As an artist and storyteller, Madame Ode’miin Surprise gravitated toward burlesque but was hesitant to try it out for herself. In July 2019, Vice Canada posted a short documentary about Lou Lou la Duchesse de Rière, an Afro-Indigenous burlesque dancer from Kahnawake who was crowned the New Orleans Queen of Burlesque in 2018. Seeing another Indigenous woman perform burlesque inspired Madame to dip her toes in the glittery waters.

Around the time that she watched Lou Lou’s video, Madame had been introduced to Belle Jumelles, a local burlesque legend and self-described “fierce, fabulous, fat, queer femme.”

“I thought she was the coolest human being in the entire world,” Madame remembered. “I still do! I later found out that Belle was also like, ‘Oh my god, Madame wants to have coffee with me! She’s a bad bitch.’ So, we were both fangirling over each other!”

Madame Ode’miin Surprise pitched a collaboration between herself, Belle, and sex and pleasure educator Luna Matatas. They combined their respective knowledges of Indigeneity, burlesque, and body neutrality to create an Indigenous burlesque workshop called Indigibabes.

With some light encouragement (“Some folks I brought in kicking and screaming,” Madame admitted), they gathered thirteen participants. Most were less interested in a professional burlesque career than twelve weeks of fun with their chosen family. Part of the workshop was to learn the history and rules of burlesque — honouring those who came before you is an Indigenous way of knowing and being — but Madame and Belle urged the participants to take them with a grain of salt and stay true to their own creative intuitions. “Here are all the rules. Fuck the rules. That’s just a different form of colonization.”

She lovingly bullied her friends to perform in the celebratory showcase at Glad Day Bookshop. Of the thirteen workshop participants, nine performed, and afterward seven were itching to get on stage again. Luckily, Madame Ode’miin Surprise had an idea to take their newly-formed burlesque troupe on the road to the Nogojiwanong Indigenous Fringe Festival with a show titled “Not Your Sacred Object”.

“We kind of got thrust into this limelight entirely not ready. We were having to learn how to be professional burlesque dancers very, very quickly, essentially after doing a 101 class.” As soon as word started to spread about the Indigibabes, the troupe immediately got caught in a blizzard of bookings. This newfound fame was a far cry from the initial protective secrecy of the workshops for fear of backlash.

“Our own community [uses modesty] as a coping mechanism for oversexualization, colonization, and murdered and missing Indigenous women.” Madame went on to explain that the push for modesty doesn’t just influence the Indigenous community, but is a symptom of the misogynistic dominant culture. “But there’s this extra layer of racism and colonization for Indigenous women, so we have this idea of modesty that we really hold onto.”

This use of modesty as a protective tool was something Madame Ode’miin Surprise had to contend with both internally and externally, considering the dichotomy between the oversexualization and fetishization of Indigenous women and her desire to participate in the sparkly and alluring reclamation that burlesque offers.

“I was tired of being told ‘good Indigenous women don’t.’” Growing up as a larger-bodied, Indigenous, queer adoptee, she realized that there was no point trying to mould herself into boxes that she would never fit into. “I guess I’ve always been a bit of a rebel,” she smirked. “Oh, you’re going to tell me no? Watch me! I’m going to prove you wrong.”

Lou Lou also touches on this in the Vice documentary: “This guy was just like: ‘This is not what we should be teaching our women. We should be teaching them modesty. There are thousands of murdered and missing Native women. How is this helpful? This isn’t a positive role model.’” In the clip, Lou Lou sits on a blue couch, her hand wrapped around a handcrafted mug. “So I internalized that and at first, I was like, ‘Oh my god, I don’t want to offend’, you know? But then, I got mad. I’m tired as an Indigenous woman. The only time I get to hear about my sexuality is in reference to being raped or murdered.”