Seasons Teasons
Burlesque, Labor & the Boudoir
What does it mean to perform when the performance is also how you feed your family, keep your home, and hold your community together?
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Exhibit Thesis
Season's Teasings: Burlesque, Labor & the Boudoir is a curatorial exhibition rooted in Denver's history as the city of a thousand brothels — examining the intersectionality of burlesque, sex work, and parenthood as survival. The exhibition highlights the contributions of queer women, trans women, and women of color who were instrumental in the city's labor history, as well as its LGBTQ and sex workers' rights movements.
Through the display of costumes, artworks and performance documents step through our holiday garden that honors the past and current burlesque performers, sex workers, mothers, and community leaders who lived in the intersectionality of what is now considered the spectrum of sex work. Inspired by interdisciplinary research around sexuality, gender, parenthood and reproduction. This exhibit is a reclamation of the whimsy marginalized worker through the lens of performer interviews, personal archives and co-curatorial installations on loan from the Ecdysiast Arts Museum and the Black Sex Work Collective.
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Aquarius Moon
Aquarius Moon is a Somali-Nigerian American performance artist, producer, and cultural curator shaping the future of burlesque through performance, education, and community-building. A globally recognized artist and 2025 Queen of Burlesque, she is the founder of Metro Cabaret Club and curator of Every(Body) Wants to Be a Showgirl, a landmark exhibition celebrating over 100 Black burlesque performers worldwide. Through her work, Aquarius champions cultural preservation, inclusivity, and a more expansive vision of showgirl culture.
ABOUT THE MUSEUM
Ecdysiast Arts Museum
The Ecdysiast Arts Museum preserves and celebrates the artistry, history, and cultural legacy of burlesque and ecdysiast performance. Through archival preservation and storytelling, it honors the performers, innovators, and communities who have shaped the art form across generations.
ABOUT THE COLLECTIVE
Black Sex Worker Collective
The Black Sex Worker Collective centers the voices, experiences, and advocacy of Black sex workers, fostering community, visibility, and collective empowerment. Its work challenges stigma while affirming the histories, contributions, and self-determination of those whose stories have too often been excluded from cultural narratives.