Fancy Feast is not your typical New Yorker. By day, she lends an ear as a licensed therapist, navigating the complexities of the human psyche. But as the weekend arrives, she transforms into Fancy Feast, a captivating Cabaret Dancer illuminating the stages of New York City with her burlesque performances. This duality reveals a fascinating perspective on beauty, confidence, and the power of performance.
Inspired by iconic figures like Jessica Rabbit, Fancy Feast’s journey into the world of performance began in her teenage years. “Jessica Rabbit started it off,” she recalls, reminiscing about the cartoon character’s confident embodiment of femininity. This early fascination laid the groundwork for her future artistic expression.
Her pivotal moment arrived during a tenth-grade production of “Cabaret.” Slipping into lingerie and performing a chair dance in front of an audience was an “aha moment.” For Fancy Feast, who describes herself as a “sexually expressive child,” the stage offered an outlet to explore her sensuality while simultaneously entertaining others. This early experience highlighted the potent combination of personal expression and audience engagement that would define her career as a cabaret dancer.
It wasn’t long before a friend introduced her to the mesmerizing world of burlesque. This experience felt like a realization of her long-held desires. The burlesque show encapsulated the “sexy vibe, wit, and hedonism” she had always been drawn to, modernized for contemporary sensibilities. From that moment, Fancy Feast knew she wanted to immerse herself in this world, shaping her life around the art of burlesque and cabaret performance.
Embracing Beauty on Her Own Terms: The Cabaret Stage as a Canvas
“I tell people I’m beautiful, and they believe me,” Fancy Feast states, highlighting the transformative power of self-perception and performance. As a cabaret dancer, she challenges conventional beauty standards. She identifies as a “fat Jewish woman who is exploring her queer identity,” acknowledging that she might not fit the stereotypical image of a dancer. However, on stage, she redefines beauty as “situational,” a concept she embodies through her performances.
Recalling an experience performing for a group of finance professionals in the Lower East Side, Fancy Feast illustrates this point vividly. She recognized that in her everyday life, these individuals might overlook her. Yet, after her cabaret performance, they were captivated, showering her with admiration and money. This stark contrast underscored her realization: beauty is not inherent but rather “a set of choices that we make.” She possesses an internal “switch” to activate her beauty, choosing to assert her beauty on stage and thereby altering how audiences perceive her.
Beyond Fleeting Ideals: Finding Peace in Unattainable Beauty
Fancy Feast also reflects on the elusive and often costly nature of beauty ideals. She sees the pursuit of beauty as a never-ending “process of negotiating with failure,” chasing an ever-shifting goal. Referencing her childhood admiration for Jessica Rabbit again, she acknowledges the impossibility of fully embodying a cartoon character. This understanding became a source of liberation. Recognizing beauty as “unattainable” brought her “more peace around it.” Instead of viewing beauty as an obstacle, she reframed it as a “game I could choose to play,” freeing herself from the pressures of unrealistic standards.
Communication Over Commodification: Lessons from a Sex Educator
Before fully embracing her cabaret dancer persona, Fancy Feast worked as a sex educator at a feminist toy store. This experience provided valuable insights into people’s anxieties and communication barriers surrounding intimacy. She observed a widespread “scared[ness] to talk about bodies, desires, and sexual interactions.” This lack of open dialogue often led people to seek external solutions, like sex toys, as substitutes for genuine communication.
Fancy Feast realized that while sex toys can enhance intimacy, they cannot replace the crucial role of communication in fulfilling sexual desires. Many individuals struggled to articulate their needs and preferences to their partners. She emphasizes that “talking openly with your partner” is the key to achieving desired sexual experiences, highlighting the importance of verbal connection in intimate relationships, a theme that resonates both in her role as a therapist and her understanding of human connection as a cabaret dancer.
The “And Then?”: Moving Beyond Confidence Narratives
Fancy Feast acknowledges her own “unearned confidence,” amplified by years of performing and receiving audience adulation. However, she cautions against oversimplifying narratives around confidence, especially for individuals who don’t fit conventional norms. She believes that focusing solely on confidence overlooks the complexities of human experience. “Confidence is also not the most interesting thing about a person,” she asserts, expressing a desire for stories that go beyond mere self-assurance.
She advocates for narratives that explore “what happens next,” urging for stories that delve into the lived experiences of individuals, particularly fat people, beyond just achieving confidence. Fancy Feast’s book contributes to this broader conversation, aiming to expand the limited representation of diverse bodies and lives, focusing on relationships and experiences that are “more profound than moving through the world with confidence.” Through her performances as a cabaret dancer and her work as an author, Fancy Feast champions a more nuanced and inclusive understanding of beauty, confidence, and the multifaceted nature of human experience.
