Magic Burlesque

Burlesque Performers

2010-11-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

Listed below are some of our favourite burlesque dancers.

Dita Von Teese

The first lady of Burlesque. The scene's most famous star.

Immodesty Blaize, UK

Immodesty Blaize - the Uk's most famous burlesque star.

Miss Polly Rae, UK

Miss Polly Rae is one of Britains top burlesque dancers. She can be found performing around the UK with her Hurly Burly Girlys, London's leading troupe of singers, teasers and bump and grinders.

Angie Pontani , US

Angie Pontani is one of America's hottest and sassiest burlesque stars. Angie was recently crowned "The Reigning Queen of Burlesque, Miss Exotic World 2008".

Kitten De Ville, USA

A former winner of Miss Exotic World, Kitten is a fast rising star in the world of burlesque.
Kitten's signature look is her platinum blond Marilyn Monroe-esque locks.
Her fantastic shimmy has earnt her the title "Queen of the Shake".

Roxi Dlite , Canada

Roxi Dlite is Canada's most popular burlesque star.

Masuimi Max

Burlesque dancer, fetish model and pin up girl, Masuimi Max is of Korean and german descent and is hot, hot hot!

Ivy Paige, UK

Ivy's club night, ‘Scandalous’, takes place once a
month in London at Volupté.

When she's not performing she teaches burlesque and cabaret workshops to women who don’t necessarily want to be performers but who want to boost their self-esteem, whatever their shape and size.

Vicky Butterfly, UK

Classic burlesque with a modern twist. A trained costumier Vicky's clothes are elaborate and beautiful. Influences include Rita Hayworth and Lousie Brooks.

Lola Bel Aire, USA

Burlesque dancer and pin-up girl Lola Bel Aire is a rising star on the American scene. Lola can be regularly found shaking her tush at Lili’s Burlesque Revue in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota.

Michelle L'Amour. USA

Michelle "Toots" L'amour, comes from Chicago. She was Miss Exotic World 2005. She hit the big time this year when she prefromed a sexy Knight Rider inspired burlesque routine in front of Simon Cowlell, David.

Grotesque Burlesque Performers

Grotesque burlesque is a more extreme version of burlesque. It's a modern twisted take on the traditional striptease act, fusing cabaret and nudity with elements of horror, S&M and black comedy. Expect strap ons and fake blood.

Below are a few of its performers.

Clea Cutthroat, Berlin

Clea uses blood, latex, hot wax and bondage.

Empress Stah, UK

A star of the alternative scene. Stah has performed at Torture Garden, Skin Two and Erotica.

Julie Atlas Muz, New York

Host of America's Favorite Burlesque Gameshow This or That! on public access, Julie's live shows are for the hardcore - involving cupcakes gang rape and vomit.

http://www.burlesqueguide.net/burlesque_dancers.html

ET's Exclusive: Behind The Scenes of Burlesque

2010-11-01T06:40:00.001-07:00

Trailer Watch: Burlesque Stars Cher, Tucci, Aguilera

2010-11-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

Never underestimate Screen Gems topper Clint Culpepper. More than most studio execs, he gets to put together an eclectic range of projects under Sony’s low-budget Screen Gems label because he’s got that magic gut instinct for what audiences want and how to sell it to them. Since 1999, Culpepper has figured out which pictures to make without stepping on the toes of big Columbia and little Sony Pictures Classics: horror, urban and teen flicks like the Underworld, Hostel and Resident Evil franchises and Dear John.

One of Culpepper’s pet projects for a while now has been the Steve Antin musical Burlesque (due Thanksgiving) which stars Cher in a welcome return to the screen as the impresario of a struggling burlesque club. Christina Aguilera makes her screen debut; Stanley Tucci, Kristen Bell and Julianne Hough co-star. E.T.‘s first look and a new trailer are on the jump. (Farewell to departing E.T. vet Mary Hart, whose sizable salary got the budget axe this week.)

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2010/08/06/trailer_watch_burlesque_stars_cher_tucci_aguilera/

Charm of burlesque stars endures decades later

2010-11-01T06:38:00.000-07:00

PHOTO MONTAGE BY MARK VOGER Burlesque queens of yore, clockwise from top left: Marna Broadhurst, Lili St. Cyr, Blaze Starr, Dixie Evans, St. Cyr, Tempest Storm, Lily Rose and Sally Rand. Center: Storm.

A thousand patrons — some having paid as much as 40 cents for a front-row seat — would be shouting. The pit orchestra would be playing, brassy and loud.

Listen carefully, and you can almost hear it still.

Yes, the Empire is fallen, gone for more than half-a-century, turned into another Washington Street parking lot. The ancient baggy-pants comics and their even more ancient jokes have faded away. Most of the dancers retired decades ago.

And yet this sexy yet strangely innocent entertainment still lives — and even thrives.

Ironic "Neo-Burlesque" shows play trendy theaters, featuring a new generation of performers. An upcoming feature film, "Burlesque," dramatizes the art with born-for-the-part divas Cher and Christina Aguilera.

Books like "Burlesque: A Living History," a multitude of websites and nonprofit social organizations like the Golden Days of Burlesque Historical Society allow veteran entertainers to keep in touch with each other, and their fans.

And an affectionate documentary, "Behind the Burly Q," opening today in Manhattan, captures it all, including those years when, outlawed in New York, the art took off in Jersey, providing, as director Leslie Zemeckis says, "a big show for very little money."

Wrapped in glamour

"Everybody thinks, oh burlesque, it’s just stripping," says Zemeckis. "But there was a chorus line, there were novelty acts, there were singers — in its heyday, it was a big show for very little money. Of course, there were the strippers, too. That was the attraction — ‘You’re gonna see stuff!’ But you really didn’t see that much."

The real raunch? That came later, towards the end of the ‘60s — the bottomless bars, the brass poles, the twenties tucked into G-strings. It wasn’t real dancing anymore, and the real dancers got out. But for a time there was a kind of glamour to the art, or at least a working-class idea of glamour — sequins, feathers, marabou.

And for years a lot of it was in Jersey theaters — the Empire and the Adams in Newark, the Hudson in Union City, the Globe in Atlantic City.

"When Mayor LaGuardia closed the burlesque theaters in New York (in 1937), the casts and crews just crossed the river," explained in an e-mail Jane Briggeman, author of several histories and founder of the Golden Days of Burlesque Historical Society. "When the society first started, I had a whole group who came from New Jersey."

Their fans crossed the Hudson too. New York might still have the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall and the Great White Way, but only New Jersey had "Peaches, the Incomparable Queen of Rhythm" or those "laffy daffy fun stars, Bob Ferguson & Max Coleman."

"The New Yorkers had to come to Jersey," said Nat Bodian, a Newark historian and veteran journalist who remembers going on the free passes that once papered newsrooms. "The tube practically brought them right to the Empire. . . . And when someone like Georgia Sothern came — the greatest stripper who ever lived — they filled the place."

Accident Became Act

By that time burlesque itself was already old, with roots in the cuckold farces of commedia dell’arte. According to legend, striptease was added in 1917 when a dancer at one of Minsky’s New York theaters started removing her costume before leaving the stage. The audience went wild, the accident became an act and modern burlesque was born.

It was still, though, more than stripping. In fact, remembered dancer Bambi Jones, 80, "you were never characterized as a stripper. You were a ‘character dancer,’ ‘exotic dancer,’ ‘interpretive dancer’— never stripper."

The striptease acts — or simply "strips" — were only part of the show, too. Sometimes there would be "a specialty" — for a while, Daisy and Violet Hilton, the conjoined twins of "Freaks," traveled the circuit. And there were the singers and comics, many of whom — Robert Alda, Phil Silvers, Lou Costello — went on to bigger careers.

"My dad started out as a ‘dancing juvenile,’" said Chris Costello. "He was supposed to warm up the audience before the top bananas, but he was so funny no one wanted to follow him! That’s where he met my mom, in the Ann Corio show. He was smitten — he’d just stand in the wings watching her in the chorus. Ann told her, ‘You know, you should go out with Lou, he really likes you.’ And my mom said, ‘Go out with a burlesque comic? If I want to starve, I can starve on my own!’"

She married the Paterson boy, though — and he teamed up with Asbury Park straight man Bud Abbott, and went on to Hollywood. Most performers, though stayed on tour, doing a week in Newark before moving on. Those who could afford it stopped first in Weehawken, where designers Rex Huntington and Robert Lockwood specialized in peel-away costumes. The rest stitched their rhinestones on the bus.

It wasn’t an easy life, and although a star like Corio, Gypsy Rose Lee or Lili St. Cyr could make thousands of dollars a week, for most it was just a way to feed themselves, or their children. Some were still children themselves (Sothern lied about her age, and started at 13). Others were fleeing abuse. Expenses were high and, for minority entertainers, engagements were often segregated.

"No one I talked to felt exploited, but nobody ever talked ‘empowering,’ either," Zemeckis said. "Most got into this because it was the only thing they could do."

Yet many look back on that life fondly. Sigrid R. Spangenberg, 68, was a young mother when a sexy sunbathing snapshot ran in the Milwaukee Journal; within a week, she had an offer from a burlesque troupe. Only after discussing it with her family did she sign on, doing a Dietrich-influenced act as "Lilli Marlene."

"Men thought we were easy, but the truth is that all of us either had boyfriends or husbands waiting," she replied in an e-mail. "The greatest satisfaction of being in burlesque came with payday."

Entertaining rules

The old burlesque world was its own world. There was the lingo (the small girl at the end of the chorus line was the "pony"; a dancer who could handle lines was a "talking woman"). There were the rules, which varied by city ("Pants not below four fingers from your navel," Jones remembered. "No touching yourself anywhere.")

And there was — even in a backstage full of cigar smoke and unwashed laundry — a real professionalism.

Stage names would be chosen ("Candy Cotton," "Chili Pepper," "Jade Green, the Jewish Lollipop"). Elaborate acts would be devised, with trained birds or giant champagne glasses. (For a while, Jones carried a football and billed herself as "Joi Naymith.") One dancer almost started a fire when one of her flaming tassels flew into the audience.

And yet, "Burlesque was family entertainment," Hudson dancer Joan Torino insisted in Briggeman’s "Burlesque: A Living History." "Fellows brought their gals to see stars, and to still have a little naughty fun." After a Newark show, couples would get highballs at the Empire Bar or black-and-white sodas at Emma’s Luncheonette.

But then in the ’50s, to boost profits, producers began firing the variety acts and loading the shows with more "strips" — a change which gave censors an excuse for raids. Dancers were arrested en masse. New ordinances were passed. Theaters were shuttered (the Empire and the Hudson both closed for good in 1957).

Eventually burlesque came back in clubs, but the tone had changed. Now, owners expected dancers to hustle drinks. New, X-rated tastes left nothing to the imagination.

"The decline of burlesque was due to the new wave of pole-dancers, and go-gos in the nude, and open porn," e-mailed Spangenberg, who quit in 1973. "It became boring and obsolete."

"You went from gowns to pasties to nothing, from a full orchestra to a three-piece band to a tape," Zemeckis said. "Blaze Starr talks about doing her act, and they’re projecting hard-core porn on the wall. Who could compete with that? Who would want to?"

