understands what other producers could be looking for. “There’s things that are so hard to talk about with other black artists, especially when I know that this issue of ethnicity and privilege are much apart of their day to day focus.”
As a show producer, Framboise understands that there can be challenges and intimidation when doing booking regarding strong black female performers. “I can see there’s certain kinds of bookings people wouldn’t think of [that performer] for because of the way she speaks…or the way she puts her stage character into the world, they don’t think it’s right or refined enough. They may not like that she wears an afro on stage or her proportions. There’s stuff there that bothers both [that performer and I] and it’s so awkward to talk about. It’s not like those things are wrong but to discuss those things inevitably becomes very awkward and very painful.” As the faces of burlesque continue to change conversations on blackness in burlesque will start to change in a more positive direction.
In a culture that increasingly focuses on beauty, confidence, female empowerment and respect for our bodies, women of colour hardly see any representation of themselves in pop culture. Smith created Les Femmes Fatales with the goal of spotlighting beautiful, talented, intelligent brown and black females of all different shapes, sizes, skin tones and ethnic backgrounds. “My friend Keisha has this term she calls ‘femme armour.’ So I see these women as women who have armour and are dangerous,” she says. “They’re unapologetic and they know what they want. I want to show that we are fierce, flawed, fabulous women. With red lipstick.”
There’s a lack of visible camaraderie between strong women of colour on stage, and Les Femmes Fatales are helping to fill that gap. “It’s definitely needed. A lot of the time, women of colour are overlooked . They aren’t taken seriously because of their ethnicity or the colour of their skin,” says Shontelle Sargeant, an audience member at a recent Les Femmes Fatales show. “I appreciate that [Smith] put this together to illustrate that we’re so much more than skin colour.”
Talented women of colour deserve to be seen and heard and with troops like Les Femmes Fatales taking centre stage, there’s no stopping these red lipped melanin-honing babes.
