Sick and Beautiful

Photo by Johnny Crash Photography

While traveling through Bolivia I had one of the most harrowing experiences of my life. I caught a flu that turned into a sinus infection, then into an ear infection, and finally into a ruptured eardrum and serious infection. For seven days, while I should have been exploring dinosaur fossils at the famous Parque Torotoro or cruising in through Bolivia’s expansive salt desert, I was holed up in a tiny, windowless room in La Paz. Each day, barely able to breath or hear, I watched as blood and pus oozed from my ear, my appetite diminished, my ability to get out of bed weakened, and my spirit shattered. I was broken for those days, lonely, panicked, and scared- in one of the darkest places I have been for years. Finally, having found an ear, nose, and throat specialist, I received proper medical care and was placed on three types of antibiotics, including one that I had to inject into myself.

I have never been short on inspiration for a burlesque act. Like most performers I have too many ideas, too many acts, too many costumes to meet my time and budget. Burlesque is an overflowing goblet of creative inspiration, it comes, it comes, it comes, and I become lusty and drunk off of its plentifulness. Yet, I have never choreographed an act that came from a personal narrative. The buzz I receive from burlesque comes from creating a visual outside of reality, being able to imagine and embody a fantasy- my fantasy.

As my health strengthened and I joked that I would eventually create a burlesque act out of the experience, and, as I listened to a song that embodied those sick days, I felt the act emerge. Still in bed, I moved slightly to the music, but as days went on, I moved more and more, feeling, remembering, reliving that week of being so ill I had given up. Moving through the music was immensely cathartic. Just movement alone released the terror and panic the experience had created in my body- that I was still holding in my body. It felt liberating. I was letting go.

Next, as I began to work out the expressions and reveals I felt vaguely guilty about making a serious experience sexy. It wasn’t that I was making light of my illness, in fact, the act was the darkest I had ever choreographed. But I realized by channeling the darkness of the experience into art and beauty I was transforming the way I related to the experience. I was rewriting my memory of it, taking away its dark power and reclaiming my body and health for myself.

The act took shape and each time I practiced I felt myself going back to that windowless room and feeling more and more in control. Now I was dictating the story and finally felt ready enough, perhaps strong enough, to share it.

Before going onstage I asked myself if anyone would really understand what I was saying through this act. I didn’t want to be one of those performers so self-absorbed with my vision that I had lost the audience. Yet, this act was for me, it was for me to heal, for me to let go of, for me to rediscover my strength and for the audience to go through that journey with me. In some ways it was self-absorbed, but in other ways it was a gift. It was sharing a piece of myself as, yes, entertainment but as something more, as a vulnerable human being.

And whether or not the entire audience understood at the end, when they applauded – I was free.

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