And so the dancers exited, stage left. Some went into "respectable" endeavors. Some went into politics. ("Hope Diamond, Gem of the Exotics" eventually re-emerged as Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini.) Some are still grinding away. (Jones just did a layout for Garage magazine.) Many more have died.

But those who remain have their memories, bright and shiny as a rhinestone. And a certain indefinable, indelible shimmy.

"In the early ’90s we were doing an Abbott and Costello tribute and they brought in Ann Corio," said Costello. "Well, they introduced her, they started playing ‘The Stripper’ — and she stood up and started peeling off the opera gloves again. I tell you, no one could take their eyes off her — in her ‘80s and still a knockout… But, you know, that’s what burlesque was. It wasn’t about the strip. It was all about the tease."

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/movies/index.ssf/2010/04/charm_of_burlesque_stars_endures_decades_later.html

Druids, Magic, and Groupie Girls (& Boys)

2010-10-29T02:02:00.000-07:00

This summer you might have glimpsed shape-shifting producer and performer The Swedish Housewife singing with The Fastbacks, hosting A Mid-Century Modern Celebration at The Triple Door, or demonstrating how to correctly butcher a chicken while in full Swedish Housewife regalia at Bumbershoot (dutifully pitching in for the launch of Kurt B. Reighley’s book United States of Americana: Backyard Chickens, Burlesque Beauties, and Handmade Bitters: A Field Guide to the New American Roots Movement). If such a display demonstrates how far removed from the production process modern end-users are today, Paula- aka The Swedish Housewife- is the antithesis. As a producer, if anyone can open a can of worms and dream up a full-scale, 90 minute production featuring custom sets and a 20+ cast of vanguard dancers, musicians, and burlesquers, it’s The Swedish Housewife. The woman just won’t sit still.

House of Thee Unholy, now in its fourth year, takes over The Triple Door this weekend for five shows in three nights. Billed as a rock-lesque extravaganza, initial inspiration and visual cues were culled from the rich album covers of the 70s and in the host of talented dancers and musicians Seattle is home to. Putting a burlesque spin on the hedonistic decade’s music was aided by an all-star band including Nick Garrison, belter Jen Ayers, drummer Charlie Lorme, and the return of soulful singer/actress Sarah Rudinoff. “Blues music is great for strip-tease,” says Paula (in conversation, she leans heavily on the second syllable). “And the 70s had really great, bluesy rock going on. It’s not a narrative performance- it’s more like an acid trip.”

The monstrous ensemble show updates what is perceived as burlesque and levels the playing field between male and female performers, musicians and dancers. Like most of her productions, House feels very grown up- feral women in power positions, men taking off their clothes, sexuality that is sophisticated and doesn’t pander to the cute or the coy. Viking ships, orgies, druids, sirens, zeppelins, and general excess are much more aligned with Paula’s Oz-like scope. There’s so much happening onstage it’s hard to take in; not to mention the sheer volume of dancers in various states of undress. Waxie Moon, Lily Verlaine, Miss Indigo Blue, Inga Ingénue, Lou Henry Hoover, Heidi Von Haught, Polly Wood, Leroi The Girl Boi, Gerard Delacroix, Douglas Ridings, Paris Original, Lydia McLane, and of course, The Swedish Housewife, will burlesque the 70s- sometimes en masse.

This year’s run will be the last for a while, as Paula sinks her teeth into another genre rife with button-pushing possibilities, glam rock. More details TBD on the new spring show… for now, get thee to the Triple Door.

http://burlesqueseattle.com/2010/09/22/druids-magic-and-groupie-girls-boys/

Burlesque back on Bourbon Street in French Quarter

2010-10-22T02:10:00.000-07:00

The burlesque revival in the United States began in earnest during the early ’90’s and has, after nearly two decades (almost the length of burlesque’s original heyday) hit critical mass. Neo-burlesque has spawned multiple conferences and festivals — including the inaugural New Orleans Burlesque Festival in 2009 — at least one bona fide international celebrity in Dita von Teese, and hundreds of troupes around the world whose styles of strut and flounce run the gamut from historical authenticity to punk-rock feminist gender commentary, and many variations in between.

Greg Miles/HandoutTrixie Minx is striving for a party-like atmosphere in her new Burlesque Ballroom show at the Irvin Mayfield Playhouse on Bourbon Street.

The blonde gamine Trixie Minx leads the third burlesque troupe to be in residence at 615 Toulouse St. since 1999, when the Shim Sham Club debuted the thrillingly extravagant Shim Shamettes. The Shamettes were named in homage to the original Shim Sham Club, which was operated on Bourbon Sttreet in the ’30’s by Louis Prima’s brother Leon.
Their show illustrated that commitment to the past, with routines from the middle of the 20th century passed down by their original performers, such as Evangeline the Oyster Girl. Minx, who is as much a comedienne as a slinky ecdysiast, brought a little something different to the table when her Fleur de Tease group became the house troupe at the club, now One Eyed Jacks. (One recent Fleur de Tease dance was a can-can set to the music of the MC5’s “Kick Out The Jams,” performed in Converse All-Stars.)
The Burlesque Ballroom at Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse at the Royal Sonesta is Minx’s latest venture, and true to form, it’s something different. For one, the slapstick element of Minx’s goofy sense of humor has been removed for the jazz-club crowd.
Unlike most neo-burlesque shows, the Ballroom is not a stage show presented as if it were theater. Even if the vision for the weekly night didn’t preclude that, the room would; the Jazz Playhouse’s stage barely fits Leon “Kid Chocolate” Brown’s quartet, let alone a dancer. So performers in Trixie’s show use the whole space, including a tiny area in front of the stage, customer’s tabletops, and the aisles between them. Remember Jessica Rabbit’s jaw-dropping crawl through the nightclub in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” It’s kind of like that.
The relaxed structure of the show was a joint idea of Minx and the Playhouse staff. The band and dancers share the spotlight, and the very dapper, dry-witted Brown — still crisp in his three-piece suit after a long night that began with an 8 p.m. set — appears as able an accidental burlesque emcee as he is a bandleader.
The addition of a live band always adds an extra, kinetic element of excitement to burlesque, and the laid-back vibe of the show contributed to that even more so. An unplanned drum solo during one of Minx’s performances, set to Louis Prima’s “Banana Split For My Baby,” played like a wild improvised duet for derriere and snare.
No matter how hot the combo, they’re at risk for fading into the background when there are also women with few clothes on onstage. Since the dancers used the whole club to perform — and the ratio of striptease numbers to songs the band played with no dancer was about even — the audience’s attention could, and did, go anywhere.
“I met up with Irvin Mayfield, and we discussed trying to create something new that’s not your typical show,” Minx said. “The main focus with the Burlesque Ballroom is trying to break down the typical barriers between the performer and the audience.”
“Once we hit seven nights of live music, we were looking for creative ways to extend the Playhouse hours and introduce jazz to new audiences,” Mayfield said. “We came up with the idea of collaborating with Trixie Minx and expanding into the ’Round Midnight time slot...,” Mayfield said. (The burlesque show is part of the Playhouse’s new late-night events, called ’Round Midnight. On Saturday, after the 8 p.m. show, the Soul Rebels Brass Band and other brass bands perform.)
“We created an intimate, sexy, jazzy, after-hours destination for mature local audiences,” he said.At the inaugural show on Dec. 11, there was a sharp attrition rate in the packed house after the first hour or so, possibly due to the late hour (the Burlesque Ballroom runs from midnight til 2 a.m.) but the later it got, the more the room took on the vibe of a louche, swanky late-night party. At some point after 1 a.m., Mayfield himself dropped in, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and took the stage for a dynamic wake-up of a dueling-trumpet jam with Brown.
The only thing disappointing about Brown’s quartet — and this is purely burlesque-wise — was the lack of a saxophone. Sax can express sexiness like no other instrument; during a striptease, drums snap and pop on the bumps, but the long bleat of the sax is the soundtrack of the grind. Drums are the punctuation; the sax is the sentence. Brown is a masterful horn blower, but the lighter tones of his trumpet just didn’t carry the weight of so many undulating hips.
Attendees at the Burlesque Ballroom are having a last-stop-of-the-night experience very similar to what their counterparts on Bourbon Street saw after midnight 50 or 60 years ago.
“The mission of the event is not to have people just sit down and observe, but to really get into it and feel like dancing too,” Minx said. “Like they’re at a party.”

http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/2010/01/burlesque_back_on_bourbon_stre.html

Burlesque is Busting Out on Main Street

2010-10-22T02:08:00.000-07:00

By Vee Benard

The Sag Harbor Cinema, tucked in the middle of Main Street, is about to revisit its former identity as a vaudeville house: this Friday, filmmaker and Sag Harbor resident Gary Beeber is holding the local premiere of his film “Dirty Martini and the New Burlesque” at the cinema, the screening of which will be followed later that night by a live burlesque performance featuring two of the film’s stars.

“Dirty Martini and the New Burlesque” is a feature-length documentary about the global resurgence of burlesque in recent years. Released in early 2010 in collaboration with the Seattle International Film Festival, the film premiered at the Moisture Festival in Seattle to wide critical acclaim. Beeber says that the film has now traveled to cities all over the U.S. and Canada, from the Toronto Burlesque Festival to Dallas’ U.S.A. Film festival.

Burlesque, which took root in late 19^th century America, hit its peak in the 1930s and 1940s, after which point it suffered a slow decline in popularity chiefly as a result of its promiscuous content.

As Beeber explains, what was later associated with the term “burlesque” was really something entirely different.

“What they were calling ‘burlesque,’” he clarified, “was really lap dancing and other performances you might find in strip clubs. New burlesque comes from modern dance and performance art.”

Dirty Martini, who, as a burlesque performer, has hands-on experience with the evolution and misconceptions of the burlesque form, agrees with Beeber’s conclusion; but where he claims that burlesque was “dead in New York” prior to its comeback in the 1980s, Dirty Martini says that “burlesque never left New York City.”

“In fact,” she continued, “it was New York that really carried the torch for burlesque during those years. New York has always been open, always been experimental…and drag queens also played a large part in keeping that spirit alive.”

As Tigger! — another burlesque legend featured in Beeber’s film, who is dubbed “The Godfather of Boylesque,” “The Original King of Boylesque,” and the first-ever winner of “Mr. Exotic World” (an honor Beeber compared to winning an Academy Award) —

Tigger! (exclamation point required) explains that he, Dirty Martini, and the few other performers who have been involved with the resurgence of burlesque, are “accidental founders” of the new burlesque movement, their interest in the form born from a “frustration with the limitations of the art forms we were already in.”

“Burlesque allows us to bring forms together,” said Tigger!, who was cast in a production of “Much Ado About Nothing” the same day he received the honor of “Mr. Exotic World.”

One of the biggest threats to the widespread acceptance of burlesque is its frequent confusion with erotic stripping. As Dirty Martini describes it, burlesque is, put simply “a theatrical form without words.”

“I’ve been a dancer since I was six,” she shared. After moving to New York to become a modern dancer, she found it difficult to find a niche for her body type.

“People who once would have used ‘differently-sized’ dancers,” she said, “had moved on and started using cookie cutter bodies, which made it so hard for me to find an outlet to perform. When I started to do research, I looked at old videos of burlesque and loved it. It features all body types, it showcases them all.”

Beyond offering an informative glimpse into the burlesque world, all parties involved with the production of “Dirty Martini and the New Burlesque” hope that audiences take away messages of positive body image and female empowerment after watching the film.

