Auralie Wilde smears on blue eyeshadow for maybe the hundredth time, leaning into the dusty mirror hanging in the dark bar attic, trying to get the blending right.
She is not at home, but she is close. She is in the dressing room of The Crack Fox, a downtown St. Louis bar where she has performed almost monthly for 10 years. It has become a kind of second home for her, as well as for many wayward queers of the St. Louis underground.
The blue eyeshadow pairs with the handmade 1920s art deco-inspired dolphin mask that is the lynchpin for her performance this evening: her “sexy dolphin act.”
Wilde won’t be wearing much more than that blue eyeshadow by the time her headlining performance is ends tonight. That’s because Wilde’s performance will be the art of taking off her sexy dolphin costume. She’s a burlesque dancer and modern-day ecdysiast, or one who performs the art of striptease.
While many burlesque performers have leaned on animal personification routines for their acts, Wilde doesn’t quite fit into the traditional catwoman or panther-in-a-cage vibe.
“My favorite animal has always been a dolphin, and then I learned more about them and how weird they are,” Wilde told NPR Next Generation Radio backstage at The Crack Fox in downtown St. Louis. “They get, like, high on puffer fish. … I was like, I'm a dolphin, very community oriented, and I think they have sex for pleasure, so what's not to love?”
Dubbed “The Smart Mouth of Burlesque” and jokingly describing her body as “mid-size like a sedan,” there’s nothing small about Wilde. She has been entertaining audiences with her special brand of sexy and silly since she started taking her clothes off professionally in 2012.
Gaining experience and fans all over the world since then, she has toured and performed nationally across the country and internationally throughout Europe, Israel and Fiji until she moved to St. Louis in 2018.
Even when she is not physically in her home in the south city neighborhood of Dutchtown, Wilde finds home onstage, but more specifically in her own nakedness.
“I think I feel most at home in my body, onstage, when I’m able to get into the right mindset,” she teased, explaining her before-show routine. To get in that headspace to connect with herself and her audience, Wilde said: “I actually think about old sexual experiences and get a little bit turned on. It comes across.”
Growing up in Iowa, Wilde always felt that she was meant for bigger and badder things than the modest cornfields of her hometown.
“Somebody told me what burlesque was,” she began to explain, “and we didn’t have anything like that in Iowa. But I drove two hours to see my first show, and I was like: ‘I can absolutely do that. I’m definitely going to do that.’”
Breaking from her classical training in ballet, jazz and modern dance, Wilde showed herself and her audience members that there are forms of dance and expression that make loving space for bodies like hers.
“This was the first time that I was in charge of everything from start to finish. I was in charge of my music, picking out the song … picking out the costume, sourcing the costume, coming up with all of the movements, and the storyline and all of that,” she said about burlesque. “So I think I felt much more empowered in having control of my performance that helped me feel more in control of my body.”
Burlesque gives her that sense of home because she can shirk the pressures and restrictions of her classical dance upbringing and unapologetically showcase and express herself in all the curvy, audacious, tattooed glory of her natural body – including one of her beloved dog Morbo.
“I'm starting to feel a lot more at home in my body after getting a … ton of tattoos this year,” she explained. “Now I look in the mirror and I’m like ‘God damn, she looks cool. I want to hang out with her!’”
