If you attend a Booklover’s Burlesque performance, you’re likely to encounter many strange and beautiful stories: from James Baldwin partying in Paris to a heartbreaking remembrance honoring and celebrating lives lost during the Salvadoran civil war.

Literary creatures grace the stage in many seductive forms: an owl man with long black talons, a fairy who really flies into the air lifted by her own hair and witches in cowboy hats and fringed black leather vests.

Burlesque, which usually includes a performer taking off at least some of their clothes, can be a fun escape, a form of protest or an expression of complex emotions ranging from grief and anger to joy and sexual liberation — just like literature.

The Booklover’s Festival pairs burlesque performances with literary readings.

Event organizer Lacy Knightly read a selection from Queer Weird West Tales by Julie Bozza during the Saturday night show of the festival.

“We’re the witches of the west,” Knightly read from a sparkly pink binder on stage at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland. “Wild women who dare to ride in the wild, dressed like cowboys and ranchers because those clothes are ready for adventure!”

Knightly founded Booklover’s Burlesque 10 years ago, and the festival just finished its fourth iteration.

“Just all of us being up there in all of our different bodies and colors … is political and very important,” said Knightly.

“When you say the word burlesque, sometimes there’s an image that comes to mind, and we usually break the image that comes to mind.”

Knightly collaborated with performers to help select the right reading, and reader, to match each person’s act — although some people do both, like Given.

“Lacy made the suggestion to me of, ‘I would really like to see James Baldwin represented’ and presented me with this piece,” Given said. “I appreciate him as a literary mind as well as a voice of activism, a voice of blackness and queerness.”

Given read a selection from “What is Queer Food” by food writer John Birdsall, detailing a Paris party with James Baldwin in attendance.

Their burlesque performance concluded with them reposing lengthwise across a chair in just a neck scarf and underwear, holding a scotch glass in one hand and scribbling in a journal with the other, as a recording of Baldwin himself played.

Not many shows feature the works of people like Baldwin in the same night as the song stylings of Jon Bon Jovi.

Performer Megz Madrone took to the stage after Knightly to sing a rendition of “Wanted Dead or Alive.” He managed to gracefully remove a pair of chaps while belting out the familiar lyrics, and then pulled out a very tiny guitar hidden in a very secure location to shred an air solo.

While plenty of numbers feature elements of humor and camp, for many performers their work was deeply emotional. Damian Luis, who goes by Woody Banter in drag, was onstage for the first time since getting top surgery 10 months ago.

“Yeah… it was scary,” said Luis. “It was probably the most vulnerable thing I’ve ever done on stage. Show an entire room full of people who don’t know me, what I grew up with and then who I am now.”

Woody grew up in the Mormon church and worked with reader Ken, who recited part of a Mormon pamphlet about sexual purity before the performance. Ken said he felt nervous deciding how to read the religious material because the rules he read on stage sound outdated to him.

“I knew it was going to be nerve wracking because he was going to be live singing,” said Ken. “And I upped the character and made it sound as ridiculous as it is!”

Burlesque fan Celeste Tanner has been attending Booklover’s events for years and said Ken and Woody Banter’s performance really stuck in her mind.

“The reading was hilarious, and so much fun and so much joy,” Tanner said. “And the performance, it literally messed up my makeup and made me cry. And I didn’t appreciate that because I worked hard on my makeup before I got here. But no, it was an amazing performance.”

She came to the Saturday performance in a custom outfit, decked out with miniature books festooning her hat, jewelry and skirt.

That follows common advice from burlesque and drag artists on how to prepare if you’re planning on attending a Booklover’s event or really any burlesque show: dress for the occasion, and bring your single-dollar bills to show your support.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/04/20/portland-salem-burlesque-festival/