“I dare them to try not to!” joked Dirty Martini. “It’s not a preachy film. It’s a beautiful film about people working, working hard, making friends and family in a world that gives them support they might not get elsewhere.”

“Yes, you’re going to see gender play,” she said, “you’re going to see different body types, and different kinds of people, wacky people.”

“This film truly puts women in a positive light,” said Beeber. “Women nowadays have some imaginary problem with their bodies. This film shows that it’s not how you look on the outside, it’s how beautiful you are on the inside.”

“Our job is to deliver a fun time,” said Tigger!, “and yet there is still an implicit message of combining sex, humor and personal liberation.”

“You learn to be more comfortable with your own self,” he said, “It’s not about having the most beautiful body in the room, it’s about understanding how absolutely beautiful every body in the room is.”

Despite the film’s tour around the country, this Friday’s event will be in a class of its own. The evening will start out with a “Pre-movie Gala” at the Richard J. Demato Fine Arts Gallery right next door from 9:30 to 11 p.m., during which time guests will be able to meet both Dirty Martini and Tigger!. Immediately following the screening, Dirty Martini and Tigger! will offer a live performance in the Cinema.

“The performances will be really, really amazing,” said Beeber. “Dirty Martini is a superstar of burlesque. Just the idea of being able to have her in Sag Harbor at all is pretty amazing.”

The Sag Harbor premiere of Gary Beeber’s “Dirty Martini and the New Burlesque” will be this Friday, August 13 at 11 p.m. with a Pre-movie gala and champagne reception next door at 9 p.m. at Richard J. Demato Fine Arts Gallery. Tickets are available at the Sag Harbor Cinema, 90 Main Street, Sag Harbor and cost $15 in advance, $20 day-of.

http://sagharboronline.com/sagharborexpress/page-1/burlesque-is-busting-out-on-main-street-8881

Burlesque Days Again for the Feather Boa Crowd. Part II

2010-09-30T14:55:00.000-07:00

Outside, civilians and buffet lines. Inside, cherry vodka, rich desserts and stories about tassel applications and acts with animals. “I worked with this little girl, and she had parakeets,” Nocturne remembers. “Parakeets in her purse.”

Nocturne, 79, who drove up from Texas with her husband, is alone in saying her burlesque days were her darkest. She found stripping to be a lucrative humiliation, and she detested the pressure to mix with customers so they would buy a club’s overpriced liquor.

But that is all behind her now, she says. Thirty years ago she found Jesus and has not had a drink since, “Praise God.” She has come to Baraboo to see old friends and to remember the one aspect of burlesque she adored, those glorious costumes.

Bambi, also 79, is Nocturne’s opposite: she left Holyoke, Mass., as a young woman and never looked back. Yes, some strippers would sabotage the outfits of their competitors, and yes, there was that abusive second husband, the one who forced her to flee. But one of burlesque’s many charms is its service as a kind of witness-protection program; for a few years, then, Bambi became Holly Simms. Of burlesque over all, she says, “I loved it.”

It is deep into the second day of the reunion now; time for a show. The coffee table has been moved aside, some chairs arranged. The Irish Mist will strut for a while, Bambi will grind that coffee bean, and a young burlesque star named Orchid Mei — who has been listening to the stories with undergraduate earnestness — will do an act that makes many in the room wish for 1955.

Another knock on the door. Is it Bones?

No: Pat Flannery. And what an entrance she makes: seated in a chariot of a wheelchair pushed by her elder daughter, Bekki Vallin, and wearing a pink sweatshirt, white socks that match her hair, and teal slip-on sneakers.

Her one-liners come out fast, most of them at her own expense. When she cannot remember the name of some Wisconsin town, she assumes a stage mentalist’s pose, with a hand against forehead, and intones, “The mind has left the body.”

Ms. Flannery watches the three women dance, one after another. She laughs at Bambi’s wisecracks. She admires the fluid grace of Orchid Mei. And when the show is over, she is wheeled to a place where she enjoys a cigarette while looking out upon some grass.

How do you do.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/us/02land.html?_r=1&ref=burlesque

Burlesque Days Again for the Feather Boa Crowd. Part I

2010-09-30T14:53:00.000-07:00

Jane Briggeman, taking pictures, as Orchid Mei dances for La Savona, left, Marg C and Bambi Jones at a meeting of former burlesque dancers in Baraboo, Wis.

In a modest hotel suite at the Ho-Chunk Casino, a few women from out of town gather for a reunion. Homemade brownies sit on the counter, along with a peach pie, some cheese curds, several cans of soda and a long, sleek bottle of cherry vodka — a perfect name, they joke, for a burlesque queen.

There is no Cherry Vodka in the room. But Nocturne is here. And La Savona. And Ann Pett. And the Irish Mist. And Bambi Jones, also known as Bambi Brooks, Joi Naymith, the Black Panther Girl, the Mona Lisa Girl, the Garter Girl, Evangeline the Oyster Girl — and, for a while there in New Orleans, “The Girl the Whole Town’s Talking About.”

And Pat Flannery, just Pat Flannery, may also show up. Nearly 60 years ago she did her “How Do You Do?” routine at the old Moulin Rouge in Oakland, wearing dark opera gloves, a polka-dot gown and a look that said, You naughty boy. By act’s end, only the look remained.

But Ms. Flannery might have to cancel her Baraboo appearance. She is 83 now, using a wheelchair and living in a nursing home about two hours north of here — though there is hopeful talk of an overnight furlough for the woman who once saucily sang to would-be suitors:

“How do you do? But now, How do you do?”

Either way, Ms. Flannery is present in some of the photographs splayed on a table. Here she is in a skimpy sailor’s outfit, saluting. And here is La Savona in midwrithe, during her signature Scheherazade routine. And here is Bambi in Miami, sharing drinks with Errol Flynn in the mid-1950s, and performing at a senior center in Connecticut just a few weeks ago, where she wowed them.

For that appearance she wore a pink Southern belle number that she proceeded to remove, slowly, before beginning a discourse on the history of burlesque. “I worked the walkers, and I worked the canes,” says Bambi, a limber 79.

Outside this hotel door, civilians plod about, playing the penny slots, shuffling toward the bargain buffet. What do they know of the old bump and grind? Of enthralling men through skin and suggestion — and then puncturing the moment with a bawdy one-liner?

Bambi shares a few of those lines, but you’ll have to catch her at the senior center to hear them; they cannot be repeated here. She also shares a basic burlesque technique. Imagine an apple to your left, an orange to your right, and a coffee bean in front of you. Now follow these pelvic thrusts:

“Hit the apple, hit the orange and g-r-r-ind the coffee.

“Hit the apple, hit the orange and g-r-r-ind the coffee...”

Where were we?

Oh, yes, we are in Room 1223 at the Ho-Chunk Casino in lovely Baraboo, where the days blur and the chitchat says this is no quilting bee:

“I had been kicking chorus in Cleveland ... I worked with Champagne glasses ... It took 10 guys to get the snake off of her. And I said, ‘So now I understand why you don’t work Massachusetts.’ ”

“That cheese curd is delicious,” Nocturne says. To which Bambi says, “Did you ever work Canada?”

Fifteen years ago, Tanayo, the Costa Rican Dream Girl, handed a worn address book filled with the stage names of lost friends to her civilian friend, Jane Briggeman. So began the Golden Days of Burlesque Historical Society, a nonprofit group dedicated to reuniting those who worked the circuit in the years before 1965: the strippers and dancers, the comics and straight men — the feather boa crowd.

The society had 235 members at its peak, many of whom helped Ms. Briggeman, 54, recover enough memories and photographs to write two books: “Burlesque: Legendary Stars of the Stage,” published in 2004, a year after Tanayo died, and “Burlesque: A Living History,” to be published this year. She continues the cause, in part by maintaining a newsletter with health updates, recent deaths and requests for help, as in:

“Lilli Marlene is looking for Luna, Goddess of the Spirit World.”

But the hook of time has reduced membership to about 135. A list of attendees from a reunion in 2006 includes the names of Lee Stuart, a great straight man; Sunny Dare, the Girl With the Blue Hair; and Carmela, the Sophia Loren of Burlesque. Gone, gone and gone.

As Ms. Briggeman says their names, La Savona, petite, elegant, and wearing a blond wig, sits with a magnifying glass, reading her newspaper notices and advertisements from the days when she was the Czech bombshell who escaped the Communists (“She’s the Cinderella that upset European royalty! Now making her first Toledo appearance!”).

At some point a knock at the door disrupts the memories. Pat Flannery?

No. A lanky, white-haired man, carrying in some chairs. Says his name is Bones.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/us/02land.html?_r=1&ref=burlesque

Burlesque Trailer (HD)

2010-09-30T14:38:00.000-07:00

Dance Burlesque Like Dita Von Teese

2010-09-30T14:37:00.000-07:00

Learn how to perfect burlesque dancing with advice from expert dance teacher Zoe Morgan. VideoJug will show you how to achieve that sexy look through the art of burlesque dancing. Achieve that Dita Von Teese routine in no time!

Before doing more complicated moves, master the sexy walk. Imagine you're walking on a tightrope and place one foot in front of the other.

Use a prop such as a chair or a feather boa to show off the shape of your body.

Run your hands over the areas of the body you want to show off - such as along the length of your legs.

Lie back across the chair to show off the length of your body and legs.

Be confident, comfortable, and most of all have fun.

Thanks for watching video Dance Burlesque Like Dita Von Teese For more how to videos, expert advice, instructional tips, tricks, guides and tutorials on this subject, visit the topic Famous Dance Moves.

http://www.videojug.com/film/dance-burlesque-like-dita-von-teese

Burlesque as it was - Miss Orchid Mei

2010-09-29T14:59:00.001-07:00

Daiquiri Dusk & Miss Hells Belle in their "Diner Dolly" act

2010-09-29T14:59:00.000-07:00

About Burlesque Day At Disneyland

2010-09-29T14:57:00.000-07:00

Burlesque Day At Disneyland is the unofficial name for the annual event where performers and fans of burlesque and their friends and families celebrate two nights of Disney themed burlesque (burlesque parodies of disney characters and stories) and one day at the theme park.

We were lucky to have performers from all over the country (and in one case, the world) join us for a pair of great shows and then a trip to Disneyland. After a very successful run in January of 2009, we will be doing it again in March of 2010.

The reason we moved it to March was because most everyone's favorite ride is The Haunted Mansion - which is closed for refurbishment in January.

We hope you can join us at the shows and a great day at D-Land. Our shows aren't for kids, (although there is no nudity) but are great for fans of Disneyland and burlesque alike over 21. In 2009 we even had some imagineers in the audience and they loved it! We hope to make the even bigger and bigger with each year!

This group is ONLY for adding photos that are related to Burlesque Day At Disneyland events. While photos aren't allowed during the actual shows except from our los angeles burlesque photographers, guests are welcome to shoot photos with the performers during intermission and after the show. And who's to stop you from shooting photos at Disneyland? ;D

~ Chris Beyond
co-producer, peepshow menagerie

www.peepshowmenagerie.com
http://www.myspace.com/burlesqueland

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1198426@N21/

Show Stopper

2010-09-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

Biggest misconception about burlesque: That it’s about dancing around in hot pants with feather boas. Burlesque was about the striptease. The stars of burlesque took their clothes off, end of story, period.

