Q&A With Imogen Kelly!
Imogen Kelly is Australia's first lady of striptease, An acclaimed performer, writer, director, producer - renowned as Australia’s Queen of Burlesque, and crowned World Queen of Burlesque in 2012 (Burlesque Hall of Fame, Las Vegas). Check out the Q&A we had with Imogen ahead of our Winter School Intensives!
1. What do you enjoy most about teaching?
I LOVE it when I have students who want to develop their performances beyond the safety zones. I really enjoy helping performers unlock their inner creative eroticism, open up their story telling and dispatch of ideas that might be limiting them... like burlesque has to be pretty...
2. What do you enjoy most about learning?
As much as I enjoy learning new moves, I'll always take away a move and reshape it to how my own body works. So I don't do many dance based classes.
HOWEVER- I am a total piggy for anything cerebral and artistic. I thrive on being intellectually or emotionally pushed into uncomfortable places, or finding new ways to express myself. You're never finished- being an artist is a life long journey.
3. What inspires you to keep making art?
Hmmm... My creativity is in such abundance most friends and lovers find it a bit overwhelming... I literally never stop. Whether I'm sculpting, or writing, or making music, or painting, or making costumes, or rehearsing. My artistic practice is ceaseless and relentless. I am constantly possessed with new ideas or ways to improve on old ones. I'm thankful that I have stuck to my guns as a creative and pursued my talents, refined my skills and never let failures get me down.
I think my main inspiration making things that no one has ever seen before- that is my favourite challenge to set myself... to make something new. Anyone who says that everything has been done isn't listening to the world, or isn't willing to push themselves into the unknown. There is so so so much that has never been tried before- and there is so much work to be done on improving the world!
I may not be able to save the planet from orange blobs and all, but I can transform a room of people in an instant from feeling sad, frustrated, anxious or lonely- to orchestrating a collective sigh, a swell of hope or give them a moment of wonder to lose themselves in. My job is very special... I guess that’s inspiration enough.
4. Can you tell us a bit more about both workshops?
With the Troublesome Timeline of Tease I LOVE talking about the times before I changed the laws allowing burlesque to flourish outside of the Red-Light districts.
l am a local historian and design walking tours of Darlinghurst and the like. So, I wanted to share a tiny part of my own local knowledge with others so that neo-burlesque performers can understand that they are appropriating from marginalised performers- and that the history of strippers and stripping is actually way more complex and exciting than knowing how to do pin curls and twirl a tassel.
It’s an honour to tell stories and fill in the blanks.
This is a fun filled hour with photos and tales featuring burlesque striptease from the sixties through to the revival.
As for Word of Mouth and Other Weapons I wanted to share analogue producing and advertising skills that we used to use in the queer underground when the cops were constantly raiding our clubs and parties.
I think with AI and the monster of social media its these skills and techniques that might become valuable to anyone who hasn't lived in a time when all we had was word of mouth, a spray can and a photocopier to tell people about the impromptu dance party that we were putting on in a deserted building... using stolen electricity... and everyone had bought tickets but no one knew where the part was until 6pm... and how we got around all of that with nothing but land line phone networks, code words and back packs full of oranges injected with vodka... for example...
5. Anything else you want the next generation to know about you?
Oh gosh- Lets see... my parents were wealthy bohemians who liked hanging out at nude beaches and communes in the seventies full of wine buffs and art connoisseurs... my dad was a lawyer who put gangsters in jail and my mum was the secretary for the attorney general... or so the mythology goes.
As a child I never wore clothes, insisted on having the same rights as my brother, and threw tantrums in ballet class when they didn't let me do my own moves.
My favourite colour is yellow, I like gardening, and my fave pets are chooks.
Oh - and I'm an artist, not a brand!
