On Burlesque with Raven Noir and Deadly Nightshade

The Marr's bar sits, discreetly in a Worcester side street. Leaving a dark, damp pavement, I walk up stairs to a VIP bar, where staff are beginning to prepare for the nights burlesque show. Welcoming me, they point me towards a narrow staircase, leading to the green room. The green room, an upstairs front room with a huge sofa, a bike hanging on the wall, a TV playing radio and a lonely drum kit, is a curious mix of living space and hospitality lounge.

Raven Noir smiles and hugs me. It's good to see her again. Deadly Nightshade waves and smiles. 

Raven and I have talked a few times since we first met at the tattoo convention in cheltenham.  Seeing her that day, she quickly made an impression on me with her statuesque elegance, her strength in poise and her captivating, hypnotic movement. 

Back then, breaking from her performance, she and I began to talk. Raven told me about her great nan who performed in burlesque, fan dancing and able only to share her dancing with her family when her husband was out. This emotional connection with her past and what it meant to Raven that her Nan performed at a time when morality and propriety made burlesque taboo, left me wanting to explore what burlesque means, today, to performers and audience. 

We sit on the sofa, Raven and Deadly Nightshade begin to make up.  Raven talks as Deadly Nightshade accentuates rich lashes.

Raven thinks that her Yorkshire accent doesn't suit her character. As soon as she meets her audience, she feels she needs to step out of the Raven and back to herself. Her voice is warm, deep, confident without hint of diva. 

Raven had asked me, as we stood, earlier, with our backs to the sink, when the interview might begin. Smiling, I had told her that we had already begun. She seemed surprised, as if this had been too easy. 

Raven Noir is an extension of an aspect of herself an extension that, she feels, only suits her in performance. As soon as she has make up,  I can see the change in her. Raven takes shape and becomes strong, ready to fly and to twist her feathers, to dance and hunt. Silent, she shimmies and snakes across a stage, trapping her captive audience. 

We discuss what Burlesque brings to a performer.  Deadly Nightshade and Raven debate the empowerment, sometimes lauded as a benefit, that performance might bring. Raven doesn't buy it. She prefers to promote the art as a performance and to focus on the pleasure of that performance. With an audience of around 80% women, burlesque inspires admiration from women who wonder at the bravery of the performer. Men feel less comfortable, conscious of their gaze, torn between instinct and guilt, not knowing quite where to look. 

The control that a woman has over her audience is stronger, I imagine, than that of many performers. Ensnared by a captivating performance, the audience remains in the artists spell, until that last move, the finale and the stage is left with just discarded clothing to retrieved by a stage hand, the "knicker picker" or "stage kitten". 

"Empowerment" suggests that the artist gains some greater degree of personal liberty, some elevation in esteem that takes the persons sense of potential and self forwards. Although performance affords the performer a degree of power, during those minutes of performance, over an audience, it's a transient power.

Raven and  Deadly Nightshade both feel that a performers negative body issues can be heightened or aggregated by exposing themselves to a critical audience. Celebration of a the body, in its diversity, it's changes with age or with the confidence in its presentation are dependant on the audience and their perception of what constitutes beauty. 

With honesty, I tell Raven, that I could enjoy her performance,  just as much, if she remained covered. Just seeing her move, colours and shapes shifting under coloured light, is spell binding. Raven began performing as "Foxy lady".  She wore many layers, assuming that the audience wanted, most of all, to see things being removed.  

 As she pastes double sided tape to a small object, a pasty,  that is designed to protect the body from complete exposure, Deadly Nightshade talks to me about her own confidence as a 'vamp', her want to be able to be a stage vixen. Her role on stage is often comedic or dramatic. One of her performances, tonight,  is full of sexual confidence, a woman in black, with a riding crop, revealing her inner power to take what she wants for herself. Deadly Nightshade seems to want to be able to play this part. As a woman, she seems to want to be able to portray that want to be able to take control, to show other women what it is to take that control and to revel in the bliss that this brings. 

As Raven and Deadly Nightshade get closer to performing, the room becomes busier. The men; compares, a singer, Raven's partner and I are sent towards our various supporting roles. Raven and Deadly Nightshade are ready to steal the stage, to seduce us all and to leave us applauding their stunning, enticing selves.