Early 2024, with the Burlesque TOP 50 wrapped up for another year, I heard a name dropped respectfully in passing conversation. A month later I heard it again – someone raving about a show-stealing performer at a festival the previous weekend. By late autumn it had become a predictable mantra – ‘Oh girl, this one act… You have got to run something on them. Blew me away! Qu- Queen- Hang on, what was it…’
So at the end of the year, when a certain Qween Quan debuted at No.1 in arguably the most gasp-inducing, galvanising TOP 50 chart in sixteen years, it made complete sense to me. When you’re in people’s mouths, on the tips of their tongues, etched in their minds and inked on their eyes, what can it be but bona fide influence by osmosis?
Instantly recogniseable online or across a showroom, the 29 year old New Orleans native defines larger-than-life presence, not just physically, vocally or magnanimously, but in a bacchanalian, avian sort of way. Famous for their mesmerising acts with decadent feather fans, they can be majestic to watch, mischievous to kiki with in DMs, and delightfully chatty and thoughtful on the phone – as I discovered during a two hour call in late October.
“Like… What planet are you from?” I open.
“I jokingly say I just grew up really gay,” Quan laughs. “I was that kid dancing around in my room, practising cheerleader moves, drawing and painting. I never did theatre or anything like that; I just had a really strong interest in creativity.
“When I discovered Drag Race it felt like a perfect way to learn a multitude of skills. But I was building a persona with no real end goal, you know? I was just doing bedroom drag – makeup looks, DIY costumes, posting photos online. Quan is part of my real name, so Qween Quan was just a ‘for now’ code name that stuck.
“Down the line I got offered a gig during Southern Decadence here in New Orleans. I thought I was just doing drag, but I was actually – unknowingly – performing alongside well known burlesque artists.”
Then came a pivotal shift before the COVID lockdown. The AllWays Lounge hired Quan as a burlesque performer, and they decided to fully commit. Post-pandemic, they found themselves booked for more variety and burlesque shows.
“Before then I was stripping as a drag queen, but I didn’t call it burlesque – I saw it as ‘doing reveals’. I didn’t want to call myself a burlesque performer unless I could present a respectful, high-quality version of it. But my brain always worked that way when I was designing costumes. I didn’t pad – I used my real body shape with corsets and bras. My looks were either prim and proper or deliberately risqué – ‘feminatrix’.”
I’m interested in their take on the relationship or friction between drag and burlesque, especially as drag often has more mainstream visibility and funding, while heavily borrowing burlesque aesthetics.
“Drag performers want the glamour and theatrics of burlesque, and burlesque performers want the pay and visibility of drag. Both think the grass is greener, and collaboration would solve most of the tension between them. Drag is about becoming larger than life – building a character, pushing energy outward, being the life of the party, while Burlesque often leans into a ‘kumbaya, everyone belongs’ energy, which isn’t always true. You still have to build a character, work a crowd, think about costuming.
“I was mentored by both drag and burlesque performers, so I take in everything I can from both and modify it for my own work. I also bring over the drag tipping culture. In drag, tipping is an active part of the show and people know they’re supposed to engage. We make the song long enough for it and my underwear has straps and pockets so I can collect tips while I move. You have to optimise for profit! And in NOLA we put on a show that makes people want to throw money at it.”
How is the New Orleans scene faring in the current climate?
“Summer is always tough for burlesque and drag here,” Quan sighs. “People leave, and the tourists who do come are looking for Bourbon Street, not shows like ours. And with certain people feeling more emboldened these days, we have to be careful. I prefer talking to people one-on-one, explaining what the show is instead of flyering the whole city. I don’t want to breadcrumb the wrong audience to the people I care about – I’d rather have a smaller crowd that truly gets it. It’s worth it when people leave saying, ‘That was the most exciting show I’ve seen,’ or ‘You made me feel something.’ That’s what keeps us going. The economy’s rough for everyone right now, but the art’s still alive.”
Quan is effusive about the collective of NOLA performers who were listed with them in last year’s TOP 50, particularly La Reina, who debuted at No 2.