Hardest thing about stripping: To make it look effortless and natural.

Her first corset: It was out of my life for a little while. It was stolen, by a friend of mine’s daughter. One day she returned it and said she was sorry. I was happy. I have hundreds of corsets, but that is the most important one.

Worst moment onstage: My hair caught on fire. I do an act where I sit on a vanity table that has candelabras on it. Well, there was a lot of hair spray going on. I realized what was happening and put my hair out. The show went on.

Next big purchase: I’m getting ready to make a new show, and that is always a big expense. It will involve $80,000 worth of costumes and props. This one is going to be especially rhinestone heavy.

Personal hero: Mae West. There hasn’t been another actress in the world who wrote every line she ever said in a film.

Morning routine: My waking time always changes, because sometimes I am really jet lagged. When I’m home, I am up around 9 o’clock. First, I check my BlackBerry, which is next to me in bed. Then I let my dogs outside and get everybody breakfast.

Best thing about divorce from Marilyn Manson: There’s a long list. I am happy to have the drugs out of my life.

Fear about new love: That I’ll fall for a man who wants a modern, minimalist interior.

Prized possession: I took my engagement diamond and had it transformed at Christian Dior in Paris into a beautiful ring. It’s nice; it’s big. I feel like I suffered greatly for that diamond, and it needed to be reborn into something better.

Performance piece: Yes, I do perform in a giant martini glass, but I don’t keep it at home. All my props are kept in storage, a really big storage space, because I have a lot of things even bigger than that glass. I have never been where they are stored, to be honest. It’s somewhere in Los Angeles.

Animal friends: I have various taxidermied animals. I have a peacock, swans and birds in large glass domes. They’re beautiful.

Rainy-day activities: Sitting in front of the fire with my pets, two dachshunds and three Devon Rex cats, which is a breed that has unusually large ears and wide-set eyes.

Indispensable gadget: A 1940s phone station. It’s a stand that holds the phone, and you sit in it. You can’t move around. I used to have a cordless phone and I hated it.

Waistline: I’m not technically a tight lacer. It’s a fetish, in which you wear extremely tight corsets all the time. I don’t sleep in my corsets, and I’m not obsessed with obtaining the world’s smallest waist. My waist is around 18 inches.

Velvet painting: A painting of me by an artist named Olivia, who specializes in pinups.

Burlesque memento: I have an artifact of the famed burlesque star Sally Rand, from 1939. It’s a box that says “Winter Underwear for Men” on it. Inside is a crocheted warmer for a man’s equipment. It’s hysterical.

Guilty pleasure: Eating foie gras in Paris. That has gotten me into a lot of trouble with PETA. But it is a guilty pleasure; I feel guilty and horrible about it.

Extra bedrooms: I turned one of them into a dark, jewel box of a bedroom. Another is a wardrobe with my dresses, shoes and vintage clothes. The third is devoted to my hat collection and vanity. It’s a real powder room.

Collections: I collect in a crazy way. I have at least 15 collections. I collect vintage hair combs; vintage clothes; vintage lingerie; hats; jewelry; cigarette holders.

Favorite collection: My hats. When I look at them I can’t believe these are things that women wore on the street every day. They are dramatic and distinctive.

Treasured eras: For taxidermy, Victorian; for furniture, Art Deco; for lingerie, 1940s stockings and Victorian corsets; hats I like mid-1940s, when they wore the little tilted hats, like men’s hats.

What she drives: I have two classic cars, a 1939 Chrysler New Yorker and a 1965 Jaguar S-Type. I drove a Chrysler 300. But I just got a new car, a BMW Z4.

Fanciest corset: It’s by Mr. Pearl, without a doubt the world’s most-sought-after corset maker. He lives in Paris, and all the couturiers go to him. He has an unmatched talent for creating the perfect wasp waist. Each corset requires between 6 and 20 fittings.

Evening routine: I have no routine. I am happy if I am in bed by 1 a.m. It’s a great victory for me if I can sleep eight hours or more.

By her bed: A beautiful Art Deco box with a condom in it. I’m a single girl.

Favorite chore: Grocery shopping. I wasn’t always able to afford food, so I love putting things in my cart and realizing I can afford them.

Always in fridge: Eggs and truffle sauce. I order the sauce online. It is called Truffle Gatherers sauce. It is so good with eggs. It is very precious to me.

What she misses about America when abroad: More value to the dollar.

Fitness routine: About 20 minutes jumping on the trampoline and an hour of Pilates. I often take Sundays off.

What she wanted to be when she grew up: A ballerina.

Obsession: Ballet shoes. I have a collection dyed in every color of the rainbow.

Belief system: There are superstitions in burlesque. You aren’t supposed to put your shoes on the table. I try to pay attention to that, but I really like looking at my shoes, so I put them on the table all the time.

Perfect kitchen: One of my big extravagances when I moved out of my former husband’s house was a matching pink stove and refrigerator in ’50s style. Unlike real vintage items, they work. Obsolete item she can’t bear to part with: Everything I have is obsolete. That’s the point.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/magazine/30wwln-domains-t.html?_r=1&ref=burlesque

Behind the Burly Q. Oh, Those Bawdy, Gaudy Ladies

2010-09-28T14:40:00.000-07:00

The indiscreet ladies who would meet the elite on bawdy, gaudy 42nd Street, as the old song had it, were probably more than just careless. You wouldn’t know it from the musical “42nd Street,” certainly, but those ladies were probably bumping and grinding amid feathery fans and gurgling soap bubbles. In the 1930s, Times Square was where professional straight men like Robert Alda (father of Alan) warmed up audiences that strippers put on boil. A popular entertainment, stripping was — or so the theater owner Herbert Minsky insisted — an American art. But in New York and elsewhere, burlesque came with a price: a milieu of vice that alarmed religious leaders and business owners and the politicians who catered to them.

The story of American burlesque on and off Broadway has been told in musicals and films like “Gypsy” and “The Night They Raided Minsky’s.” The neo-burlesque movement, personified by the glamour-puss likes of Dita Von Teese, striptease troupes like the Velvet Hammer (in Los Angeles) and the transformation of pole-dancing into a mainstream fitness routine (from Tony Soprano’s pleasure palace to yours), suggest that the time is ripe for a thoughtful new look at a disreputable old art form. If only “Behind the Burly Q” were up to the task. A charming, uncritical, often entertaining jumble, the documentary was written and directed by Leslie Zemeckis, who produced the movie with Jackie Levine and its director of photography, Sheri Hellard. (Ms. Zemeckis’s husband, the director Robert Zemeckis, has an executive producer credit.)

The movie presents itself as a history of burlesque, but you would be hard pressed to find a coherent chronology here. The movie jumps from woman to woman, topic to topic (costumes to mobsters), as it moves across time. If you know what hairstyles were in fashion, you might be able to guess the decade. Otherwise, you’re often on your own. That’s unfortunate because the personal stories could use some political balance, including a deeper look at why Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia of New York banned burlesque in 1937. That story, for the curious, is fleshed out in the book “Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show,” by Rachel Shteir, one of the movie’s talking heads.

Ms. Shteir has some interesting things to say, but the real reasons to see “Burly Q” are the women who took it all off (or most of it, anyway) in cheap joints across the country and the occasional Art Nouveau palace. Among the legends featured in the numerous contemporary interviews — as well as the flurry of archival photos and film clips — is Kitty West, who performed on the half shell as Evangeline the Oyster Girl. Also on hand is Tempest Storm, a flaming redhead who, advertised as “the girl with the 40-plus bust who goes 3-D two better,” appeared with the pinup queen Bettie Page in the 1955 revue film “Teaserama.” Now camera shy, Blaze Starr, meanwhile, appears as a voice on a telephone, a ghostly presence.

Though badly and unimaginatively shot in ugly video, the present-day interviews with these women are a delight and also poignant, partly because of the contrast between their older and younger selves, though mostly because of the lives they lived. Some climbed out of poverty, leaving behind sharecropper families, to earn a living the only way they felt they could. Some of them talk about the hard times before they entered burlesque; as a rule, they are far more discreet about what happened during their stripper days, perhaps because many belong to the pre-Oprah generation. Like World War II veterans, they can tell a good story but are otherwise pretty close-mouthed when it comes to anything that might smack of complaint.

Ms. Zemeckis tends to overplay the empowering aspects of their stories as working, independent women. Despite a few nods at the mob and the calamities of too much booze, and a lingering, melancholic look at Lili St. Cyr, a statuesque blonde who spiraled into tragedy, the movie is generally upbeat, even giddy, an excitable attitude that the chaotic storytelling reinforces. Maybe Ms. Zemeckis wanted to protect the women; you can understand her desire to make sure they were not pathologized. At the same time, there is more to this story, including what it meant for women to strip for money in the era before women’s lib. It’s great that she immortalized these women, some for the final time. But this is history as nostalgia.

BEHIND THE BURLY Q

Opens on Friday in Manhattan.

Written and directed by Leslie Zemeckis; voiceovers by Jacquie Barnbrook, Ron Bottita, Cate Cohen, Matthew Henerson and Amber Gainey Meade; director of photography, Sheri Hellard; edited by Evan Finn; produced by Ms. Zemeckis, Ms. Hellard and Jackie Levine; released by First Run Features. At the Quad Cinema, 34 West 13th Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. This film is not rated.

http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/movies/23behind.html?ref=burlesque

"Striptease for Burlesque, Exotic Dance and Every Day" DVD with Jo Weldo...

2010-09-27T15:14:00.001-07:00

Striptease for Burlesque, Exotic Dance & Every Day

2010-09-27T15:14:00.000-07:00

Whether you are fascinated with exotic dance, looking to grace the stage as a burlesque performer, or wondering about stripping for your significant other, you have arrived at the ultimate source of pro-level guidance on all aspects of striptease performance. Jo Weldon, burlesque star and Headmistress of The New York School of Burlesque, will teach you how to take off EVERYTHING, to the last string of pearls and handful of lace ligerie, and how to make a breathtaking show out of removing every item, be it an earring, a wedding gown, or a sweat suit.

How do you take off a sweat suit for a viewer? A business suit? Stockings? Or even glasses...with grace, starlike flair, subtle flirtation, suspense and fanfare?

Jo Weldon shares a wealth of experience and a million tips and tricks to make a stageworthy show out of stripping from both everyday clothes and rigged burlesque costumes. Jo's Striptease program offers an array of striptease routines, first taught step-by-step and then demonstrated to music. Each routine is partly choreographed, partly improvised, so that you can layer your own personality and style of movement over Jo's suggestions. For each routine Jo gives detailed guidance about various aspects of striptease technique, such as body angles, the interplay of concealing and revealing, the order and choreography’ of items removal. She also offers acting and expression tips to add humor, suspense, and sophistication to your act.

Jo's striptease routines include:

sweatsuit

lingerie

skirt and blouse (3 variations)

dress / evening gown (3 variations)

men's clothes

jeans, boots, turtleneck

wedding gown

business suit

corset and stockings.

