Mindless Praise vs. Effective Critique

As many performers I know can attest to, it's very easy to get praise for your work from fans, peers, and other performers. It's almost impossible, however, to find good, constructive critique that pushes you to be better.

After watching myself in the role of Barry Dylan from the burlesque adaptation of the television show "Archer," I felt thoroughly pleased with myself and the performance I gave. I mention this specifically because I rarely feel this way about my performances. Even though I felt satisfied with how it went, I still wouldn't have minded if someone had made some suggestions on what could have used more polish.

"I said GOOD feedback, you dullard!"

The best performers I know place a high value on effective critique, and I've come to find that there isn't all that much of it in burlesque. In general, I've found that it's very easy to surround yourself with people who have nothing but adoration for you, and I absolutely believe that there's nothing worse than that if you're trying to grow as an artist. It's hard to fight that instinct.

As far as the duo act I did in that same show, I felt a lot differently. In that act, Danny Drake (as Archer) and I did a duo-acrobatics striptease that resembled a high-energy fight scene, a confrontation where we illustrated the futility of these two characters' persistent quarrel throughout the show. I discussed with Danny a lot of personal critiques I came up with about how the performance went, and would have loved to have heard more from other performers about what worked and what didn't while we were still in the rehearsal phases. In my opinion, the act looked a bit contrived and juvenile on video, despite me being smashed in the head at one point with a glass bottle.

Yes. It did really happen.

It got me thinking quite a lot about the reasons our performances sometimes don't look polished in the ways we want them to. Why do we create our performance pieces in isolation while avoiding checking in with people we trust along the way?

I was reading Mary Cyn's blog about how to take and give effective critique, and it inspired me to want to finish this post that I've kept shelved for a long time. One of the big reasons that I wanted to hold off on finishing this topic is that I knew I hated some parts of burlesque performance because of how the community at large handles effective critique, but wasn't sure how to get it into writing. Mary helped me to figure that out with her own take.

The title of this entry, phrased as "Mindless Praise vs. Effective Critique," doesn't quite encapsulate the entirety of the issue. If I'm honest, I would tell you that me giving crappy critique and shaded criticisms also factors into my motivation for writing this, though that seems like too many words for a blog title, expressly for the point of washing my hands of things my younger self once did. One of the reasons I like to teach other guys how to do burlesque is because it gives me the opportunity to help develop and course-correct in a forum where constant feedback is the expectation, and to further reinforce those lessons in writing after their first performance. Plus, I get to deliver feedback in a way that I would have wanted to receive it.

"I dunno man. Your words seem a little harsh."

As artists, we have a tendency to believe that the first thing we think of (and indeed EVERY thing we think of) is the best idea anyone's ever had. I've certainly come up with some crap ideas (see; The Worst Burlesque Act I've Ever Done), and some were more obviously crap than others--but the finer point is that it took some hard coaching to get me to the point where I accepted that the aforementioned act was a garbage fire, and I don't know that I would have accepted that conclusion on my own.

The ways we experience rejection in burlesque isn't the same way rejection is doled out in other walks of life. It's fairly straightforward when a hiring manager tells you "you didn't get the job," or when a love interest tells you that she's "not all that into you," but I've found that most of the discord between response and critique in burlesque focuses largely on whether or not you're attractive on stage, and not necessarily on whether or not you executed great choreography or told a truly compelling story. Our audiences and fellow performers frequently tend to focus on whether or not we're "hot" up there, which, if you're a stickler for the technical stuff, can seem extra superficial. So rejection can look like straight up silence, unless you do something aggressively inappropriate.

But we all occasionally tell each other that our performances are "sexy" and "mega-hot," and most of the time that's totally okay to do.

"Please tell me I'm beautiful."

As performers, I think we owe it to ourselves to help each other out with specifics. What I like to do is to pick two or three things that I can say to someone when they leave stage that I loved about their performance;

• "Hey, I love that your fan dance was just two giant mustaches, it was super clever!" 
• "That cartwheel into a split right when the theremin solo started was so well-timed!"
• "Tearing your sleeves off to reveal two tinier, angrier sleeves was choice!"

