Shaking her tail feathers

Cherry Shakewell is the city’s most most famous exponent of burlesque dancing, the ultra-glam, high camp brand of performance adored by legions of enthusiasts – male and female – but denounced as glorified stripping by its critics.

But how did a young design graduate land a job removing her clothes on stage? Do her performances set back the feminist cause? What about the creepy men?

And most importantly, where does she get those costumes from?

Articulate and admirably self-aware, Cherry (or should that be Joanna?) seems to relish the opportunity to answer these questions; she’s had her fair share of criticism for her living, she says, but the positive responses have more than outweighed the negative.

“I know it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but I really don’t understand what’s wrong with being sexual,” she says.

“There’s no actual nudity involved, and it’s comedy... it’s theatre. A feminist came up to me recently for the first time in six years and said I was objectifying women. She was screaming at the band afterwards to get their kit off.

“But I don’t think it’s something to be taken seriously, and what’s wrong with being provocative and sensual in front of consenting adults anyway?

“If you go to see a film or a play and you don’t like the way it unfolds, then you can leave.”

Much of the appeal of burlesque among its followers lies in its sheer variation; women of every conceivable shape and size perform on the circuit, from the rake-thin to the – ahem – very generously proportioned. Cherry says the women who compliment her on making the most of her curves vastly outnumber the enraged critics.

“Most people say they’d love to have that confidence,” she says.

It’s this confidence that seems to be the magic ingredient in the velvet-lined world of burlesque. Like many graduates, the former Dorothy Stringer High School pupil found herself wondering what to do with herself after university, before she stumbled into burlesque.

“I got sent to dancing school by my parents when I was really little, so I did tap, ballet, modern, everything.

But when I got to my teen years I suppose I discovered boys and slowly gave up on my dancing, which I really regret now. When I came back from uni I felt like I’d lost my condidence a bit, but then I started doing burlesque workshops and my exhibitionist side took over.”

Riding the crest of a new wave of enthusiasm for burlseque, Cherry honed her act with free performances before she began to make money from corporate jobs. The cash was ploughed back into the act, paying for props and her exquisite costume (created by Brighton-based Ophelia’s Fancy).

“I didn’t really go looking for it, burlesque kind of found me. It was a nice, soft way of getting into performance without having to be very stage school and going to hundreds of auditions.”

She was soon able to give up her “boring” day job at a London communications company and over six years has built a career that has seen her travel to Milan, Paris and Marrakesh to perform.

She’s been photographed by hip snapper Rankin and been the performer of choice for rugby stars’ birthdays, and although she’s keen to stress the performance element of what she does, she’s under no illusions about the titillation factor.

“Of course there’s an element of ogling, but what’s so wrong with that? We all ogle each other. I’m not naive enough to say the men in the audience aren’t having a good look when the boobs come out, but I think people appreciate it’s not just about that – I’m not a girl in a thong writhing around.”

Perhaps surprisingly, she hasn’t encountered any trouble from over-enthusiastic young men, and puts this down to the invisible “fourth wall” that divides performer and audience.

“Guys don’t approach me at all, and I don’t get hit on. There’s always a queue of women waiting to chat to me. Quite often, the girlfriends come over and ask if I’ll have my picture taken with their boyfriend.”

Her own boyfriend is supportive of her work. “I wouldn’t go out with someone who wasn’t happy about what I do,” she says.

“He comes to my shows, but not all of them and he doesn’t feel the need to be there watching over me.”

Despite the huge interest in burlesque in recent years (“when I first started, I’d tell people what I do and they’d be confused – now they all know someone who does it”), it’s a world as narrow as the tightest of basques. “It is a small community, and the good thing about that is having friends in every country. We all put each other up.”

“There can be a lot of bitchiness on the scene, but I don’t think that’s any different to working in any office. There’s always going to be rivalry, it’s just human nature.”

As well as her performances and her own nights in the capital, Cherry has built up a growing strand of her career in the classes and workshops she runs. Her reputation means other burlesque dancers come to her for coaching to develop their acts, along with the willing amateurs.

“You can be any shape and size, and anyone can do burlesque for themselves.

I get a lot of women who want to do it for their partner in the bedroom. Not everyone is going to have that certain something you need for performing onstage, but that doesn’t mean they can’t do a saucy routine and feel good about themselves. It’s all about confidence.”

Cherry has plenty of years of performance ahead of her yet, but she’s undecided about quite what to do after she’s hung up the costume.

“I’d love to stay in the world of performance, so maybe I’d do a bit of teaching as an old lady. I get a certain amount of respect from a lot of the newbie ones coming up, so hopefully I’ll be able to perpetuate that – I’ll trowel my make-up into the creases!”

* Cherry’s next Brighton class is at The Caroline of Brunswick on Sunday, December 6 at 2pm.

Email cherrishakewell@yahoo.co.uk to book a place. For future classes visit www.myspace.com/cherrishakewell