In addition Jo's program contains sections of cultural information about the nature and history of striptease in burlesque and exotic dance, striptease instruction resources, and advice on selecting a stage name for burlesque or striptease performances.

http://www.worlddancenewyork.com/product/striptease-for-burlesque-exotic-dance-every-day

Knight Rider Burlesque with Michelle L'Amour

2010-09-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

About Burlesque Day At Disneyland

2010-09-27T15:08:00.000-07:00

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1198426@N21/

Burlesque Trailer 2010 HD

2010-09-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

Gypsy Rose Lee strip routine

2010-09-24T14:26:00.001-07:00

Gypsy Rose Lee Remembers Burlesque

2010-09-24T14:26:00.000-07:00

This is a spoken word/comedy album I found (oddly enough) in a bin along with Terry Riley's In C and Cecil Taylor's 3 Phasis (all severely undervalued) at an antique mall in Binghamton, New York last year. When LPs are a dollar or less, and the source is a 10 minute jaunt from my apartment, I inevitably start buying in bulk. Lots of albums I know nothing about, which I generally buy because I like the title or the artwork. Gypsy Rose Lee Remembers Burlesque (StereODDITIES, 1962) was no exception. Recently, I was trying to weed out some of the duds from my collection, which meant listening to many things for the first time. I anticipated chucking this one but was more than pleasantly surprised. This is an excellent record with a rich history behind it--though for anyone who likes burlesque, the name Gypsy Rose Lee is certain to be old hat.

According to Wikipedia,

Gypsy Rose Lee was born Rose Louise Hovick in Seattle, Washington in 1911, although her mother later shaved three years off both of her daughters' ages. She was initially known by her middle name, Louise… Louise's singing and dancing talents were insufficient to sustain the act without [her sister] June. Eventually, it became apparent that Louise could make money in burlesque, which earned her legendary status as a classy and witty strip tease artist. Her innovations were an almost casual strip style, compared to the herky-jerky styles of most burlesque strippers (she emphasized the "tease" in "striptease") and she brought a sharp sense of humor into her act as well. She became as famous for her onstage wit as for her strip style, and—changing her stage name to Gypsy Rose Lee—she became one of the biggest stars of Minsky's Burlesque, where she performed for four years.
Eventually she married up into the world of Hollywood, even fathering one of Otto Preminger's children. In films like Ali Baba Goes to Town (1937), Battle of Broadway (1938), Stage Door Canteen (1943), and Belle of the Yukon (1944), she acted alongside such venerable personae as Victor McLaglen, Randolph Scott, Tallulah Bankhead and Katherine Hepburn; and, in B-movie thrillers like the lurid Screaming Mimi (1958), opposite less respectable actors like Phil Carey and Anita Ekberg--still, at the age of 47, trying to belt out a rather painful-sounding "Put the Blame on Mame." She seems to have played exclusively either dancers or nightclub owners, often with jazz artists like Raymond Scott or Red Norvo providing the pulsating soundtracks. Owing to her literary reputation as the author of The G-String Murders and Mother Finds a Body, she portrayed herself as an intellectual among strippers, an attractive notion still being "fleshed" out today in books by Chris Kraus and the latest episodes of Desperate Housewives. Watch her rather tame appearance in Stage Door Canteen, as she lectures the audience on art and culture in a full Victorian gown while subtly removing stockings and garter.

After years of marginal status, Lee's memoirs of life in the biz were turned into the 1959 musical Gypsy, a Stephen Sondheim extravaganza with Ethel Merman playing the titular character [correction: playing Gypsy's mother]. As these things usually go, the stage show became a 1962 film with Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood; which leads me to think that this 1962 LP was most likely released in order to coincide with/capitalize off the renewed attention to Lee's autobiographical odyssey. A true, ahem, "no rags to riches story," as the clip above phrased it.

The lyrics are by Eli Basse and the music by Bobby Kroll; the whole thing is produced and directed by Fletcher Smith. Not that these names mean anything to me. The "adults-only" feel is similar to Belle Barth's records, though the producers are obviously having a lot more fun with the novelties of stereo technology. The liner notes say it all: "You'll find yourself once again surrounded by the unique atmosphere that's become part of Americana. Here in all their gaudy glory parade the Dolls of the Chorus, the baggy-pants Comics and the Sensational Strippers. Set to the authentic sounds of the bumpy burly-beat pit orchestra, such realism has been captured that you'll swear you see the magenta spots and smell the powder and paint... and even the salami sandwiches!" Though I'm not sure that the words "Americana" and "realism" should ever be included in the same breath without a tinge of irony. The album has plenty of great moments, even some sad ones--particularly on side B, as Gypsy laments the disappearance of burlesque by asking passersby on the street if they share her sentiments. Even the women are sad: "Pardon me madame, how do you feel about burlesque being closed up?" "I think it's disgraceful and I'm going to write a nasty letter to the mayor." "Why, madame?" "Well, since they closed the burlesque theaters I have no idea where my husband is every night."
Gypsy Rose Lee Remembers Burlesque (StereODDITIES, 1962)

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2010/03/gypsy-rose-lee-remembers-burlesque.html

April Daye, Lady of Burlesque/Hope Diamond, Jersey City Deputy Mayor?

2010-09-24T14:20:00.000-07:00

As anybody who spends time muckraking can tell you, pursuing stories about political corruption can take you to some passing strange places. Particularly in New Jersey…

In July the FBI bagged a passel of Jersey pols on corruption charges. Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini was among the indicted. An intriguing rumor about Beldini surfaced in comments posted in response to various regional news articles about the roundup. The poster (or posters) claimed Beldini was a burlesque queen in the 1950s and ’60s. Performing as Hope Diamond. Aka “The Gem of Exotics”. Hope Diamond was medium famous. Not Gypsy Rose Lee or Blaze Starr, but definitely on the scene. Enough so to be referenced by legendary night life columnists Earl Wilson and Walter Winchell. The interest factor in the here and now was the idea of Deputy Mayor Hope Diamond. How Jersey is that?

The rumor turned lead when I found extensive exposition in a non-local chat group focused on bicycling, with a regular poster going off topic to say “WOW, I just saw my relative* get busted on the news”. (The Jersey corruption sweep received national coverage.) The poster went on to identify Leona as Hope, calling her “one of the last stronghold Burlesque Gals” and describing her past life and later career in Jersey City in some detail. The story was picked up at Burlesque Babes Blog Shop, a memorabilia site devoted to the glory days of glamor stripping– as opposed to the gynecological days of pole dancing. Burlesque Babes fleshed out the story with interesting but inconclusive background material.

More conclusive was a 1965 article** in The Harvard Crimson, in which a reporter interviews Hope Diamond backstage at a Boston Theater. Hope’s non-stage name is given as Leona Bonaccolti. The reporter observes that Hope/Leona seems “as much an efficient businesswoman as a performer”; contrasting her with other “burlies” for whom the spotlight was “the very breath of life”. He describes Hope/Leona as “more of a respectable madame figure than a temptress” and notes her expensive jewelry and minks, and the quality champagne she imbibes while being interviewed.

In the interview Hope/Leona mentions her Princeton, New Jersey origins and her residence in Edgewater, in Bergen County. Bergen abuts Hudson County, parent entity of Jersey City. According to an earlier (1961) Walter Winchell column Hope Diamond (Leona Bonaccolti) was married to crooner Bobby Colt but was in the process of separation. Hope/Leona’s web-chatty relative mentions a later marriage to noted jazz drummer Al Beldini. Eugene Chadbourne’s entry on Beldini (sometimes spelled Baldini or Baldiny) at the Verve Music website states his appearances on jazz records “come to a halt in the mid-’70s”.

By the 1980s, Leona Beldini was a prominent Jersey City real estate broker. By 2009, she was on the board of the Jersey City Economic Development Corporation (JCEDC) and deputy mayor in the administration of Mayor Jerramiah Healy. Mayor Healy, an ex-judge and cog in Hudson County’s Democratic machine (the gem of corruption) calls Beldini “a good friend”. Saying he’s known her for years. The Feds allege that Beldini, while Healy’s campaign treasurer, was also a bag woman. Ferrying bribes disguised as campaign contributions to grease development deals. Beldini got a piece of the real estate action. To date, Mayor Healey hasn’t been indicted. He claims to know nothing. (His detractors believe him.) Several other officials have pleaded guilty in the case, including Jersey City Housing Authority commissioner Edward Cheatam (!) who was simultaneously Hudson County’s Affirmative Action Officer. (Double dipping is a Jersey special.) Cheatam claims to have funneled bribes from several sources through former Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini. She maintains her innocence.

While digging into Beldini-as-Diamond I came across contact info for burlesque queen April Daye at one of the many sites that celebrate the ecdysiasts who made burlesque such sexy glam fun. (Not all these sites are memory lanes; a neo-burlesque movement is going great gams.) April Daye worked during the same period as Hope Diamond so I emailed her and asked for her thoughts on Hope/Leona. April’s reply email (hot pink background, purple text) while not directly confirming Leona as Hope, expressed sympathy for her situation “this publicity you don’t need at 74” and admiration for Hope Diamond as a performer. Saying she and Hope had sometimes appeared on the same bill. April described Hope as one of the “classy acts”.

I continued to correspond with April. April was (is) articulate, savvy, and often funny about her burlesque days. And her life has many colorful chapters besides her experience as the “Miss Behaving” April Daye. To go into those chapters would be beyond the scope of this article. But for a glimpse of one of the many faces (and names) of April, google “Gypsy Eden”. April sings! And unlike a lot strippers, she knew how to dance…

For April, performing was the breath of life. As a little girl she spent a lot of time wrapped in fabric swaths, dancing in homemade shows. She acquired some dance training, worked for Arthur Murray in St. Louis, Missouri and “wanted to be on the stage more than anything”. She linked up with another girl who wanted to be a model and headed for NYC. But April’s training wasn’t sufficient for Broadway. While in New York, she worked at the Latin Quarter and Copa Cabana as a hat check and camera girl. April was curvy and beautifully proportioned. She did some chorus work and figure modeling (she sent me a killer pin-up) and back in St. Louis, was tapped for burlesque by a major agent. She was still in her teens. Thanks to her youth, good looks and dance skills, April soon became a feature act making feature money. She was surprised to be paid “so much for showing so little”. As April puts it “it was the mid 1950s and the laws were most strict”. At the finale of her strip she’d be wearing what in 2009, would be “more than they wear at the beach”.

One of the things that made classic burlesque so entertaining (and at times adorably wacky) were its theme routines. As the experienced strippers in the musical “Gypsy” tell young Gypsy Rose Lee “you gotta have a gimmick”. Some strippers took fake bubble baths in tubs filled by bubble machines, or did ethnic themed strips in sarongs or peasant dirndl. Some had their clothes blown off by wind machines or snatched by invisible wires. Burlesque costumes involved special tech; no stripper wanted to struggle with a stuck zipper or become entangled in shucked-off garments. The ideal was “instant-off”.

April Daye had several routines. She danced to pop standards such as Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, St. Louis Blues, Night Train, and naturally– I’ll Remember April. Sometimes she wore translucent silk panel skirts that gave her spins “a twirling mystical floating appearance”. She did a bull fight routine “with authentic cape work”. She’s particularly proud of her “soft southern belle” routine; in which she wore a hoop skirt and carried a dainty parasol. Underneath her skirt was a pair of “instant-off ruffled pantaloons, snaps down the side”. April would bend over, back to the audience, and give them a smile over her shoulder. “Whoosh!” Off came the pantaloons. The audience would gasp in surprised delight.

If Scarlett O’Hara had worked the southern belle thing as well as April Daye she wouldn’t have had to run that nasty old lumber mill.

