An Interview With Disabled Burlesque Performer Cerebral Pussy

Initially, she seems like the typical NYU student. Coffee in hand, sitting in the Tisch Lounge, consistently distracted by various friends yet still somehow getting things done.

Meet Tisch senior Cerebral Pussy, an up-and-coming burlesque performer who has Cerebral Palsy, a congenital disorder of movement, muscle tone, or posture. She tells us she derived her stage name from “A delightful pun, but it has become more than just a cute joke. The words ‘cerebral palsy’ used to make me cringe. It was something I was to be ashamed of. The same thing often goes for sexual content. Cerebral Pussy lets things I was afraid to claim now define me.”

Going from acting to making original work is a common process for Tisch students, but the route to burlesque is not as typical. Relatively new to the scene and with limited resources, Cerebral Pussy (who prefers not disclose her government name in public) does not yet have a huge body of work to her name.

However, she is rich in ideas, some of which include a “slutty FDR routine” (possibly based on a Nude Deal) and a Christmas-themed Tiny Tim romp called “Not-So-Tiny-Tits: God Bless Us Everyone.” Another performance consists of Pussy dressed as a sort of DIY mermaid, with plastic wrap binding her legs and a cardboard cutout of a painted fish tail, wheeling about the stage in her mobility scooter to the dulcet tones of a recorder cover of “My Heart Will Go On.” Deadpan as can be, she gradually strips while a chorus of recorders rises to a squawking crescendo.

So how did she discover burlesque? Last year, after taking a few classes in creating original work for the stage, she decided to create a solo show her junior year at Tisch that focused on comedically (and often uncomfortably) calling attention to how the disabled body must operate in an able-bodied world, which includes sexuality.

“I was making this show that was very clown-induced, but clowns are supposed to be asexual, so what I was doing wasn’t really clowning,” she said. “It was burlesque.”

Her mentor for her solo show was Julie Atlas Muz, burlesque “royalty” who happens to have a disabled husband, actor and performer Mat Fraser, who recently appeared in American Horror Story. They saw her work, encouraged her to do more, and introduced her to performance opportunities outside the academic realm such as Cripfest, an all-day performance showcase at the prestigious Brooklyn Academy of Music featuring all-disabled performers that Fraser curated, where she got the chance to perform an updated excerpt of her first solo show. In the middle of this all, Cerebral Pussy was born.

“The burlesque community and burlesque audiences are so welcoming. They’re super friendly, and are some of the most vocal and participatory audiences that I’ve seen. I think that’s why I started to do burlesque in an official setting,” she remarked.

Amidst all this talk of removing clothing, one must remember that Cerebral Pussy is not just a new burlesque performer theatrically stripping for a live audience, she is also a new burlesque performer with cerebral palsy.

“Booking yourself is hard, and then booking yourself in accessible venues is even harder. All of the venues I’ve performed at except one, the stage hasn’t been accessible. Some of them, the venue itself isn’t accessible. That’s a problem… When I tell [many venues] I’m a disabled burlesque performer, they’re like ‘Oh… Well… Send us some videos, and maybe we’ll get back to you.’ So mostly what I’ve relied on is word of mouth.”

When able-bodied burlesque performers see her work, Pussy says reactions have been mixed. “I get some people who are like, oh my god, that was so amazing, and I can’t tell if their compliments are because they’re kind of ableist and it was a ‘that was so inspirational’ kind of comment, or if they actually enjoyed it.”

However, she says she often enjoys the more uncomfortable moments.“I think that it’s really important to subvert able-bodied norms. I’m a body that I’ve never seen in film and television, let alone being sexual onstage. I mean, a disabled stripper — that’s essentially what I am. And I love that idea, because any narrative that’s ever about disability is like. ‘Oh, the poor asexual disabled one who will never find a partner… ‘ And I like to be able to like, really challenge that. That’s the thing that keeps me making work.”

When I ask her what it was like taking her clothes off for an audience for the first time, she answers with the same casual relish one would when speaking of tasting one’s very first candy. “Oh, it was the best,” she says with a smile. “People love tits and ass. I love tits and ass. It was so good.”

While we laugh and sling puns back and forth, she pauses for a moment.

“Sometimes I wish it didn’t always have to be hilarious,” she says. “I wish that I could go and do a classic number. But that’s just not the way my body is set up. And that’s okay. I can’t beautifully move across the stage, and I’m not gonna be really glamorous. But [I’ll be] making a joke out of my body so that everyone knows it’s okay to interact with disabled bodies as human beings who are ridiculous and have ridiculous needs and move ridiculous ways and are also really hot.”

You can find Cerebral Pussy on Facebook here.

[Mermaid performance photos by Patrick Arias and Anthony Disparte, clown performance photo by Caila Gale, other photos by Eat the Cake NYC]

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to provide additional context.