Peek inside the Ecdysiast Arts Museum, Danielle Colby’s dazzling Davenport destination

It was hard to find time to chat with television personality Danielle Colby, and that’s expected. While most of us know her as an American Pickers cast member, Colby’s added a new role that’s filling her schedule: burlesque archivist.

Davenport residents can see the fruits of Colby’s labor at the Ecdysiast Arts Museum, located at 322 Brady St. The museum, which showcases an array of dazzling exhibits and collections dedicated to preserving the history of striptease arts, has been a brainchild of Colby’s for decades.

“My interest in burlesque history spans back to about 1996 when I first became aware of Bettie Page,” Colby said. “I was always very interested in [Page’s] bikinis. I found out that she made her own and was inspired by that. From Bettie Page I was introduced to Tempest Storm, her partner in the early Teaserama films.”

The museum’s name, Ecdysiast (pronounced ek-dizzy-ast), is one of the relics collected by Colby. “The word comes from early days … often used to describe a burlesque performer or somebody who peels as a career. I guess it was a friendlier term for the newspapers,” she quipped.

According to Colby, some of the museum’s must-see exhibits include a photo-matched replica of the infamous Josephine Baker banana skirt from 1931, the collections of Chicago performer Lynne O’Neill which spans over four decades, and an extremely rare show poster from the original Hot in Harlem Revue.

“The most important exhibit would probably be the Lorraine Gail Smith exhibit since that’s the one that made me decide to open up the museum,” Colby said. Smith, whose story Colby says reads like “a 1930s crime novel, except it was set in ’70s Boston,” was a featured dancer in the Combat Zone, an adult entertainment district. Her thoughts were captured in a 1975 interview for two documentarians who were working to archive the infamous community. Shortly after the interview, Smith was beaten to death by an abusive boyfriend.

Smith’s legacy is underrepresented, Colby said, so she dove into researching the late performer. “It is taking a long time to piece this story together, but this is the story that made me realize that I need to open a museum because it should not have taken years to piece together this information. We should have it readily available and accessible for people because these are important stories with important lessons.”

Burlesque is characterized by playful humor and vibrant titillation, which are served in spades at the new museum. But Colby grounds these displays of sexual freedom in the realities of sexual violence and exploitation around the world. As part of her research, Colby visited the Batey region of the Dominican Republic and met women and girls who’d survived trafficking, helping them work through their trauma via creative outlets such as jewelry making. These experiences gave Colby a deeper understanding of the contrast between burlesque and other forms of consensual sex work versus the dehumanizing practice of sex trafficking.

“For the last decade, I’ve been educating myself about human trafficking, sex trafficking in particular,” Colby said. “It’s a brutal violation of one’s autonomy, body, spirit and is very traumatizing. I think it’s incredibly important that we as a society and our lawmakers understand the difference.”

For Colby, launching the Ecdysiast Arts Museum has been a series of lessons and breakthroughs, something she hopes its visitors will experience. Colby said fans have already shown up and shown out. She named a who’s who of local talent that have helped promote Ecdysiast in its formative months: Dahlia Dutch, Moaning Medusa, Gem Fatale and Hexa Peele, among others.

“We have been fully embraced by our patrons and our local dancers who helped us put the museum together,” Colby said.

“Downtown Davenport has been so encouraging and wonderful and supportive. I think we’re in very good hands here. We certainly feel embraced and are happy to embrace our community in return.”

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