MUNCIE, Ind. —The worn floorboards of the Mark III Taproom stage buzzed as thumping bass guitar lifted the brassy wailing of a jazz melody, conjuring…
MUNCIE, Ind. —The worn floorboards of the Mark III Taproom stage buzzed as thumping bass guitar lifted the brassy wailing of a jazz melody, conjuring up the spirit of a dingy speakeasy.
An announcer spoke through the on-stage speakers, his voice filtered almost incomprehensibly through the clamor:
“Please, everyone, welcome to the stage, Mistress of Mayhem… Lady J!” he drawled.
Just offstage, behind the narrow curtain that separated the bar’s dressing room from blinding stage lights, Jamie Prang was shaking, so terrified it took her a moment to remember that she was, in fact, Lady J.
Dressed in a red, hooded cape that covered a black, leather corset, she steadied herself on towering heels, taking care not to tangle the shimmering, fabric wings that draped from her back as she ascended the wooden staircase.
Prang’s mind scrambled with each heavy step.
“Am I actually going up there by myself?” Prang thought. “Am I actually going to be able to disrobe?”
She stepped into the light. Now, the safety of the curtain felt miles away. Her performance music played. She tossed back her hood and then, total blackout.
“In the blink of an eye, the act was over,” Prang said. “And I couldn’t remember a thing about the last three minutes of my life.”
She watched a video on a fellow dancer’s phone to confirm that the experience was more than an elaborate hallucination. Prang had performed her first burlesque routine.
“It was exhilarating when it was done,” Prang said. “So much adrenaline.”
Prang had defeated stage fright and personal insecurities but the dance felt monumental for deeper reasons.
“I dance to survive,” Prang said.
Not long before she strutted the Mark III stage, Prang couldn’t walk, speak, write, or see. She has Multiple Sclerosis, an erratic disease that attacks the central nervous system. MS impairs mood, memory, problem solving and can fully blind and incapacitate sufferers by disrupting the brain’s ability to communicate with the body.
“It’s a sneaky disease, it’s scary, it comes out of nowhere and can take you down fast,” Prang said. “Performing is exciting on another level for me because I was sick for several years before I had the strength to get on stage.”
Prang burlesques with Muncie’s Fabulous Funcie Femmes, one of hundreds of amateur troupes that have formed throughout the U. S. in the last decade.
On March 9, the Funcie Femmes will be debuting their second Orange Masquerade Ball show at the Mark III Taproom to raise funds for the MS Society, an organization formed to research a cure. According to the Center for Disease Control, more than 2 million people have MS worldwide with women two to three times more likely to contract the disease.
Studies have shown low impact, aerobic exercise helps manage MS symptoms. Prang, who has loved being on stage since she was a child, said burlesque gives her physical therapy, a second chance at life and a platform to help others afflicted with her illness.
She’s been dancing with the Funcie Femmes since the groups inception in 2015.
“Now, when I hear the name ‘Lady J’ announced… it’s like a trigger that kicks up a fire already burning inside me,” Prang said.
Today, there are more amateur burlesque troupes than have ever existed an odd fact considering this particular style of vintage striptease effectively died in the late 1930s.
Then New York mayor Fiorello Henry La Guardia, Pressured by the Society for the Suppression of Vice, struck the fatal blow. Citing burlesque’s “corrupting moral influence” he revoked licenses from all New York burlesque theaters in 1937. Across the nation, other cities followed suit.
But, to the delight of some and frustration of others, burlesque managed to claw its way back from prohibition and cultural obscurity. Beginning in the late 1990s, burlesque has maintained a slow but steady renaissance, flirting, all the while, with mainstream acceptance.