“La Reina and I became friends just from being in shows together – we were magnetically drawn to each other. We’re both competitive but focus on being the best versions of ourselves rather than try to outdo each other. I’d rather give my rival the tools to compete properly than watch them drown. We grow by helping each other reach higher.
“Jeez Loueez was the first person to bring me into a festival. We kept crossing paths at shows and got to know each other through the scene. Then a few years later, when I came to Chicago, she put me in her show. She really took care of me and made sure I was comfortable. I still have friendships from that incredible weekend.
“Ariana Amour is an amazing community member. She goes to every show she possibly can, records everyone’s acts and sends them videos afterwards. She’s also part of the reason I got into fans. One night I performed with these tiny blue plastic fans and it undermined a strong act up to that point. She told me never to go on stage with them again, and she was right. It pushed me to make my own fans, first from polyester fabric, then proper feather ones. It changed my path entirely.”
I ask where their renowned skill with fans originated.
“New Orleans has always been a feather city. I grew up seeing the Mardi Gras Indians covered head to toe in ostrich feathers. Their suits take a year to make, and they wear them to honour Black resilience. That whole idea of turning struggle into spectacle really stuck with me.
“Once I tried fans, that was it. It felt natural – the movement, the rhythm, the way you can become bigger, intimidate or seduce. I was a big biology nerd in high school and loved learning about animal behaviour, and if you use fans properly, you do tap into something primal. You take up more space; you look powerful. The audience doesn’t know if they’re afraid or attracted. It’s human and not human at the same time.”
As Jahireen, Quan is now a prolific fan maker, too, thanks to a master of the craft.
“I reached out to the designer Donna Touch, one of the best fan makers around, just to say how much I admired her work. She replied, ‘Do you want to learn how to make them?’
“I told her, ‘Absolutely – I’m just broke!’ She laughed and said she’d teach me anyway. She basically built her own competition by teaching me, and that’s something I’ll always be grateful for. She was glad to have someone she could talk to about the craft, because not many people understand the details – the weight, the balance, the movement. That meant a lot.”
We touch on their distinctive mix of glamour, humour and edge, with subversive moments – pushing a feather through their nose, for example.
“I like to set an expectation and then completely break it,” Quan explains. “I might come out looking elegant and poised – a bird-like, graceful figure – and then suddenly do something sideshow or absurd. It’s a way of saying, ‘Don’t overthink it. Just enjoy the moment.’ I’ll slap my belly or poke fun at myself so they relax and laugh and we can get to the heart of it.
“Burlesque is storytelling through body and costume – humour, sex, and theatre all at once. Taking up space you weren’t meant to take, and doing it beautifully. If someone laughs, gasps, or feels seen, that’s the reward.”
“I don’t want fame or power. I want validation for the work I’m already doing. If I change what I’m doing to fit that expectation, I’m no longer the person people voted for.”
Inevitably, we dive deep and dwell on the Burlesque TOP 50 and Qween Quan’s unprecedented debut at No.1 last year.
“Honestly, being on the Top 50 wasn’t even on my radar,” they explain. “It’s not that I didn’t care, but I’d only been doing burlesque about three and a half years, and I was performing alongside people who’ve been in the game two decades.
“I didn’t know what to do with myself. There was imposter syndrome. I had to sit down and remind myself what could have led to it. The times someone needed to hear something I said. The hours and thousands I’ve spent on feathers so people could look good on stage. backstage talking with people, building relationships…
“Then there was the immediate reaction from some people I thought were peers – some who’ve been on the list. Finding out about private group chats. The ‘men are taking over’ narrative. Micro-aggressions and backhanded compliments from people I’d made costumes for – helped with hair, music, movement – biting the hand. Suddenly saying, ‘I don’t need the list’ – as if I need it. I don’t need any of it. I’ve been doing the work. The list was a nice medal of honour.
“It was draining at times, too. People wait for you to jump into the daily discourse. I had to check my ego: how much is me inserting myself where it’s not needed, and how much is actually necessary? I’d start writing think pieces, then realise we don’t need a think piece a day. I don’t need to force ‘influence’. People love me for me.
