PORTLAND, Maine — Both the hot weather and risque show made for a steamy night at Geno’s Rock Club on Congress Street earlier this month.
Housed in an unairconditioned former porn theater, two four-foot industrial fans kept the air circulating in the packed venue. Every seat was taken. It was standing room only in the back and, up front, audience members sat on the floor for the night’s burlesque review.
One intense, athletic performer did splits and headstands while twirling their breasts in opposite directions. A drag queen came out in a full space suit, complete with a fogged-up helmet, paying tribute to Jane Fonda in the movie Barbarella. Another artist used a prop chainsaw to remove fake innards from a prone performer while lip synching dialogue from a classic horror film.
This isn’t your father’s burlesque show.
Once all about female body-positivity and paying homage to mid-20th century, lowbrow striptease glamor, Portland’s burlesque scene has evolved into something much more queer, creative and performance art-based. The tantalizing feathered fans and pastie reveals are still there, but current burlesque audiences are also apt to see parading drag queens or performers acting out meta-comic scenes without removing a single stitch of clothing.
Performers say Portland’s unique blend of queer, artsy burlesque and dazzling drag makes the scene powerful and unlike any other in the country.
“Drag is no longer necessarily just homosexual, and it’s the same with burlesque,” said burlesque performer Vivienne Obsidian. “It’s all genders doing performing arts and there’s so much overlap between the two as to be almost indistinguishable. It’s all one scene now.”
As with all the performers interviewed for this story, Obsidian asked to be identified only by her stage name for safety and privacy’s sake.
Obsidian arrived on Portland’s scene three years ago from Massachusetts where burlesque was still all about classic striptease. Considering herself part of the LGBTQ+ community, she found Portland’s more open, anything-goes spirit refreshing and welcoming.
“I think 99 percent of the burlesque performers I know here are queer,” Obsidian said. “So many shows are now drag and burlesque — kind of like drag-lesque.”
Obsidian’s own semi-glamorous act involves taking off most of her clothes but it doesn’t end there. She also plays saxophone and often includes narrative motifs. During one 2022 Christmastime show, Obsidian had an open-shirted, transgender Santa pour his milk and cookies over her in a sexy-but-messy scene.
The crowd loved it.
Portland burlesque performer Creme Dela Phlegm began her career in 2006, dancing her first show inside a local garage with moves gleaned from fuzzy YouTube videos.
“It was bad,” Phlegm said. “We hadn’t seen any real burlesque and we were just making it up.”
Since then, the queer performer has gone on to grace stages around the United States, including at the famous Lusty Lady in San Francisco.
Phlegm’s current act mixes classic Hollywood-glam costumes with outrageous shenanigans, including bouncing beach balls off her bosom, sitting on real birthday cakes in her underwear and dressing like a salad while someone pours ranch over her.
Since her inauspicious beginnings, Phlegm has witnessed the local scene’s unique queer-and-DIY evolution.
“It seems like most performers are, if not gay, at least hetero-flexible,” she said. “In the rest of the world, burlesque is way more glamorous than here — like more rhinestones, more expensive costumes.”
Along with the performers, Portland’s audiences have changed as well.
A decade ago, supportive, wolf-whistling, heteronormative men made up a large part of local crowds.
Not anymore.
Likewise, tipping used to be an offensive act as artistic-minded performers sought to distance themselves from gentlemen’s club dancers.
At left: Portland burlesque performer Creme Dela Phlegm does her act on stage at Geno’s Rock Club on Congress Street on July 7; A tip is laid at the feet of a drag performer during a burlesque show at Geno’s Rock Club in Portland on July 7, 2023. Credit: Troy R. Bennett / BDN
Now tipping is encouraged.
At recent Geno’s burlesque shows, wadded-up bills rained down on some performers like snow. A basket also sat on the edge of the stage where appreciation money was deposited. A non-scientific glance at the tippers, as well as the front rows, revealed no one who was obviously a straight, white male.
“This is pretty much how burlesque is now,” said Vivian Vice, a straight performer who has been on the local scene since 2008. “I’ve never danced for men, anyway — I don’t mind leering men, as long as they’re smiling and polite — but I’ve always danced for myself and other women, as an empowering thing.”
Portland’s combined queer-and-drag burlesque atmosphere springs from outsider artist camaraderie, performers, including Vice, reckon. Both kinds of performers haunt many of the same performance venues. Likewise, drag and burlesque artists are both considered transgressive outsiders to most of the mainstream.
Vice said President Donald Trump’s “reign of terror” and pent-up pandemic energy also probably has something to do with alt-performers feeling safer and more productive together.
“There have always been queer people in burlesque but it’s just more open now,” she said. “The blending in of drag queens has made burlesque a lot better — more creative.”
Tasha Tekite is Portland drag performer who took up the art just a couple years ago. She has never known the two scenes to be separate at all.
“I’ve always felt welcome in the burlesque scene,” she said. “My first drag performance was actually at a burlesque show.”
As newer performers, including Tekite, join the established ones, the powerful blend is the new normal in Portland.
“We all recognize it’s a small town and a small scene,” Tekite said. “We take what we can from it while supporting each other.”