As said, April admired Hope Diamond’s classy act. April herself made a point of cultivating an aloofness that kept sleaze at bay and enhanced her routines. In April’s words “mystery always pays when it comes to seduction”. Other strippers got down and dirty. Despite its charm and color, burlesque was still a sex industry with plenty of sordid. April met her share of “the johns, the cons, the crooked, the mob, the jerks.” There were venues where dancers were expected to hustle drinks and/or themselves. One “bust out joint” in Kentucky had a sign-in sheet in the dressing room. April, still new to burlesque, assumed it was an attendance sheet and signed every night. Later she learned it was a tally sheet– so the owner of the joint could keep track of his cut from dancers turning tricks. The latter didn’t have to leave the premises; there was a brothel upstairs.

In the 1950s burlesque was in decline. By the ’60s and ’70s it was running on memory. April says this upped the sleaze factor. Theaters were “dirty, worn and cold”. Some did double duty as porn palaces, catering to the raincoat brigades. Eventually April focused on nightclubs, where strippers were still in demand and respected as entertainers. April danced till she was in her 40s. She appeared with, or worked the same venues as, some of the best strip acts in the business. Including Blaze Starr, Tempest Storm, and Tura Satana, star of Russ Meyer’s cult classic Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! April also worked with, or knew, performers such as Johnny Mathis, Jerry Vale, Tubby Boots (the one man vaudevillian sexual revolution), flamboyant wrestler/showman Gorgeous George, mega bosom babes Busty Russell and Chesty Morgan, and more top notch musicians than I can list. In her years on stage April was surrounded by some of the most talented and/or most outre members of mid 20th century American nightlife.

In the here and now, April Daye is a tad annoyed. Apparently some stripper cum comedian in Canada is performing under a very similar name. And she isn’t a classy act. More gynecological than glam. Still, April has a Zen influenced attitude toward life. She rises above the bad. As befits a lady of Burlesque…

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff

http://www.bloggernews.net/122595

Cher Joins Christina Aguilera In 'Burlesque'

2010-09-24T14:12:00.000-07:00

Call it a hunch, but I think "Burlesque" already has its place in film history set. Not only will it be the acting debut of Christina Aguilera, but the modern musical has signed on the music icon of all icons: the one and only Cher. Yeah. It's going to be flamboyant.

According to Variety, Aguilera will play an ambitious small-town girl fresh from the cornfields of Iowa. Possessing one heck of a voice (hey, it's Aguilera) she goes West to pursue her singing and dancing dreams. The aspiring star winds up in a neo-burlesque club on Sunset Boulevard that’s run by Tess (Cher), a former dancer who struggles to keep the club open and gives the young girl a chance to become a star.

The film will be a career first for the "Moonstruck" Oscar winner, as it will be the first time she uses her singing talents as part of a film role. Cher's songs have appeared in countless films, but she's never actually taken a musical part. The film will be directed by Steven Antin (Troy from "Goonies"!!!) off of a script co-written by Antin and Susannah Grant ("The Soloist"). Shooting is set to begin in November.

Cher was last seen onscreen in 2003's Farrelly Bros' comedy "Stuck on You," but is taking a break from her show in Las Vegas to return to the big screen. In addition to "Burlesque," she has also signed to co-star opposite Johnny Knoxville in "The Drop Out."

MTV Readers, can Aguilera hold her own against Cher? Is "Burlesque" going to be too over the top to be anything but a cult classic? Or do you see another "Moulin Rogue" on the horizon?

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2009/06/23/cher-joins-christina-aguilera-in-burlesque/

From New York, where American Burlesque Striptease was born...

2010-09-23T14:08:00.000-07:00

...the NY School of Burlesque combines direct training from the most glamourous performers of the 1940s-1960s with the mischief and creativity of the most prolific neo-burlesque scene in the world! We offer classes for fun, exercise, or training to perform, depending on your level of interest.

The New York School of Burlesque gives you access to amazing and experienced teachers with a real commitment to joyous, dazzling burlesque, and a love of performance. These teachers will fully engage and inspire you! We are the first, the original, and the most fun burlesque school in NYC. We're not jumping on the burlesque bandwagon--we built it! We have been producing classes for 7 years, as well as producing DVDs and hand books. We produce student showcases from some of our classes, presenting NYC's newest burlesque performers. Join the feathery, fringe-y fun!

Headmistress and Founder Jo Weldon wrote the book on performing burlesque!

The Essential Burlesque Dance Series

Want to take the entire series of beginner burlesque dance classes? Learn all the moves that make burlesque so much fun: the sexy shimmy, the tantalizing glove peel, the devastating bump n grind, and the dazzling tassel-twirl, chair dance, fan dance, and more!

Bachelorette, Birthday, and Other Events
We are the original burlesque party providers. Don't risk hiring someone who's just jumping on the burlesque bandwagon. Trust your event to our experience and expertise, and treat yourself and your friends to a fabulous class!

BOMBSHELL HAIR!
For pinup modeling or a glam night out!
Discover how to curl any type of hair, create long-lasting Victory rolls, glamorous waves, sturdy up-dos, and how to create hairstyles to withstand hot studio and stage lights or vigorous dancing! Also learn how to incorporate accessories for quick vintage looks and how to troubleshoot mishaps.

Stalking the Stocking!
Do you know the trick to keeping your stocking clinging tantalizingly to your toe right before you pop it off, or how to handle the band of your stocking to keep it from catching in the bend of your knee when you strip? Do you know what to do with your shoe when you take it off to reveal your stockinged foot? All this and more in this playful, teasing, incredibly sexy class!

Ultimate Self Confidence!
World Famous *BOB* is offering her celebrated self-confidence workshop! Ultimate Self Confidence is the radical and astonishing workshop that everyone is talking about! As seen in the Village Voice "Best of New York 2008" guide. World Famous *BOB* has created a workshop to encourage women (this class is currently women-only, though a co-ed version is planned to be offered in the future) to take larger steps towards who they ultimately want to be - whether it is on stage or in everyday life situations. Confidence is something that is only true when it is created by ourselves and *BOB* will guide you through a series of fun and sometimes challenging exercises to create "courage references" that are guaranteed to stay with you long after you've left class. Come ready to work and be prepared to amaze even yourself!

Hula Hoop with Miss Saturn
HULA HOOPING FOR AN AUDIENCE. This workshop can apply to any type of prop manipulation in performing as well as all levels of performers. We will focus on cultivating a performer's "bag of tricks." We will work beginnings, middles, and ends, attempt to strip away extraneous movement, incorporate exercises that bring focus from inward to outward thus sharpening the performer/audience relationship, and finally looking at different techniques in handling nervous energy. Please come with shoes you like to perform in or a costume piece that will help you organically get in touch with your performer "persona." It helps to bring something that is not apart of your day to day-for example if you never wear lip stick or a bowler hat trying wearing it during the workshop. It does not matter how developed the "persona" is. Come to play.

http://www.schoolofburlesque.com/

Burlesque Volume I DVD

2010-09-23T14:01:00.000-07:00

Learn Burlesque!

2010-09-23T14:00:00.001-07:00

Want to have FUN, feel SEXY and look FANTASTIC while learning Burlesque and Vintage Dances?

With this easy to follow DVD collection, you will learn the art of classic Burlesque and Vintage dance with Sugar Blue Burlesque's magnificent Showgirl and Burlesque Dance tutors!

This essential DVD collection covers Burlesque costumes, the art of tease, sexy floor work, feather fan dancing, tassel twirling, 1920's Charleston, Vintage jazz dances, 1960s GoGo dance plus a whole lot more.

The 1920's Charleston DVD features the world champion Sharon Davis (aka Miss Bonnie Fox). The 1960's GoGo Dance DVD features GoGo cage dancing with professional Go-Go dancer A'dora Derriere!

Unleash your inner BURLESQUE star with this outstanding DVD collection!

http://www.sugarblueburlesque.com/dvd/

America's Got Talent 2008 (Burlesque dancers)

2010-09-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

How to Become a Burlesque Dancer

2010-09-22T14:58:00.000-07:00

Burlesque dancing is a beautiful and seductive form of dance popularized in Europe in the 19th century. Many people think burlesque is all about taking your clothing off but you can find many more facets to this vibrant form of entertainment. Learn how to become a burlesque dancer and capture the magic of this provocative entertainment style.

Instructions

1. Learn a bit about the history of burlesque dancing before you fully commit to becoming a burlesque performer. Research famous burlesque stars like Abbot and Costello, Fannie Brice, and Kitten DeVille. Realize that this art isn't a glorified form of stripping, but rather a melding of comedic and ironic humor injected with proactive images and commentary.

2. Visit a burlesque show to get a feel for how the art is performed today. Many burlesque performers meld strip tease and acting to create a sense of seductive humor. Take notice of how the performers utilize costumes, props, and music to create a mood for their show that goes far beyond just dancing.

3. Enroll in a few dance classes of a wide variety of genres; ballet, modern dance and even ballroom dancing will be beneficial styles to learn to get a good foundation of what elements typically go into burlesque dancing. Land a job at a burlesque show doing anything from tending bar to busing tables until you can get an opportunity to perform yourself. Drink in the environment to assimilate into the world of burlesque.

4. Create a character persona for yourself that will be your sort of alter ego during your burlesque performances. Choose a stage name that embodies your character. Pick which themes you want to explore in your performances and make sure they are well thought out, witty, and above all else provocative in nature.

5. Book your first gig at a local burlesque club, preferably one that you've frequented many times and made connections at. Spend a good deal of time working on your debut performance as it will no doubt be viewed by savvy burlesque fans who will use your debut as an opportunity to judge your skill as a burlesque dancer.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2318286_become-burlesque-dancer.html

Cher & Xtina - Burlesque Preview - ET

2010-09-10T06:24:00.000-07:00

ET - Preview Burlesque with Cher, Christina Aguilera 2010

2010-09-10T06:19:00.000-07:00

Snapped: Christina Aguilera attends ‘Burlesque’ party in Mexico.

2010-09-10T06:17:00.000-07:00

Christina Aguilera seems to have been laying low since her new album ‘Bionic‘ under-performed on the charts, but the diva was back out in full force over the weekend for a small industry party to promote her new flick ‘Burlesque‘, held at Summer of Sony, Cancun, Mexico.

The singer was accompanied by her co-stars Kristen Bell and Cam Giganet, and director Steve Antin. Unfortunately though, Cher was noticeably missing in action.

‘Burlesque‘ doesn’t open until late November, but the movie and it’s accompanying soundtrack could be the thing that salvages the ‘Bionic’ era for Christina. However, if the movie bombs — which it very well could if the media witch hunt against Christina hasn’t died down in the next few months — then Aggie will be you-know-what creek without a paddle.

‘Burlesque‘ is going to be a very pivotal moment in the 10 plus year career of Christina Aguilera.

http://www.theprophetblog.net/snapped-christina-aguilera-attends-burlesque-party-in-mexico

Burlesque Party at the Summer of Sony

2010-09-10T06:12:00.000-07:00

Sony Pictures held a Burlesque Party yesterday (06/26) in Cancun, Mexico, during its ‘Summer of Sony’ festival which will last till July 1, 2010. Cam Gigandet, Christina Aguilera, Kristen Bell and director Steve Antin attended the event.

