Fatlesque Fest: Celebrating a community of curves

Burlesque has been captivating and tantalizing audiences for centuries.

A new festival this weekend — Fatlesque Fest Northwest — is on a mission to disrupt the perceptions that surround burlesque and rethink the medium through a fat liberation and body positive lens.

Fatlesque Fest founder and producer, Mx. Pucks A’Plenty is a burlesque performer, producer, and stage manager here in Seattle. They’re also behind What the Funk?! An All BIPOC Burlesque Festival, which sold out shows at the Triple Door in August 2022.

“This idea of celebrating body diversity is really kind of rooted in the idea that all bodies are good bodies,” Pucks said. “And that phobia, that anti-fatness is one of these things in our society that we tend to turn a blind eye to. Fatphobia is very insidious. It's typically linked with anti-blackness and also typically linked with ableism as well. And it's the way that we view people. We look at folks who are fat through a lens of a morality issue — it's a moral failing to be fat… We're really good at dehumanizing people for any kind of difference.”

This festival takes a stand against fatphobia by celebrating the brilliance of plus-sized performers. With 40 artists taking the stage, there is local and national talent that will dazzle audiences.

The tagline for the show is “celebrating body diversity in a big way."

Ginger Snaps, a burlesque performer and aerialist from Texas, says that saying expresses the sentiment at the heart of the festival.

“To me, that means that you're going to see a wide range of different bodies, bodies that all look different, like it should be," Snaps said. "Like the bodies that you would see out on the street in a normal day, as opposed to what society has told us are the bodies that should be seen on stage.”

Burlesque is a wildly entertaining and glamorous performance art that’s fun to watch. It’s also empowering for the artists. It’s helped lots of people explore their identity and celebrate their body and sensuality, people like Deeva Rose.

She’s the headmistress and artistic director of the Rose Academy of Burlesque in her home city of Minneapolis. Rose started her own body positive burlesque shows and says she got the idea through the help of a friend who owns an all-plus size clothing store. Rose says the community she’s found is beautiful.

“This is so welcoming," Rose said. “I didn't know that I needed fat community and it just kind of made sense to pair it up with burlesque because, what is more radical than fat people owning their bodies and taking their clothes off in front of people and being, like, showered with dollar bills?”

This weekend, Rose is not only performing at the festival, but she will also be teaching a class that will help other people take ownership of their bodies.

"I'm teaching my lap dance for fat babes’ workshop, which is my very first class that I created on my own," she said. "It's about giving lap dances and it's about creating a lap dance, for a partner or an intimate setting. But the sneaky truth of the workshop is that it's about just having fun and releasing any barriers someone might have by being close to someone and putting their weight on someone and just accepting that people do want this. People really want your body up close on them."

To Rose, festivals like Fatlesque Fest are about honoring people’s authenticity. To her, celebrating body diversity means, “honoring people where they're at, and finding everyone's own specific magic. Because I think burlesque is magic.”

Rose is not the only one who thinks burlesque is magic. The first two days of the festival are already sold out.

For Pucks, the success of What the Funk, and the demand for more body-diverse burlesque shows has driven them to continue to produce shows and even consider entering the world of fat-positive tourism in the future by creating body-positive spaces and events for people traveling to Seattle. But for now, Pucks will continue to host epic shows that prove plus-size performers are here, they’re talented, and they have a story to tell.

“There's kind of this assumption that that bodies can't be sexy, or fat bodies can't be talented,” Pucks said. “Or the joke is that we're fat, and that this whole thing is going to be just a big giant comedy show, when in reality, [while] there will be some comedy, there's definitely a lot of sexy. There's a lot of odes to classic burlesque, a lot of glamor — like off-the-charts glamor — and also very interesting stories to tell. I am a person that firmly believes that everybody has something special to share.”