“More than just striptease”: how Undine LaVerve brought Burlesque to Malta
“More than just striptease”: how Undine LaVerve brought Burlesque to Malta
by Hot Malta
On a balmy Friday in Valletta, the baroque arches of Splendid Theatre glow a soft crimson. Feather boas brush against the ancient limestone, sequins glitter under the chandeliers, and a ripple of anticipation moves through the crowd as the band strikes a slinky, New-Orleans-infused riff. This is not a scene from 1920s Montmartre; it is Malta, 2024, and the woman centre-stage in a Swarovski-studded corset is Undine LaVerve—the Berlin-born performer who single-handedly transplanted burlesque onto Maltese soil.
LaVerve arrived on the island in 2018, expecting a two-week holiday. Instead, she found herself spellbound by the theatricality of village festas and the island’s unapologetic love of spectacle. “Fireworks at 8 a.m., brass bands marching through narrow alleys, statues hoisted shoulder-high—Malta already celebrated the body, the costume, the drama,” she recalls over a cappuccino in Strait Street, once the notorious haunt of British sailors and cabaret girls. “I realised burlesque could slot right into that tradition.”
What began as a one-off workshop for six curious dancers in a Sliema studio has mushroomed into a scene. Today LaVerve runs weekly classes attended by 80 students—from 18-year-old drama students to grandmothers reclaiming their bodies after mastectomies. Her troupe, the Malta Teaze Revue, has performed everywhere from the Malta International Arts Festival to a charity gala at Casino Malta, raising €30,000 for domestic-violence shelters last year alone.
The cultural significance runs deeper than sequins. Malta’s relationship with the female body has long been ambivalent: statues of the Madonna crown every village square, yet open discussion of sexuality remains taboo. Burlesque, with its cheeky wink and razor-sharp satire, offered a middle path. “We’re not saying ‘look at me, I’m an object’,” explains local performer Chantal “Cherry Lush” Micallef, a 34-year-old lawyer who moonlights in pasties. “We’re saying ‘I own this body, every curve, every scar, and I decide how you see it’.”
That message resonates on an island where divorce only became legal in 2011 and abortion remains criminal. During the pandemic, LaVerve streamed free “Isolation Tease” tutorials; participants reported improved body image and reduced anxiety. One 52-year-old participant from Żejtun told Times of Malta the classes helped her “feel alive again” after chemotherapy. The classes now include monthly sessions in Maltese sign language, ensuring inclusivity.
Tourism officials have taken notice. In 2023, the Malta Tourism Authority hosted LaVerve for a campaign targeting “cultural bohemians”—travellers who spend 40 % more than sun-and-sea visitors. Boutique hotels in Valletta report a 25 % uptick in bookings coinciding with burlesque weekends. Even traditionalists are coming round; last Easter, a priest in Gozo invited LaVerve to choreograph a (fully clothed) parody of the Temptation of St Anthony for the village drama group. “If it’s good-natured and brings people together, why not?” the priest shrugged.
Challenges persist. A fringe group dubbed “Front Against Moral Decay” picketed a family-friendly matinée in Floriana, brandishing rosaries and denouncing “imported filth.” The backlash, however, triggered a national conversation about art, censorship, and women’s autonomy. Prime Minister Robert Abela weighed in, tweeting that “Malta must be confident enough to laugh at itself—especially when the joke is wrapped in feathers.”
Tonight, as LaVerve peels off a satin glove to thunderous applause, the gesture feels less like provocation and more like liberation. Behind her, a screen projects vintage footage of Maltese festa fireworks, the bursts synchronised to each tantalising reveal. In that moment, past and present, sacred and sensual, local and global collapse into one exuberant wink. The audience—bankers, nuns-in-training, British stag parties, and Maltese nonnas—erupts as one.
When the curtain falls, Splendid Theatre empties into Strait Street, where the ghosts of cabaret girls once sang for sailors. Now the voices are Maltese, loud and unashamed, humming a chorus of reclaimed confidence. Undine LaVerve may have brought burlesque to Malta, but Malta, in its flamboyant, contradictory way, has made the art form unmistakably its own.
