Queering of gender, desire and local myths in the (neo-) burlesque. A comparative analysis of the (neo-)burlesque scenes in New Orleans, Berlin and Warsaw

• Applicant: Dr. Joanna Staskiewicz
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 454767629

While (neo-)burlesque is the subject of much scholarly discussion in the English-speaking world, the topic is still a research gap in Germany, although the first (neo-)burlesque shows took place in Berlin as early as 2005. The project aims to close this research gap and in particular to investigate the queering effect of (neo-)burlesque. The project is based on the previously unexamined assumption that (neo)burlesque as a whole is queering - ambiguous, denormalizing, dehierarchizing. It analyses the (neo-)burlesque in particular as a pop-cultural phenomenon that has a subversive effect on two levels - not only in the sense of a queer intervention in the heteronormative matrix, but also on the level of local myths, which are questioned through the autobiographical lens of the performers. The local aspect has so far been largely ignored in (neo-)burlesque research, although it offers a new perspective on the situatedness of the phenomenon, the handling of cultural stagings and instrumentalizations of history and tradition, and takes up current social moods. The central questions of the project are: does (neo-)burlesque function as a queer intervention by parodistically iterating traditional notions of gender roles and heteronormativity? If so, how does this queer intervention look like in concrete terms? Can (neo-)burlesque also question local and national myths through playful performance? How and to what effect are local narratives taken up by performers and their biographical history? The project explores these questions through an international comparison of the (neo-)burlesque scenes in New Orleans, Berlin and Warsaw. In particular, this international comparison promises to yield groundbreaking research results that can show that what at first glance appears to be an apolitical entertainment phenomenon can be a subversive popular art.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants