Pirate's Cove

What can be imagined can never be un-imagined

(Grist) Una Aya Osato has been performing since she was 2 years old — she landed her first part after chatting up a casting director in a Chinese restaurant — and she’s been political for almost as long. As a New York City teenager involved in Reclaim the Streets, a social justice movement that transformed city blocks into dance parties, all she wanted for her 17th birthday was a bullhorn. But before she had a chance to really use it, she was arrested, for sound production without a permit.

Burlesque, it turned out, brought together all the elements of performance that interested Osato — theater and dance and storytelling and politics. Particularly Brown Girls Burlesques’ style: sexy, yes, but smart, campy and feminist, too — the sort of burlesque that’s seen a revival in the past few years. She thought, “Oh, yeah, I could try that.”

As “the exHOTic other,” Osato began creating burlesque pieces on everything from gentrification to U.S. nationalism. Working with her sister Michi (who performs with Brown Girls Burlesuqe, too, as “sister selva”), she created burlesque and clowning acts that grappled with questions about the Earth, destruction, and human rights.

Osato’s newest, “PolarBare,” tackles one of the biggest issues of all: climate change. She performed it for the first time this past winter as part of a Brown Girls Burlesque show in New York.

What can be seen can never be unseen