Burly Q, presented by Verona Vera, attracted a full house at the New Athenaeum Theatre on Thursday night.
The audience was treated to a mesmerising display of talent emerging from Dunedin’s dance studios. It is a time-honoured tradition for dance and music studio teachers to showcase their students’ talent, where no-one willing to front up is left out.
In Dunedin this includes burlesque, pole dancing, strip-tease and belly dance disciplines. The event was shaped around a history of cabaret and burlesque arts in Eastern and Western cultures from musical theatre divas and Pharaoh’s Palaces to the more explicit titillations of the 21st-century. It is a purely escapist art born out of times of inequity where participants danced for their dinners.
Accompanied by appreciative exclamations from the fully engaged audience, dancers variously peeled off elbow-length gloves filled with glitter, extricated themselves from the bonds of their corsets’ and bras’ hooks and laces, flaunted the underbelly of layered skirts to release themselves triumphantly into the limelight. The show became a celebration of the adult female body in all its ages and stages, its largess and its sinewed flexibility all the time teetering on death-defying stilettos.
Ultimate, modesty was preserved by bespangled tassels and thongs. Many and varied costume changes reveal the backstage inventiveness and expertise. The seamless change of acts points to an appreciation of stage management and timing.
Best of all was the superbly sultry belly dance from Dunedin’s several but, sadly, un-credited schools. Next came the pole dancing.
Which leads to the disappointing aspect of the show.
Backstage people donate skills, time and devotion to staging a show and deserve to be credited.
Besides that one grumble, Burly Q is a wonderfully entertaining and not at all demeaning show, equally enjoyed by audience and dancers.
Review by Marian Poole