“On the other side, there was real inspiration. I sit at a lot of intersections – queer, non-binary, fat, Black, sometimes doing drag, sometimes burlesque – so I speak to many people. White women told me they felt good in their bodies after seeing me. Black women said they felt like they could keep going, that the list was reachable one day. That felt good.
Was there particular celebration or pushback from their Black peers?
“There was pride, and there were mixed feelings. In a lot of minority groups, when someone gains influence, people assume your power is now for the entire community. I became an open-source information hub to people I had no relationship with. People didn’t expect me to say no, but I’m allowed to keep parts of my craft protected.
“One Black performer said, ‘Treat yourself like a celebrity. You should raise your rate. You should do X, Y, Z. Be polite, be the least messy, don’t be ‘ratchet’. Limit your time with people, make yourself scarce so you seem like a commodity.’ Why would I do that? I don’t want fame or power. I want validation for the work I’m already doing. If I change what I’m doing to fit that expectation, I’m no longer the person people voted for.”
As the creator and most recent chart-topper respectively, we acknowledge the weight and significance of this seventeen year process.
“For some people, that list becomes IT,” Quan affirms. “I want people to understand: once you get the accolade, you still ask, ‘What now? Who am I now? What should I do?’
“It’s crucial to understand the difference between wanting validation and wanting power,” they continue. “Because power, in this sense, doesn’t really exist – without purpose, it’s empty. Even the people at the very top still need support from within the community. For me, the recognition amplified what I already had to say, but some people are just collecting crowns, hoping they’ll do the work for them. I’m planning to talk to whoever becomes the next Number One to say, ‘Here’s what I wish someone had told me’.”
What would they like to tell the scene right now?
“My big picture focus is making sure we get paid properly. We can’t keep doing four gigs for twenty-five dollars. There’s spiritual growth in this work – we grow as people through it, hopefully – but at the bare minimum, everyone needs to understand that if you want quality, you have to pay for quality. If you want ostrich feathers, pay ostrich feather prices. If you want the Queen of Burlesque in your small show in the middle of Idaho, you should already have the kind of money that’s respectable to offer before you even ask the rate.”
Would they be happy to see fewer performers, fewer shows, if it meant better pay and higher standards?
“Yes – we don’t need this many shows. Every other month there’s a new producer putting on another event, and a lot of them lose money, then get upset that people aren’t attending or promoting it. I’d rather perform less and see fewer shows, but have them done with intention, made with focus, quality and care.
It’s an underrated skill, I suggest, to have the conviction to step back and say, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t do this right now,’ or ‘Maybe I’m not ready.’
“Exactly. We need those conversations with ourselves and each other. If we had fewer shows, we could actually pay attention to who’s going where, and audiences wouldn’t stumble into a bad one and decide never to go again. It’s crucial that we collectively do better – make the work worth showing up for every single time.
“I watched an interview about the AIDS crisis, and someone said the thing we lost wasn’t just artists – we lost their audience. The people who loved, followed, and supported the art. That hit me hard. We never rebuilt that audience. Now we have people who don’t know what they want, no continuity of taste, awareness or education. So we’re back to asking crowds, ‘Has anyone been to a burlesque show before?’ There’s no scaffolding.
And in this current climate, offstage activity has to play a bigger role in our survival strategy, too, I pose.
“Absolutely – you should also have a skill that supports burlesque when you’re not performing. If you’re good at rhinestoning, offer that. If you’re good at choreography, teach. If you’re a great kitten, super organised or technically minded, make that its own career. There are so many possibilities, but you have to think outside the box to sustain yourself.
“Find your people. Keep your circle small but honest. Don’t rush. The internet makes everything look instant, but good work takes time. Some of us won’t perform at BHoF. Some of us won’t make the lists. And that’s fine. There are so many directions to take this art form. And remember why you started. If it stops being fun or meaningful, step back until it feels right again. We’re human beings on stage with bills to pay, bodies that ache, mental health to manage. Applause is wonderful, but respect for the work behind it matters more.”
Follow Qween Quan on Instagram, TikTok, and visit www.jahireen.com.