Alternatively, there are some bits of feedback that are more critical. These are useful to give out (with permission, of course), if the person is looking for a bit more honesty about what didn't work well for you. Bear in mind that while I personally love hearing more corrective comments after a number, most people tend to feel that this works directly against their performance high, which can be a tad soul-shattering. So always make sure it's welcome to say things like these, paraphrased from actual critiques I've given;

• "Your expression in the beginning was distressed and shameful, like you were a hostage--but I don't know if that was the consistent with the tone of the piece. Was that intentional?"
• "Your costuming struck me as being racially insensitive. I might avoid using headdresses and kimonos when you do this piece in the future."
• "I don't think using actual liquids and real knives in your piece was a good idea for safety reasons."
• "There were one or two dance moves that seemed inconsistent with the mood and music, could you tell me about that part of the choreography?"

Reflexively, this is the kind of stuff I find most helpful. While we ultimately want to be the best performers we can be, the only way to improve is to hear specifically what didn't work, and to parlay those suggestions into conversations about what we can do better.

"This air BJ really worked for me!"

Which brings me to the last part. Often, I find that a shared instinct we have as artists is to explain away criticism. If I know that someone says they are receptive, I'll log my observation with them without ending in a question. Frequently with newer performers, I find that it prompts a (usually lengthy) explanation of why what I mentioned has to stay the same.

I'm not saying that there can't be a reason why something I disagree with should remain in a performance piece--but if it's something that you had to clarify at length to an experienced performer, it probably isn't something that's all that clear to your audience.

So in essence; watch and listen, ask permission to discuss, give thoughtful and meaningful critiques, encourage vigorously, and be receptive when others offer you feedback in return.

ART!

"Masculine" Burlesque and Self-Deprecating Humor

I was scrolling through my performer Facebook like I usually do, when I came across a thread posted by fellow performer Dangrrr Doll that caught my attention. Since I love reading about contentious topics and the oft debated "why we do this" ideologies of burlesque performance, I was inspired to write on it myself.

It's no coincidence that Dangrrr, a terrifically accomplished burlesque performer who I occasionally get to share the stage with, habitually critiques the way we present our concepts on stage. I've even featured her on this blog before, so with that in mind, here's the original post;

In the class I teach here in Boston (now in its fourth installment), this is the core concept I build from--masculine movement, masculine character building, masculine stripper moves, masculine kazoo concertos, masculine giraffe husbandry, etc. It's really the only thing I can speak to as an expert, since it's at the heart of every piece I write and perform. And based on the varying levels of comfort of the men I know in burlesque, it's not always a focal point of everyone's act construction, though for my own students, I like it when they take my lead and make it their own.

When I first sat down to talk with Stratton McCrady and Robin of the "Acting Out" project, Robin was surprised to learn that I was a straight male performer doing burlesque. Even though operating on the pretenses that most burlesque performers are queer to some degree (or that any men who perform burlesque MUST be gay) isn't an unsafe bet, it does beg the following question:

"What does a straight man performing burlesque look like?"

I dunno, this?
Photo by Roger Gordy

While straight men aren't a rare commodity in most walks of life, we are somewhat unrepresented in burlesque. I've found that most straight men don't have any idea how to move like a man might, to say nothing of how to break into the burlesque scene in the first place. As I've alluded to before, I learned most of my first striptease movements from Rogue Burlesque founders Dixie Douya and Bustee Keaton, and those movements weren't exactly....masculine.

After a year or two of figuring out what I wanted to change, I decided to spend some time and effort learning how to walk, crawl, posture, and pose myself as a masculine character. And for several years now, I've spent a lot of time watching myself in the mirror and making changes as needed.

But taking it back a little, I've found that men who jump onto a stage to perform instinctively gravitate toward one tendency; self-deprecating parody. It's almost like there's an expectation for a man to get on stage and put himself down to make himself feel accepted by the audience. It's weird, but I understand it. I used to do it a lot.

