What do you think of when you hear the word burlesque?
Is it that movie with Christina Aguilera and Cher which actually includes no burlesque performances at all?
Or is it something more diverse and colourful that celebrates all bodies and all forms of expression?
For burlesque performer, Dee Keaveney AKA Daria Décolleté, the reality of the art form is much closer to the second option.
“Some people might show up expecting a very cute strip tease kind of thing. But there are so many sorts of sub-genres that have developed over the last 20 years or so,” Dee explains.
“So like, drag-lesque, queer-lesque, nerd-lesque; that one is big because that’s very based in cosplay and stuff like that. There can be just so many different types. Gorelesque is another which is very of the moment for Halloween, of course, so a lot of people would do like, you know, like blood pours.
“I’ve seen one before where the performer was pregnant. She gave birth to like a demon baby. So there are really no rules when it comes to it,” she says with a laugh as if realising how mad that might sound to an outsider.
Dee even has an out there idea of her own burlesque style and says: “This would be more in the kind of nerd-lesque but I’m going to be basically in like drag of Dwight from the office.
“I’ve been thinking about for ages I’m like I want to do like a paper pour where it’s like paper and I just love it so much!”
And just like there are no rules to how you choose to perform. There is no straight pathway into the scene either, people all have their unique stories of how they found their passion.
For Dee, it started with a love of dance that reaches all the way back to her childhood in Galway, two years of professional training in a private college in Dublin and eventually attending the Broadway Dance Center in New York.
After moving to London to pursue dancing as her full-time career, she confesses she struggled with mental health, deciding to move back to Ireland to prioritise looking after herself.
Though it might not seem like the place you’d imagine starting your Burlesque journey, Galway is where it all started thanks to a cabaret producer she knew. He invited her to take part in a show he was running – the only catch is she had two weeks to prepare.
“I had lived with a burlesque performer in London and I went to see her in one of her shows so she was like my intro. But I just wasn’t in the headspace at the time,” Dee says.
“But when I came back to Ireland I was like, ‘Okay, we’re doing this, I’m just gonna, like, go for it,’ so I bulk ordered a bunch of just like cheap costumes and in two weeks got something together.”
And from there, her passion grew and so did her recognition as she took home ‘Entertainer of the Year’ at Mx Burlesque Ireland last year and won the ‘Heart of Ireland’ title at The Heart of Ireland Burlesque Festival.
It’s a passion Dee encourages anyone with an interest to pursue no matter how intimidating it might feel at the start, there’s a place for everyone in the scene.
“One thing that was concerning to me at the start was whether I wanted to be on stage with like nipple tassels and a G string,” she says with a laugh but you can tell there’s some truth to it.
“And it’s certainly a little bit scary when you’re …when you’re kind of starting, but when you go see shows and you’ll see the confidence on stage and it will inspire your own.
“As I always say; burlesque is for every body, meaning if you have a body, you can do it. No matter your weight or height, everything is good.”
If you want to try your hand at burlesque Dee is running a Halloween themed workshop on the 29th of October in Liffey Trust Studios and you can find all the info here.
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