The men of burlesque

Mahogany Storm

Axel Blows

The crowd draws to a hush as the lights dim. They slowly brighten to illuminate a shadowy figure. But unlike the more familiar burlesque performances, the audience doesn’t see feminine curves, sexy sways or elaborate headpieces. Instead the stage is graced with the presence of a bat-swinging boylesque dancer. As he knocks the bat on his shoes the audience is anxious to see what he has in store. He Swings the bat once and misses the imaginary ball. He goes in for another swing and misses the imaginary ball. With every miss an article of clothing is removed. This is definitely a show the audience wished they hadn’t forgotten their peanuts and cracker jacks.

Boylesque is a form of burlesque that consists of an all-male stage presence. Over the last the seven years, boylesque has become better known in the burlesque scene within Toronto since the creation of the seven member all-male troupe Boylesque TO. Though there are other boylesque troupes outside of Toronto, this is a first for the city. Burlesque heavily female dominated and to have boylesque troupes’ coming into the scene helps challenge tradition within the community.

Boylesque TO co-founder Mahogany Storm (real name Kendall Forde) and his troupe started back in 2008 with the hopes of bringing male nudity and performance to stage. Their introductory showcase, Boy, Oh Boy!, sold out, which made them realize that Toronto was ready for what they had in store. “We were embraced by the community immediately. I think the reason for that is because our shows brought a theatricality that wasn’t really present in the other shows,” says Storm. BoylesqueTO helped show people that they didn’t know they were missing out on something fun, new and entertaining.

Former pole dancer turned boylesque performer Axel Blows (real name Chy Ryan Spain) says that the world of burlesque is heavily female-dominated, which can lead to predetermined assumptions. “I think boylesque has introduced people to a type of burlesque that they weren’t paying attention to before,” he says. “I also hope that folks who are interested in boylesque are respectful of the fact that it is a highly female-dominated field.”

However, while boylesque is compared to stripping or burlesque, it doesn’t carry the same level of sultriness. According to Storm, it’s more light-hearted with a certain element of hilarity. It’s easier for audiences to adjust to male nudity through laughter than it is for them to take in female nudity, which is seen as much as much more sexual explains Blows. “Boylesque is a little easier than regular burlesque. It just seems that naked guys on stage is just funny…I think it’s just more consumable than women who take their clothes off. I think that’s a problem, to be honest…I think people tend to let men get away with things that they don’t allow women to get away with. A man swinging his dong on stage is funny, whereas a woman with her breasts out has to have something else going on.”

Boylesque tends to draw comparisons to stripping because of the lack of knowledge that people have when it comes to the genre and how much work goes into making a show possible. Boylesque performers try to indicate that the strip teases are more an expression of an art form of different human properties coming together as performance rather than an explicit strip show. “The same thing happens with burlesque and stripping,” says Blows. “Burlesque gets conflated with stripping and it’s not...I think the confusion comes along with male strippers…but I think a lot of boylesque performers – like a lot of burlesque performers – come in all different shapes and sizes and body type and races and sexual orientations.”

Chantel Sharpe, who is no stranger to burlesque shows, admits she was a little taken aback when the act following a female burlesque performer was a tall, slim, boylesque dancer. “It was my first time seeing a male burlesque dancer. I wasn’t expecting it, but it was so different in a surprisingly entertaining way. He had fun with it and the crowd loved it…I thought it was fun to see a man doing something that I was accustomed to seeing a woman doing but yet was still able to have that same charisma and stage presence.”

He swings his bat and hits a home run. He struts around the bases as the layers come off one by one, giving a “cheeky” wave as the lights dim and the audience cheers for more.