Debuting in 2006 after a workshop with Rose Wood, Jacqueline Boxx’s performance background includes trapeze, hooping, cabaret, musical theater, bellydance, clowning and ballet. She has headlined burlesque festivals across the globe, and in 2017 became the first performer to ever compete in a wheelchair for a title at the Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender. Her acts are all related in some way to her experience with chronic pain and limited mobility, and she strives to bring attention through glamour and spectacle to disability.
Here’s her 21.
1. How would you define yourself in three words?
Macabre, activist, educator.
2. Who would play you in a movie about your life?
If Aubrey Plaza had a disability, she would be the easy answer. We are both half Puerto Rican and half Irish!
3. What is your biggest strength?
Resilience. It’s pretty much impossible to keep me down.
4. What is your biggest weakness?
Self-doubt. I need to learn to listen more closely to my intuition and stop second-guessing myself.
5. When are you most happy and inspired?
When I am around other disabled people. Community is so powerful.
6. What is your favourite on-screen burlesque moment from film or TV?
‘Let Me Be Good To You’ from the Great Mouse Detective. That had a lasting impact, obviously!
7. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received?
Before you go on stage, take a moment to promise to yourself to stay in your body. As long as you’re fully present, you can make magic on stage. Tigger! taught me that.
8. If you could switch lives with one person for a day, who would it be?
I would love to experience a day in the life of a pop star, mostly because it would be a wonderful reminder that living my own life at my own pace is much better.
9. What’s the biggest myth or misconception about burlesque?
That your purpose on stage is always to make the audience ‘happy’. There are so many more possible intentions and outcomes – our emotions are many and varied and burlesque can inspire any of them on the way towards telling a compelling story.
10. If you could only perform to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Glory Box by Portishead. It is the song I competed with at BHoF most recently and it always makes me want to move.
11. What surprisingly useful things do you have in your show case?
Arnica gel and moisturizing eye drops. The arnica can stop a sore muscle in its tracks and the eye drops compensate for allergies and musty spaces drying out my contacts!
12. Do you have a backstage ritual?
I stretch out my hips thoroughly on a day I perform because communicating to those muscles that they are safe to move freely means I will be a better dancer.
13. What advice would you give to new performers starting out today?
Listen to your body! There is no benefit to your performance that is worth shutting down warning signs from your muscles and joints. You will be a better performer if you are working WITH your body rather than AGAINST it.
14. What is your proudest achievement?
My first stage wheelchair becoming a part of the Burlesque Hall of Fame museum as part of the ‘Let’s Get Loud!- The Heritage of Latin Burlesque’ exhibit and then being accepted as a permanent piece in their collection. Back when I first brought my mobility aid on stage with me, I thought no audience would accept me as a dancer, and yet I still made that chair into my throne. My hope is always to inspire other disabled performers to live their performance dreams.
15. What is your biggest regret?
I regret taking so long to come to terms with my new body. The years between my burlesque debut and my return to the stage using my wheelchair were some of the hardest of my life. I was not kind to myself and had very little hope. That’s why I will always be kind to fellow disabled people even if their internalized ableism causes them to lash out at those in their own community. This journey is neither easy nor linear.
16. What is the biggest challenge facing today’s burlesque scene?
My initial answer to this is always going to involve accessibility to disabled performers and audience members. However, we live in a time where basic safety and freedom of speech are under attack. How can we expect audience members to support our shows when they could be illegally detained and silenced with no warning and at any moment? Art is resistance but I feel for anyone that has to choose basic safety over participating in that resistance.
17. If you could go back and tell yourself one thing when you started out in burlesque, what would it be?
Don’t let anyone tell you what burlesque ‘has’ to be or who you ‘have’ to be to do it. Your body is perfect for burlesque just as it is.
18. What is a cause or issue that’s very important to you?
Making burlesque accessible. It’s a complex issue because true accessibility would mean that disabled performers and patrons can interact with the burlesque world exactly as easily as a nondisabled person could. We are so far from that being reality that it can be intimidating to know where to start. If you want to do something small today, put accessibility information on your promo and casting calls so that we don’t need to wonder if we’re welcomed or not. Or go a bit farther and prioritize producing in accessible spaces, including crowdsourcing ramps for your stages.
19. What are you currently reading, watching, and listening to?
I’m currently reading We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad. Queer, feminist horror is my favorite genre. I’m rewatching Netflix’s Castlevania because I love vampire dramas. And I’m listening to Sabrina Carpenter on repeat because I contain multitudes.
20. If you could share a dressing room with one performer for the rest of your career, who would it be?
This one’s thankfully very easy. My burlesque (and real-world) bestie is Sally Stardust. They are the pink to my goth and we do almost everything together. Plus sharing space with a fellow disabilibabe makes life easier and happier.
21. What would you like your life and career to look like in 10 years time?
I would love to still be teaching and performing, although it will be in my new home of Aotearoa (New Zealand) where I am moving in two months. Hopefully my teaching collective, Essential Tease, and my creative process can both thrive in that new environment.
Visit Jacqueline Boxx at missdisaburlytease.com and follow her on Instagram.