Like, an uncomfortable amount.
Photo by Stratton McCrady, Acting Out!

If I've learned one thing about teaching men striptease, it's that men don't have a default "sexy" set of movements. If I ask a new guy in my class to walk around and move like a suave, ladies-man type for the purposes of an exercise, he will almost always include a section where he's pantomiming an aggressive rejection (possibly involving getting a drink thrown on him). Selling confidence, success, and attractiveness in movement is terrifying for many men, and I suspect, a huge reason why they might want to take my class in the first place.

I'll give you an example. Sway Bradbury mentioned that "embarrassment/shame is all about maintaining your masculinity in moments of vulnerability; i.e. your pants fall down and you feel shame, portraying your nudity as something you feel negatively towards and understand should be hidden. Whereas in high femme burlesque, what I consider classic burlesque, nudity is something you revel in. That vulnerability isn't embarrassing, it's empowering."

That's real. If a guy is on stage and acting out a scene where his shirt and pants are suddenly missing, he's embarrassed, he's shy, and his first move is to cover it up. That same scene acted out by a woman? She's suddenly the one in control. She's sexy, intense, and using that as her weapon.

I want to say that this has to do with the power dynamic of burlesque and how it contrasts with the power dynamic of a gendered society. Should straight men naturally feel like they need to approach burlesque cautiously, and justify their presence in the space with a few jokes made at their own expense? Maybe that's just the price of entry. But I think there's something else hiding there.

I think it has more to do with the fact that men are raised without the burden of having their sexuality constantly available for consumption, a benefit that women don't have the option of. At every turn, women are expected to be sexy and have a way to market themselves constantly with every choice they make in their waking lives. A lot of women I talk to about burlesque performance use the stage as a way to claim ownership of their sexuality--especially since there's so much unjustified entitlement to it in the outside world, perpetrated by media, industry, and random men on the sidewalk. Since men never have to experience this, they don't know what to do in a situation where the expectation turns to them.

"IT'S ALL MINE!"
Photo by Ben A Johnson

The result of this is that straight men on stage have to get naturalized to the concept of being objectified. Even after all these years of performing striptease, whenever I get an aggressive compliment from a stranger about my sexiness on stage, my gut tells me to feel flattered. What I don't feel is guarded, defensive, or threatened. I don't think I'll ever understand what it means to be truly objectified, and that vulnerability is something I could never learn or teach.

Straight men aspiring to perform with sexual and vulnerable burlesque on stage require a bigger understanding of this, myself included. It's that knee-jerk answer that I get from every guy that I talk to about potentially jumping on stage to perform burlesque: It's the "I'm not in good enough shape" response which signals that most of us fellas aren't even remotely conscious of what the concept of sexual desirability is for a male-facing audience--which would explain why gay male performers have a better understanding of the concept. We straight guys instinctively assume that we just have to be hot and show up, and only then can we perceive the ironic vulnerability of what it means to be objectified.

Or, barring that, we could make intentional fools of ourselves to garner favor from the audience. Comparatively, that certainly does seem like a less scary option.

How do I book more shows?

In my second amateur class that I taught for Dale's All-Male Yardsale, one of the new performers asked me a great question that I hadn't considered speaking about before.

"How do we get out into the community and start booking ourselves?"

While I gave the question the best answer I had at the time, I felt like there was a lot more to talk about on the subject. Yes, being put on stage is a great first step and is a wonderful way to make an impression with people who produce shows who might be in the audience. After all, six of the performers at my first amateur showcase went on to book other engagements.

But the more I talked to other producers in the burlesque scene both locally and far-reaching, I kept coming across prevalent attitudes, beliefs, and conditionals that I'm confident most new performers don't know.

While discussing post-show networking with fellow Sir Danny Drake, he told me something that stuck with me; "If I meet you after the show, introduce myself, shake your hand, compliment your act, and your response is 'I've been drinking and I probably won't remember your name,' it's a safe bet that I immediately don't want to work with you."