Burlesque is coming out in theaters on November 24, 2010 (USA) and on December 17, 2010 (UK)

http://www.camgigandet.tv/2010/06/burlesque-party-summer-sony/

Burlesque party babes Christina Aguilera and Kristen Bell

2010-09-10T05:04:00.000-07:00

Christina Aguilera with Kristen Bell

The soon to be released Burlesque will see some of the biggest names in the music industry testing their luck in the big screen of Hollywood as they bring a story about music and the showbiz. Directed by Steve Antin the movie will feature the both acting and singing talents of some of the great personalities that will leave the audience asking for more and more.

Burlesque have the story of Ali a small country girl as she heads to the city seeking her luck and fame. There she meets up with Tess who is running a hardly famous small theater that draws little money and attention. Ali’s amazing talent as a singer brings success to the story and it also realizes her dreams.

Christina Aguilera will star as Ali and she was recently attended the party that had some of the cast like Kristin Bell, Cher, Eric Bell, Peter Gallagher and Alan Cumming also took part.Sceduled to be released on 24th of November this musical drama Burlesque will not disappoint the audience with its close to reality story that has a tinge of romance in it.

http://www.onlinemovieshut.com/online-movies/burlesque-party-babes-christina-aguilera-and-kristen-bell

Hell on Heels Burlesque Revue - Cocktail Party

2010-09-09T03:33:00.000-07:00

Bachelor Party Theme - Burlesque

2010-09-09T03:32:00.000-07:00

Steve's bachelor party was unlike any other I had ever been to. Steve's brother David, called me asking for help throwing the bachelor party. I would do anything for a buddy as good as Steve so, Iwent over to Dave's house for a meeting.

Dave was really organized. He had arranged, through a friend for us to have the party at the community theater. He had found a print of a turn of the century nude and had invitation cards made up at a print shop. Steve had requested there be no strippers at his bachelor party, so what Dave needed me to take care of the food.

I decided to keep the menu simple thick steaks, steak fries, corn on the cob and cole slaw. I needed to make enough food for 23 guys. I ordered cole slaw and steak fries from the deli and rented a huge grill for the steaks. I was sure to get unhusked corn so I could barbecue it on the grill.

An hour before the party I set up the grill in the the theater parking lot. I had asked Anthony to come early too so he could give me a hand. David showed up a half hour later with the drinks. He only brought only 12 cases of Corona beer and Sebastiani wine and 3 bottles of rum since we were going bar hopping later. He also brought 4 jugs of punch and orange juice for the rum and four bags of ice.

I started taking I started taking orders for steaks when the rest of the guests arrived. I was really busy for the next hour, but the boys kept bringing me cold Corona beers, so I didn't feel left out much. Anything I missed, they got on Fuji film.

After everyone had eaten, I went inside to see how the party was shaping up. Dave came out on stage and announced the show was about to start. He gave a humorous speech about his brother. I don't remember much, except him joking about his brother's request for no strippers. However, that didn't include belly dancers or burlesque artists. He gave a bow Then, the lights went down.

A real, belly dancer stood on the stage when the lights came back up. She put on an amazing show. It was as erotic as anything I had ever seen even, though she didn't take off any clothes. After she had danced one song several other belly dancers joined her. They each wore costumes of a different color. After they were finished, all the guys clapped and whistled. The
burlesque artist did take off some clothes during her dance routine, but she also sang a couple of sultry songs. She was way classier than a stripper. I didn't hear Steve complaining.

After the performance the bus Dave had chartered took us bar hopping. He had called several bars ahead of time to make sure they could handle us. On the way to the first bar I asked David where he had found the dancers and he said they both advertised on the Internet.

The last bar closed at 1:30 so everyone piled back on the bus and took everyone back to the theater. Everyone hung around until 3:00 A.M. when Dave had arranged for their wives and girlfriends to pick them up

Dave was still on his feet and Tony was sober enough to be worried about anyone getting hurt or breaking something in the theater. Dave and had to I carry a couple guest off the bus who had passed out into the theater. Aside from leaving a mess in the bathroom, the theater was in once piece. I took some photos of the unconcious guests so I could embarass them later.

When the girls showed up, we put the single guys into cabs. Julie took me home and I slept until noon. It was the best bachelor party I'd ever been to.

http://www.partypop.com/themes/BACH0003.html

How to have a burlesque party

2010-09-09T03:30:00.000-07:00

by Josephine Middleton

An exhibitionist with a fetish for feathers? Have a burlesque party on the cheap. Glamorously decadent burlesque costumes and lifestyle needn't cost a string of pearls...

Burlesque originated as a form of elaborate comedy theatre, often highly satirical and with a very middle class audience. It was only in the last century that the genre began to broaden its appeal - a penchant for double entendres and a fondness for outlandish female drag contributing to its risqué reputation. It wasn't until the 1930s though that striptease became a staple part of burlesque shows and it was this overtly sexual element that sealed its fate, with a social crackdown on burlesque in the 30s leading to its steady decline.

The vibrant colours, seductive costumes and elaborate sets often associated with burlesque have led to a recent resurgence in its popularity and no serious party girl is now complete without some kind of corset/feather costume combo. Going for broke? There already? Have burlesque fun, whatever your budget.

Burlesque costumes

The beauty of burlesque as a party theme is that you can do as little or as much as you like. Less outlandish guests can get away with wearing something black and a feather in their hair, whilst for the more flamboyant party goer the possibilities are endless. Costumes can be put together very simply on a budget - less really is more after all - and a visit to your local haberdashery should provide you with miles of net and a selection of feathers at a very reasonable price. Gather up a metre of black netting, pin it to your pants and hey presto! - you have a bustle.

Eco friendly divorcees may like to consider recycling bits of their wedding dress. Attach some strategic black lace to your wedding bodice and there is no need to wait for your wedding night for all the fun. Indeed, you can dye your wedding dress and become an absinthe-guzzling lady in red. If you have got some cash to splash, the costume is the place to spend it. How much more decadent can you get than having your very own bespoke corset made to fit?

Do be careful with your invitations though, as burlesque can be a daunting dress code for some. Many people find parties anxious occasions at the best of times so being required to show up in what amounts to your underwear could easily be enough to keep some guests at home in their thermal pyjamas. Make it clear that nipple tassels are optional and design your invite to be as inclusive as possible.
Drinks to serve at a burlesque party

No burlesque party would be complete without a selection of delicious and highly potent cocktails. Organised paupers should plan their cocktail menu in advance and assign ingredients to each guest, ideally the ones you know well and whose attendance you are sure of. It might be a bit much to have 'bring a bottle of exotic spirits' on your invitations. Lashings of cheap vodka, rum and gin will usually ensure a party goes with a swing. To continue the burlesque theme, make your cocktail menu up with the aptly-named Orange Striptease, Black Feather and Pink Stripper. Or how about whipping up a batch of Strip and Go Naked Punch? If you're feeling a touch anti-prohibition, serve your burlesque cocktails in fine tea cups and mix them all up in the bath. We don't recommend you make illicit moonshine.

Mixing your own cocktails is fun, but if you would rather spend your time can-canning and can afford to buy in some help, you could rent yourself an almost naked cocktail waiter from Butlers in the Buff? It'll take the pressure off your hostess duties and makes a great ice breaker...
Burlesque music

If music be the food of love, or perhaps lust in this case. A sexy soundtrack is absolutely key to any good party, especially so in the case of burlesque, when you are looking to encourage as much dirty dancing as possible. Of course back in my youth a perfect party playlist meant hours recording your favourite songs onto tapes, but fortunately we now live in a much less embarrassing era and you can create seamless music mixes at the touch of a button. Obviously you will want to include some classics like 'The Stripper' but luckily you'll find that musically, all the hard work musically has been done for you. Simply download yourself a couple of burlesque music compilations and you will be all set. Do mix it up towards the end of the evening with some party classics - everyone loves to dance to a bit of Dolly Parton at the end of a night. (Or is that just me?)

And for those of you with lucrative careers in corset making who can afford to look further than i-tunes for their entertainment how about hiring a burlesque dancer or two? Or even better, book burlesque dance lessons for the evening, put the costumes to good use and you and your friends can learn how to become striptease starlets.
Burlesque decorations and lighting

It is very simple to turn even the dingiest of party venues into a gorgeous bursleque grotto and, as with most parties, lighting is critical. One cheap and easy first step is to change all the clear light bulbs for red ones, which you can usually pick up in any DIY store or even supermarket. Red bulbs give out a sultry, sexy glow and are dim enough to draw attention away from your thighs. Candles and tea lights make a good accompaniment, but can also be a fire hazard in a room so festooned with feathers.

Make your own cute tealight holders from empty glass jars - simply glue a length of coloured net around the middle of the jar, overlaid with a narrower length of black lace et voila! Finish with red tealights for extra glam.

Then it is back to the haberdashery for more trimmings. Cheap lengths of netting are ideal for creating a colourful backdrop. If you are having your party at home you can staple netting up across bookcases, cupboards and alcoves - create a glamourous burlesque boudoir and hide all your junk at the same time! If you can afford to spend a bit more than £2.50 on lighting, strings of fairy lights and sheets of net lights can be added over the top. Finish off with a generous sprinkling of feathers, feather boas and anything else vaguely vampish that you can lay your hands on.

So your invites have been sent, the naked waiters are standing by ready to serve a selection of strip-themed cocktails and your kitchen looks like the set of Moulin Rouge. All that remains then is to squeeze yourself into your outfit and let rip. All that corsetry does, of course, havie the added benefit of eliminating the need to provide party snacks...

http://www.mookychick.co.uk/lists/burlesque-party.php

Cristal Burlesque Ball Show

2010-09-07T07:44:00.000-07:00

Cristal Burlesque Clubs Ribbon Coldplay Show

2010-09-07T07:41:00.000-07:00

Burlesque Clubs in London

2010-09-07T07:39:00.000-07:00

Seeking a club in London that knows how to throw a fabulous burlesque night? Why not peruse our recommended list of burlesque clubs in London and make it a night to remember? We've picked the best options in the capital for those looking for a heady mix of salaciousness and irony, so for those of you looking for a sensual distraction to the evening, enjoy our guide to the best burlesque clubs in London.

Peacock Bar
148 Falcon Road, Battersea, SW11 2LW

    * Award winning burlesque, cabaret and night club venue
    * Burlesque & Cabaret with DJs after till 2am Fri/Sat
    * Free entry all night, reserved area bookings and shots
    * Get on stage with our performers and be humiliated
    * Electric atmosphere with sophisticated party crowd

Bethnal Green Working Mens Club
Comedy, cabaret and burlesque events held regularly at this theatre, club and bar.
42 Pollards Row,
Bethnal Green,
London,
E2 6NB

CellarDoor
(Delicatessen)
The weekend is the time to let your hair down and have some fun. On Saturdays, CellarDoor hosts burlesque classes followed by camp cabaret and burlesque inspired entertainment. Prices are £29 for the class or £55 for the class and show.
Zero Aldwych,
Covent Garden,
London,
WC2E 7DN

Madame JoJos
Burlesque shows and kitsch cabaret nights scheduled at Madame JoJos. See venue for details of the next gig.
8-10 Brewer Street,
London,
W1F 0SE

Peacock Bar
Peacock in Battersea has ruffled its feathers to reveal a decadent bar. Burlesque and cabaret ensure it doesn’t fade into the background.
148 Falcon Road,
Battersea,
London,
SW11 2LW

http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/clubs/burlesque-clubs-in-london-recommended-london-3867.html

Hot, Wild ,Crazy ,Sexy , Burlesque, Night Clubs And Vegas Parties!!

