Andi Stardust

Andi Stardust, Photo by Freak the Mighty

The Body Political, co-founded by Andi Stardust and Laika Fox, aims to provide a stage for artists to reclaim their bodies and resist against society’s inaccurate portrayals of body-stereotypes. Their next show in San Francisco will be in 2019. Stay tuned!

Facebook: facebook.com/andi.stardust Body Political website: thebodypolitical.com Body Political FaceBook: facebook.com/thebodypolitical Body Political Instagram: @thebodypolitical

Questions for the interview contributed in part by Angsty Andy:

What influenced you to get into burlesque originally? Is this the same reason you are doing burlesque nowadays? Why or why not?

AS: “I always wanted to do burlesque as a platform for social commentary and to bring politics into performance art, so what I always found intriguing about burlesque and why I wanted to do burlesque myself is I loved how the naked body has so many societal attachments to it and the ways in which we can use and manipulate those attachments to make ‘statements’… everything from confrontational political statements with the body to playing with gender absurdity and expectations… the thing that I love about burlesque is the fact that we have nudity to play with and also the idea of ‘the reveal,’ what is underneath and what is on top[.] We see that in a very boudoir sense in like ‘oh there’s a glove and a hand underneath’ [but also] when you start using burlesque as tool for political conversation what you reveal can be very powerful….”

What observations have you made in the demographics of burlesque performers, and what would you like to see change?

AS: “[There is] intersectional feminism in burlesque and yet in our communities we have a lot of work to do in terms of becoming an intersectional community [.] There are certainly shows that are highlighting people from different backgrounds… we have Black Arts Matter… Black Manarchy… Jeezy’s Juke Joint in Minneapolis… shows all over highlighting performers of color, and we see them here and there but… in the general mainstream community it is still few and far between. [At] large burlesque events we are not seeing as many performers of color as white performers [,] not as many differently abled performers [, nor] queer performers [.] There are a lot queer performers… less so gender-binaries [,] not to say they don’t exist, they exist as the one or few rather than that being something we are seeing universally. Same is true with size, we see a very specific body type on stage… What I wanna see more in burlesque is people from a lot of different backgrounds that we don’t typically expect in mainstream, also [in terms of] intersection of identities we talk about these as separate POC performers, queer performers, trans performers, [and] larger performers, but where are all the intersections of those identities, and where are we seeing the intersection of those identities on our mainstream burlesque stages?”

In what ways do your performances/ productions forward or embody intersectional feminist thought and advocacy. Why is this important to you?

AS: “…in my own personal performances I play with gender expectations and what we expect from women and also ways in which women bodies are shamed so I think probably my most political performance and the one I’m kinda known for now is my menstruation frustration act, [which is] all about how the bleeding body is shamed, how we internalize that shame, internalize hatred of our periods… That act is about reclamation, about saying [there is] nothing to be ashamed of, we don’t need to hate this we’re going to use it as a political power, use it as a source of being in our body [and there is also a] nod to [the] military in [this] act because… the military is inherently very patriarchal and the way which we are shamed for bleeding bodies is also an act of patriarchy…”

Are there any specific cultural and/or systemic issues that you address in your performances/productions?

AS: “[With producing] Body Political…if it has to do with body we want it on our stage…We have explored race, gender, being mixed-race, documentation status, trans visibility, weight size, Blackness, ability, disability, age… Neurodiversity, mental [and] physical health, we’ve had acts about breast cancer, domestic violence, rape, [what] we call…“bodily autonomy”… sexuality not just… in the sexual orientation but also sexuality in… being a sexual person.”

What do you hope your audiences take away from these performances?

AS: “…I really want audience members to leave with a question mark, why I use a lot of confrontation, absurdity and exaggeration in my acts… I want people to question why they responded a certain way, why when I eat menstrual blood on stage do you think it is gross? Why is that gross to you? When you look at that where did that idea come from? Ultimately, we want people to take action. For us… it’s about people doing something on stage that inspires them… [There lies a] connection between performance arts and activism.”

What are some unexpected reactions you received from audience members, and how did you deal with those interactions?

AS: “The best reaction I ever got from an audience member I was told about [from a friend who witnessed it firsthand.] I was doing an act in drag (in an area not like the SF liberal bubble) and there was a lot of… straight people at this show… there was a hetero man who was having a sort of crisis of attraction, [he] was extremely confused and conflicted about this attraction to somebody in drag and then [when I] revealed a female body [onstage]… it really shocked this man about feeling this sense of desire towards a gender he had never really felt attracted to before… With Body Political… I know our acts are amazing but I’m always amazed at how moved people are by the act, [some of them] come up to the [performers during] intermissions crying because of what they shared on stage and I am constantly in awe of how something can resonate so deeply with someone in the audience that you didn’t even know shared a similar experience or a similar story or it might not be similar story it might be a story they’ve never heard before unlocking something and changing something in them and that to me is really why we are doing this.”

What do you think the future of burlesque, in regards to intersectional feminism, will look like five years from now?

AS: “As more and more safe spaces emerge for people to perform acts that really look at our identities from the intersectional point-of-view, and more… producers see that these spaces are wanted and needed and the audiences show up to them [,]I think we are going to see more acts exploring that and when we see more acts exploring that it creates more visibility in the community as a whole and it will start to change what we see on stages. [With] new performers like Angsty Andy getting into burlesque to be political… the more people see that onstage the more people are [going to be] like ‘I can do that!’ the more the audience is going to see that type of burlesque and the more it’s going get booked… A part of the responsibility of producers [is] not only to book acts that explore intersectionality but also to create intersectional spaces in shows and call stages ‘intersectional.’ There is going be a turning point where they’re not going to have a choice, so much of that happening as a critical mass that it’s going to explode.”