Original story published in The Ellsworth American.
ELLSWORTH — Fishnet stockings, high heels, raunchy music and friendship — every Friday night inside Dot’s Photography studio, a group of women gather together for their weekly dance class.
The room quickly fills with laughter as they pull on their tights, the space echoing with compliments and affirmations as they line up to warm up. Here, burlesque isn’t just about being provocative — it’s a sisterhood.
“My studio is really about body positivity,” Megan Crochere, owner of Eye Candy Dance Studio, explained. “Every single person, it doesn’t matter age, race, your ability, your size, even your gender, really — you can do burlesque, and that’s what we’re about.”
Crochere started offering burlesque classes in November of last year. After seeing a YouTube video of a woman talking about how confident the dance style made her and attending a few classes herself, Crochere decided to start offering her own classes through her studio in Bangor. Now, the studio has opened a second location in Belmont, and operates its third location out of Dot’s Photography in Ellsworth.
“I’m a mom of five, and, you know, there are times in my life where I haven’t felt great about myself,” she said. “... I felt the message I was getting, the confidence, was really something everyone needed.”
But body positivity isn’t the only cause the class supports. Brandy Marchetti, founder and president of Ride for a Cure (an annual ATV ride benefiting cancer research), met Crochere during one of her classes. Marchetti introduced Crochere and Amanda Clark, owner of Dot’s Photography Company, and the three joined forces to bring everything together.
On March 4, Eye Candy hosted what was billed as the region’s first-ever burlesque festival at Jeff’s Catering in Brewer, titled Queen City Burlesque Festival. Along with dance performances to see, attendees could also participate in bra pong (where bra cups replaced traditional cups) or bid in a bra auction for hand-decorated bras to raise money for Ride for a Cure.
“We started talking about how [we could] bring Ride for a Cure to burlesque, and we said, ‘Let’s do a bra pong!’” Marchetti said. “When we did our last show, we did a bra auction and a bra pong … A little over a thousand dollars went back to Ride for a Cure from [our last event] in March.”
Clark, who lost her grandmother to cancer, has been a supporter of Ride for a Cure for years. When the opportunity arose to host Eye Candy’s dance classes in her photography studio, she embraced the chance to bring burlesque closer to home.
“Being able to put my emotions into it in a positive way instead of dwelling on how much I miss her and how much cancer sucks is really an uplifting feeling,” Clark said.
Eye Candy’s next burlesque show event is on Saturday, June 24, at Jeff’s Catering in Brewer. The money raised will go to Ride for a Cure, whose annual ATV ride is being held Sunday, Oct. 1, in Hancock.
“What burlesque does is bring out your inner confidence,” Crochere said. “It’s moving your body — maybe in a suggestive way, but it doesn’t have to be about that. It’s really about learning how your body moves, appreciating it for what it can do, and bringing that out through dance.”