- Australia’s Queen of Burlesque screens on SBS Viceland, Friday May 27 at 9.50pm and then can be viewed on SBS On Demand.
Burlesque is a lot more than women taking their clothes off in front of an audience.
It’s a world that allows women to explore their inner erotic fantasies and even make pollical statements, says Australian burlesque performer Imogen Kelly, in a new short SBS documentary Australia’s Queen of Burlesque.
Kelly, a former winner of the annual World Queen of Burlesque in the US, has created burlesque performances with such varied themes as the ecological threats facing the Great Barrier Reef and Princess Diana’s death as well as her own personal journey with breast cancer.
“I love its theatricality. I love that anyone is welcome to our stage, and that it’s a platform that’s quite political because I feel it started as that,’’ she says, referring to burlesque’s origins in parody and satire in 19th century England.
"What I find empowering is getting up there and just putting something on that I don’t think anyone’s ever seen before and it helps them to think about, for instance, the Great Barrier Reef or about the plight of our koalas….
Australia's Queen of Burlesque | SBS VICELAND and SBS On Demand Source: Supplied
“For me, it’s very political and, for me, it’s about the visibility of women because there were certainly none when I started. There were no women on stages unless it was in the strip clubs.”
Women, when they’re allowed that space to fantasise or to show what their inner erotic world is, it gets quite elaborate.
Kelly started as a stripper, which she said had been “made into a men’s world for men”, whereas burlesque had allowed her to have a voice.
“I feel that is kind of the difference, a lot of it, between burlesque and stripping. I feel that it does allow the performer a voice.
“Women, when they’re allowed that space to fantasise or to show what their inner erotic world is, it gets quite elaborate. And a lot of it is about being precious or being valued, being high-class, it’s being untouchable. And in that way, it’s a power statement but I feel, at some point, patriarchy really swooped in…”
Kelly has not been afraid to smash stereotypes about her profession.
Women in my audience are middle-aged. They want to see someone like themselves up there
She has continued performing through motherhood, turning 50, and her cancer journey which saw her having a double mastectomy.
“Women in my audience are middle-aged. They want to see someone like themselves up there," she says.
“They want to see someone who’s rocking out the signs of ageing, and the scars and everything too.”
All her life experience has enriched her performances, and strengthened her voice.
“I don’t know whether it’s motherhood that changed me or the removal of my breasts but it just changed me,’’ she says.
“And I’m not afraid anymore to speak my mind.”
Australia’s Queen of Burlesque screens on SBS Viceland, Friday May 27 at 9.50pm and then can be viewed on
Imogen Kelly is performing at the Dunstan Playhouse Adelaide Festival Centre on Friday, June 17 at 9.30pm. For more informtion visit
