I take my clothes off for a job. When people judge my choices, this is my response

The music swells as I stand perfectly still behind two enormous feather fans, the only thing between me and a theatre of more than 500 people. My back-up dancers hold them high, their edges brushing together so no one can see me yet. The air is thick with anticipation. On cue, the fans quickly part. The spotlight hits the rhinestones of my costume and the room erupts. The cheer is deafening – pure, electric joy, the kind that makes the floor beneath you feel alive.

I’m describing the opening night of my first headline Australian tour in 2024, the biggest show I’d produced. In that moment, it felt like everyone in the room understood what burlesque could be: bold, beautiful, celebratory.

That feeling carried me through a European tour that included Barcelona and Zurich – each night was met with the same energy. Online, the videos went viral. It was the most successful run of my career.

Then I came home. Within days, a family member asked if I’d thought about “what I’m going to do after this ‘burlesque thing’ is over”. The subtext was clear: that it’s cute, but when are you going to get a real job?

That’s the paradox I face as a performer. My burlesque shows can fill theatres, rack up millions of views online, take me around the world and earn me more money than I ever could in more traditional careers. Yet, it is still seen as a novelty or a phase. There is always a gentle but unmistakable suggestion that this isn’t a “serious” career.

It’s not unusual for people to hint at that. I think everyone knows of burlesque, or at least, they think they do.

Oh, like the movie?

Dita Von Teese?

Isn’t that just classy stripping?

I shudder at that last cliché; burlesque is stripping, but within a historical context. Beyond the movie Burlesque or the image of Dita Von Teese in a giant martini glass, most people are too certain in their assumptions to ask what it actually is, or how people make a living from it. “Striptease” obviously still carries a stigma. So they hear that and think they’ve got it figured out, slotting it neatly into a box they’re comfortable with – scandalous, silly, empowering, degrading.

Maybe that’s because we live in a world that’s taught not to respect people who show too much skin. I know those lessons run deep, shaping what we think is worthy of value or respect. But once you strip away these patriarchal ideals, you find a form of performance as demanding and deliberate as any other, only far more accepting of different bodies, identities and ways of being.

There is always a gentle but unmistakable suggestion that this isn’t a “serious” career.

I grew up being pitted against other girls for dance roles, forced to compete to embody a narrow definition of beauty: thin but toned, graceful but never too bold, talented but never too much. Talent alone was never enough anyway. You had to look a certain way, act a certain way, mould yourself into someone else’s vision.

I’d walked away from commercial dance completely until an ex-girlfriend took me to a burlesque workshop. The room was full of bodies of every age, shape and gender – a space where I didn’t need permission to be myself, and was celebrated for it. Like so many others before me, I found the freedom to create on my own terms, to play with the gaze instead of being defined by it, to decide exactly what’s seen and when.

That unapologetic self-expression extends far beyond the stage. The audience might see glamour, feathers, rhinestones and perfectly timed reveals, but behind every act is months of work. This includes designing and making costumes, editing music, and choreographing each beat to land a punchline, build suspense or create desire.

As a dancer, I control not just the performance, but every aspect of the process. With no one telling me to tone it down or deciding what’s “appropriate”, my mind is free to run wild – decadent, strange, political, playful.

In that world, surrounded by supportive audiences, fellow performers who lift each other up, and students who thank you for helping them see themselves differently, it’s easy to believe everyone understands. Online, tens of thousands of people have told me my work inspired them, helped them heal, or simply made them smile.

And then something jolts you back. Like one morning in January 2024, when I woke to my phone buzzing with messages in industry group chats. Everyone was sharing an article about a “scandalous burlesque performance” at a Monash University end-of-year party that had been picked up by several news outlets. They were all trying to guess who the unnamed performer in the article was. I scrolled past, still half asleep, until the owner of a venue I work with called me and said, “Evana, have you seen the news today?” That’s when it clicked: the mystery performer was me.

A month earlier, I’d been booked to perform at the university party. For me, it was a standard gig: step out in some fancy costumes, dance around playfully, strip away a few layers. I think I put my bra on someone’s head like a little hat. The audience laughed, clapped and cheered. Then they went home. I thought that was the end of it.

Instead, by the new year, the performance had been spun into a “scandal”. Monash issued an apology to staff and even offered counselling to anyone “affected” by the show. My act, the same kind that has sell-out shows and gone viral online, was suddenly framed as something shameful, inappropriate and in need of damage control. It was a sharp reminder that no matter how much joy, craft and artistry you pour into burlesque, there will always be people who don’t get it.

I hadn’t been named in the article, so I reached out to the journalist to offer my side. The follow-up piece landed on the front page of the Melbourne Age with a two-page story inside. What struck me most was the wave of public support that followed.

There’s a growing number of people who do understand burlesque, and they’re loud about it. It’s so woven into popular culture, most have experienced it somewhere, whether they realise it or not. And enough people have been moved by it to defend it when it’s dismissed or attacked.

Still, every so often, another piece appears questioning whether burlesque is “empowering or degrading”. The most recent was from the BBC, framing it as a debate – a sparkly performance art on one hand, a repackaging of the male gaze on the other. But the people asking those questions are rarely the ones in the room. They’re not in the audience watching someone take complete control of how they’re seen. They’re not in the dressing room helping a nervous first-time performer with emergency costume repairs. They’re not in a workshop when a 75-year-old woman says she’s never felt beautiful until now, or when a trans participant tells you it’s the first time they’ve felt at home in their body.

I don’t need to wonder if burlesque can be empowering, I’ve lived it, and I’ve seen it transform thousands of others. On stage. In the crowd. In quiet moments afterwards, when someone tells me I made them feel something they didn’t think was possible.

Burlesque will always provoke discussion because joy, autonomy, and sensuality still do. And that’s why I have no interest in making it smaller, safer or more palatable for those determined to misunderstand it.

I take my clothes off for a living. Because when I do, I’m not just revealing skin, I’m revealing a world where joy, autonomy and sensuality are celebrated without apology.

That’s what burlesque is really about.

Evana De Lune will perform at the Sydney Fringe Festival from September 16-21.

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