A first impression is that important.

..so you'd better make it a good one.

Another thing that performers of all experience levels tend to forget is that producers and fellow performers vouch for the ones they like. All too often, I hear about how one performer did/said/dumped glitter on/farted near someone who had some pull in the local burlesque scene, and now that person is universally banned from performing based on the power of rumor and the unwillingness of anyone to bring up the subject directly with the offending party.

Whether or not that's fair depends on the circumstances, but it unequivocally mandates that good behavior is important.

The other side of that is something I'm proud to have experience with. If you end up booking gigs with a variety of different shows and producers, people will begin recommending you to others. For the record, there's really nothing more flattering than being contacted by a new producer who only knows you by reputation. If you're recommended because enough people think of you as reliable, friendly, and a good contributor, you're bound to find yourself in new locations with crazy props and outfits on your saucy bits that you never before thought possible.

Like soccer balls!

And then you get the performers who have inexplicably awful attitudes. One of my producer friends and the official MC of Sirlesque, Allix Mortis, is constantly on the receiving end of emails from performers who feel the need to be extremely unprofessional in how they reach out.

"There's a give and take in any professional relationship - no one is entitled to be in any particular show and a producer at the end of the day is accountable - both financially and artistically - for their show," Allix told me.

Now I don't intend to disparage burlesque as an artform here, but if 70% of all available gigs in any given town are on a carpeted stage in the back of a dive bar, you don't get to be a diva about not being booked. Having a childish attitude won't impress anyone.

Some basics, if you're thinking about reaching out to a producer asking to get booked;

#1 - Be polite and professional with how you reach out. Again, first impressions count for a lot. I asked Allix about the kinds of opening inquiries and emails they get from different performers;

"What matters to me when someone approaches me about being cast in a show is that they're polite, give me a sense of who they are, and let me know that they know a bit about my show."

"I've received form responses (and you can always tell when someone is just copy/pasting to a bunch of producers), informal notes with lolspeak and emojis, and messages that also presume that I'll just accept the person. ("In your show I"m going to do...")"

"In my book the worst things you can do when writing someone about a casting are: be rude or give away that you don't know anything about their show."

"I've never been to or heard of your show, but I assume it's just like a Gilad workout video?"

#2 - You are in no way entitled to be a part of any show. You don't get in automatically because you asked, and you aren't allowed to throw a temper tantrum if you don't get your way. This goes for new performers, but should especially never happen with performers who have been performing for some time. Allix explained;

"If the producer doesn't have a spot for you, be gracious. Name calling or trash talk or 'you're missing out' (all things I've received, or, witnessed) are really uncalled for. Not everyone is right for every show - castings are also often done months or weeks in advance."

Allix Mortis

#3 - A producer doesn't owe it to you to create a show for you to be in, just because you happen to be in town.

This is an odd one to have to mention, but sometimes there's an expectation that the burlesque community in the city you're travelling to is going to reconfigure itself to fit your travel plans. I don't know if this comes from a sense of misguided celebrity, or because of unchecked entitlement, but some folks act this way every now and again.

#4 - Be gracious, even if there isn't a spot for you.

Allix mentioned this one earlier, but it's worth having its own bullet on the list. Producers book people they like and who have made a positive impression on them, and it's super important not to take it personally.

"AAAAUGH!! YOU'VE CRUSHED MY SPIRIT! Bwuuuuubuuuu..."

It might be really tempting for people who have been performing a while to want to show off their feathers, but accolades are only impressive if someone else is reading them about you (or proclaiming them passionately to the audience you're about to perform for!). As producers, we all talk about performers who have reached out to us--but we talk more about the performers we love and who we plan to reach out to again. It's way more fun.

I make it a point to thank everyone who performs for me, and to thank producers who book me into shows. When you get right down to it, it's a cosmic, crazy, and improbable thing that we get to do this kind of performance, and that people are willing to pay to see it. As a producer and as a performer, it's important not to take that for granted.