Rozanna Lilley
Fan Dance
Patricia Nelson struts into the spotlight
wearing only two fans
and a fake suntan
giant plumes plucked from a ranch-raised ostrich
branched barbs mapping the miles
from Shanghai to Sydney
no maiden voyage
Offers her burlesque pearl
at Oyster Bill’s Club
the Model-B Fords queuing
across Tom Ugly’s Bridge
cascading feathers swoop and bluster
teasing hard men
(razorblades concealed in crumpled cuffs)
Outstretching borrowed wings
she arches one bare foot
sharpening her claw on the parquet floor
turning, she feels the pull
of the night sky the beckoning updraft
but, flightless, remains
captured in the airy echo
of terrestrial applause
Fan Dance is about Patricia Nelson, an ash blonde New Zealand showgirl who performed
her risqué dance with ostrich feathers in Shanghai and then, for a brief season, in Sydney
in 1938. The fan dance was first performed by Sally Rand at Chicago’s World Fair in
1933; she was arrested for indecent exposure. The poem interrogates the figure of the
showgirl both as an object of voyeurism and subject of performative freedom.