u/NewFolkKupuna

It’s been a couple of months since I took an Introduction to Burlesque Movement class. Some of you may remember that I posted here beforehand wondering whether a 68-year-old man had any business taking a burlesque class. You encouraged me to do it, so I did.

Since then I’ve been watching instructional videos and practicing daily: strut, bump and grind, bevel pose, arm work, eye contact, and body traces. (The shimmy is still not happening.)

Without a mirror, I slow down, move with intention, and start to feel present in the movement. That part feels good, and I can tell I’m improving.

In front of a mirror, though, I hit a wall. A few days ago, I caught my reflection in the at the end of a body trace and had a visceral, gut-level reaction: “Nope. That’s not right.” It wasn’t embarrassment. It wasn’t that I didn’t like how I looked. It was immediate.

I think some of this is years of conditioning about how a man is supposed to move. Some part of me seems to think these movements are fine for a woman, but not for me. I’m still trying to understand exactly what I’m reacting to.

The funny thing is, nobody else seems to be telling me I don’t have permission to do this. You all certainly didn’t. I’m beginning to wonder whether this is about giving myself permission to move like that—about accepting that this is mine to do.

Has anyone else dealt with that kind of disconnect between how a movement feels from the inside and what you see in the mirror? I’m not looking for reassurance about how I look. I’m curious whether others have felt that gap, whether it changed with time and practice, and what helped the movement that felt right on the inside eventually feel right in the mirror too.

A realization I've been wrestling with recently: maybe the biggest limits in my life were the ones I imposed on myself.

Eleven years ago today, I came home and told my wife I'd lost my job.

She smiled.

Not exactly the response I was expecting.

Over the next week, we decided to do something that, to our friends and family, probably sounded at least a little crazy: sell almost everything we owned, buy a truck and a fifth-wheel trailer, and travel full-time around the US and Canada.

Then we spent the next three weeks trying to talk ourselves out of it.

We failed.

For the next eight years, we traveled through 44 states and eight Canadian provinces. It remains one of the best decisions we've ever made.

For a long time, I thought the lesson of that experience was about getting outside my comfort zone. Push through fear. Do hard things. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.

Lately, I've been thinking that wasn't the real lesson at all.

The hardest part wasn't the discomfort. It was giving myself permission to try in the first place.

Permission to do something I thought other people would consider weird, irresponsible, or foolish.

Permission to fail publicly.

Permission to discover that who I thought I was — and what I thought I wanted — wasn't fixed.

When I look back at the opportunities I didn't pursue, the experiences I didn't try, and the risks I didn't take, I'm not sure other people were stopping me nearly as much as I thought they were.

More often, I had decided what I imagined other people expected of me, and then lived as though those expectations were real. And sometimes, if I'm being honest, not trying felt safer than trying and failing.

Losing my job didn't just lead to eight years of travel. It started a process of questioning assumptions I'd been carrying about myself for decades.

Now, at 68, I find myself coming back to the same question over and over.

Not "Can I do this?"

But, "Why not?"

Has anyone else found that the biggest barriers weren't age, money, or other people — but the stories you told yourself about who you were supposed to be?

A few days after a late-night burlesque show at a music festival I attend, I was talking with one of the performers. After telling me how she got into burlesque, I jokingly said maybe I should do a routine someday.

Instead of laughing, she immediately said they'd love to have me participate, and she could help me build a routine.

Ever since that conversation, I've found myself thinking about it.

I'm a man in my late 60s. I have no dance background and no experience with burlesque. Part of me is intrigued by the idea of trying something completely outside my comfort zone. Another part of me is intimidated—not just by the performance aspect, but by wondering what other people would think.

So I'd like some honest perspectives.

Is learning and performing burlesque at my age realistic? Have any of you started later in life, or seen older beginners succeed? What qualities matter most for someone considering it?

I'm genuinely curious and asking seriously.

Another shadowcast question from the newbie overthinker corner.

Let me preface this by saying I am very new to acting. My first performance was last year, and I also have a tendency to overanalyze things.

One of the core things I’ve been taught about acting is that you need to understand the character and their motivations. Build some kind of internal backstory. Figure out who they are, what they want, and why they behave the way they do. Even if none of it is explicitly stated.

Does that same approach apply to shadowcasting?

I know shadowcast exists in a different space than traditional theater. There’s audience interaction, lip sync, comedy, camp, callbacks, choreography, and in some productions a lot of deliberate exaggeration. Sometimes the performances seem almost archetypal rather than psychologically grounded.

But I also get the sense that the stronger performances still come from performers making actual choices rather than just “doing poses” or reproducing blocking.

Part of me worries I’m overcomplicating something that is supposed to be fun and chaotic. Another part of me feels like having an internal understanding of the character would actually make the performance more specific and believable, even in a shadowcast environment.

So for those of you with shadowcast experience:

Do you build backstories and motivations for your characters, or is shadowcasting more about energy/style/presence than traditional character work?

68 yo guy. My everyday style is usually 7mm pearl studs, sometimes turquoise or malachite studs. I tried hoops and realized they’re just not me.

Thinking about trying something different, maybe drops or another style with a little movement but still understated.

Curious what others around my age have liked or found worked for them.

68 yo guy. bald. My everyday style is usually 7mm pearl studs, sometimes turquoise or malachite studs. I tried hoops and realized they’re just not me.

Thinking about trying something different, maybe drops or another style with a little movement but still understated.

Curious what others around my age have liked or found worked for them.

I’m a 68-year-old guy, and I’m thinking about trying out for our local RHPS shadowcast.

I’m old enough to have watched Rocky Horror with my girlfriend freshman year at Texas, back when it was just a weird movie and not the whole cult thing it became later. So now I’m wondering if I’m too old for this, or if I should just go for it.

Am I being ridiculous, or is this totally fine?