2010-09-07T07:30:00.000-07:00

Burlesque Bar

2010-09-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

One of Melbourne's naughtiest and best kept little secrets, Burlesque Bar in Fitzroy is open Thursday to Sunday (from 6pm til late).

Inspired by the decadent early days of French Burlesque, it is a world unto itself that is sure to entice and entertain! Perfect for a night out, a private party or a romantic evening for two, come let Madame Natalia and the resident burlesque starlets within spice up your weekend!

Packages available for private functions to suit any budget! Why not try something a little different and exciting for your hen's or buck's night, 21st, 40th or divorcee party! Functions can also include live burlesque shows for you and your guests!

LADIES NIGHT THURSDAYS!
The fun kicks off early at Burlesque Bar every Thursday! Join Nick Waddell's Drawings Straws from 7pm for some burlesque life drawing, then head downstairs at 9.30pm as our Femme C Madame Natalia and resident burly-girls tease and tempt on the checkerboard stage. There are drinks specials for the ladies, including Lili St Cyr sparkling wine for $5 a glass! Tickets $15.

'CIRQUE DE FEMMES' FRIDAY!
At the end of every working week comes Madame Natalia's 'Cirque de Femmes' lineup. Boasting the talents of selected resident starlets including Scarlett, Foxtrot India, Poppy Cherry, Miss Nic, Honey B Goode, Bijoue & Lady Chocolat- as well as a special guest 'cirque' performer each week, why would you be anywhere else on a Friday night? Show begins at 9.30pm. Tickets $20. Book now.

'CIRQUE DE FEMMES' SATURDAY!
Saturday night we do it all again! Join the 'Cirque de Femmes' as they take you on a wild and wicked ride of wantoness and women from 9.30pm. A fully interactive Burlesque and Cabaret show that is not to be missed! Tickets $20. Book now!

'ATROCITY' BURLESQUE DU GRAND GUIGNOL
Exclusive to Burlesque Bar, Melbourne's controversial new burlesque/cabaret show hits the checkerboard stage every Sunday to drag you kicking and screaming into the dark mind of man. With a trilogy of shows deemed 'too adult to review' that have seen audience members crying, laughing and fainting...this is an experience not to be missed! Come and play...if you dare...every Sunday from 9pm. Tickets $20. Bookings essential

http://www.onlymelbourne.com.au/melbourne_details.php?id=16322

Red Door Burlesque

2010-09-06T07:10:00.000-07:00

On the last Sunday of every month, Red Door brings you the finest in burlesque, vaudeville and circus at the elegant Order of Melbourne.

An evening at Red Door is like taking a trip back to the golden age of burlesque, with dazzling performances from Australia’s premier troupe, Hi Ball Burlesque, seductive tunes from DJ Emma Peel, saucy pinup girls, and death-defying aerial acts performing right above your table.

Book now to be part of Melbourne's premier burlesque event!

Sunday September 26, 2010

The Order of Melbourne, Swanston St (look for the red door opposite RMIT)
Every Sunday night, doors from 6.00pm, entertainment starts at 7pm, $20

http://www.onlymelbourne.com.au/melbourne_details.php?id=18216

Burlesque star says bending rules is part of the fun

2010-09-03T07:38:00.000-07:00

Dita Von Teese today called on burlesque performers to defy a London council's crackdown on their shows.

Von Teese, the American "Queen of Burlesque", said that bending the rules was part of the burlesque tradition, making performances "more appealing and exciting".

She said today: "It's not unusual for burlesque to be regulated because it always has been and the stars of burlesque from the past had to deal with it. The challenges of getting around the laws and the risqué element were always a part of what made burlesque exciting."

The Standard revealed that burlesque nights at venues such as the Roundhouse and Koko had been banned by Camden council unless the venues applied for the same licence required for lap-dancing clubs.

Von Teese, 36, said: "In America in the Thirties and Forties there were strict laws and the dancers had to adhere to them. This is why the pastie [nipple tassel] was invented, and the g-string was cleverly constructed! Some burlesque queens chose to break the laws, knowing that being photographed taken away in handcuffs was great publicity, and I love this element of burlesque.

"I've been stripping since 1991 and have travelled all over the world and had to be aware of the laws. Sometimes I complied and sometimes I didn't.

"Perhaps these clubs will install the historic "red light, green light" that they had in burlesque clubs to tell the performers whether the cops were in the house or not."

Von Teese, who has modelled for Jean Paul Gaultier and Vivienne Westwood, is credited with reviving burlesque in recent years.

She recalled how she had to adjust her performance to keep within the boundaries of the law in her first show in the capital. "In the early Nineties, I was forced to go behind a curtain to remove each item of clothing, even my gloves. It was okay for me to be nude, but there were still laws in effect that did not allow for actual striptease in public."

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23682851-burlesque-star-says-bending-rules-is-part-of-the-fun.do

What is... Burlesque?

2010-09-03T07:36:00.000-07:00

Glamour has come back into the club world of with a bang, through the medium of burlesque. Men and women are now able to cast of their bland clubbing uniforms of T-shirt and jeans, and are looking to the likes of antique Hollywood for inspiration. Three years ago few knew what the word 'burlesque' meant. If it was explained that the heart of burlesque is the striptease, people would only hear the sound "strip" and revert to knowing glances. Trying to explain that a striptease is far more tease than sleaze was futile. Since then the scene has grown, and people are now au fait with the delights of nipple tassels, Dita Von Teese and striptease.

Burlesque doesn't pay heed to flimsy modern concepts of beauty, as portrayed by women's fashion and lads' mags. It appeals to the man who is more turned on by a wiggle in a walk than a 'page three stunna'. It has become a cult among the type of women who can admire a beautiful female body without feeling that it threatens her own sexuality. This is where burlesque comes into its own. We all know women who have great allure but who would never stand up to scrutiny on a traditional dance stage. But put her on a burlesque stage and she lights it up with that elusive quality, that 'je ne sais quoi'. Saying that many an accomplished dancer on a burlesque stage has fizzled rather than sizzled. But, a good stripteaser projects her charisma into the audience, appealing to them on numerous levels - humour, sensuality, sex. The audience must feel she has just given them a nod and a wink, that they are in on her secret.

Paradoxically, clothes are the most important element of a striptease. It has been said that "a stripper earns a lot of money. A stripteaser puts all her money into her next costume." The least a stripteaser is likely to reveal is big pants and pasties. In fact in many burlesque acts there is no removal of clothes whatsoever.

The world of dance is rich with past traditions, such as fan dancing, bubble dance and bump 'n' grind. From this, the burlesque performer may cherry pick elements from which to take inspiration, such as Lili St Cyr and her dressing table act or Sally Rand with her bubble dance. The current piéce de resistance for a stripteaser, and a surefire way to make an audience go wild, is the tassel twirl. Luckily, any shape or size of lady can tassel twirl - even men can do it. Like all good dance forms, it just takes practice.

The biggest and most liberating advantage to being a burlesque performer is there are no rules - no conforming to traditional dance or performing techniques. She can truly be an individual and let her personality shine through - from the characters she portrays, the music, the story she tells and how she chooses to tell it. It's a fun playground.

http://www.theskinny.co.uk/article/36259-what-is-burlesque

Russell Brand inteviews Dita Von Teese

2010-09-02T06:52:00.000-07:00

Dita Von Teese Showers in Perrier, Promotes Bottled Water

2010-09-02T06:51:00.000-07:00

Using celebrities to sell unsustainable products like bottled water is nothing new. From Ellen Degeneres to Jennifer Aniston, celebrities hype the bad habit. The latest, though, is sure to spark a little more attention. Dita Von Teese, an American burlesque dancer that has scored a huge amount of fame among Europeans has become the latest advocate of bottled water through a new commercial for Perrier, in which she showers. So, not only is it promoting a wasteful habit, but also a wasteful use of the product..all to keep a few eyes glued to the television screen. Check out the commercial after the jump.

Seriously? Dita Von Teese pouring Perrier onto herself is the best the company could come up with? What's worse is it's only a portion of the interactive campaign by the bottled water company, where visitors can try to take pictures of Dita in the dark, or roll dice to get her to either lick her lips or strip down for Perrier. The website warns that it "contains scenes which some young viewers may find disturbing."
Greenies find it disturbing too. But, if this is what bottled water companies have to resort to to get people to buy their products, does it mean the plastic bottle habit is on its way out the door?
Let's hope.
While Von Teese decided bottled water was worth promoting, she at least used her pull for a greener organization well known for using sex to sell its message -- PETA. In 2007, she did an Animal Birth Control campaign with PETA, despite the fact that she does happily wear vintage fur.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/07/dita-von-teese-showers-in-perrier-promotes-bottled-water.php

Burlesque (2010) Official Film Trailer

2010-09-01T07:47:00.000-07:00

Burlesque Trailer 2010 HD

2010-09-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

Dita Von Teese and Her Dresses

2010-08-31T06:58:00.000-07:00

Dita Von Teese in Red Dress

Dita Von Teese - - wearing Vivienne Westwood - - signs M.A.C Viva Glam posters as she makes a special delivery of M.A.C Viva Glam Lipsticks at Selfridges on June 28, 2007 in London, England.

Dita Von Teese in Black Dress

Dita Von Teese - - wearing Roland Mouret - - poses backstage in the Awards Room at the ELLE Style Awards 2006, the fashion magazine's annual awards celebrating style, at the Atlantis Gallery at the Old Truman Brewery on February 20, 2006 in London, England.

Dita Von Teese in Silver Gown

Dita Von Teese arrives for her UK Premiere of "Lipteese", a performance at Bloomsbury Ballroom on June 27, 2007 in London, England.

Dita Von Teese in Stripes

Dita Von Teese signs copies of her new books "Burlesque" and "The Art of the Teese" at a Virgin Megastore on March 20, 2006 in Hollywood, CA.

Dita Von Teese in Navy Gown

Dita Von Teese poses at a party to celebrate the launch of her new book "Burlesque and the Art of theTeese/Fetish And The Art of the Teese" at the New York Academy of Art March 28, 2006 in New York City.

http://fashion.about.com/od/celebritystyle/ig/Dita-von-Teese/Dita-Von-Teese-in-Navy-Gown.htm

McTavish Weekend: Burlesque, Benatar & Kid Tryouts for ‘Christmas Carol’

2010-08-31T06:49:00.000-07:00

The grab bag known as weekend fun in Kansas City doesn’t get any grabbier than “Burlesque Revival at the Folly” presented by homegrown striptease troupe Burlesque Downtown Underground at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Folly Theater.

The historic downtown venue at 12th and Central hasn’t hosted the old bump and grind since the 1970s, back when stripping was a sweaty palmed ogling exercise rather than an ironic art form with workshops.

Anyone else remember when females taking it off for profit wasn’t something you talked about in polite company? Remember polite company? That’s OK, I’m not sure I really do, either.

Regardless, the pretty things – I’m sorry, artists – in Burlesque Downtown Underground want everyone to know that they’re not merely sexual objects. They also have college degrees. And this matters? It’s not like Saturday’s show will be a lecture from professors Cherry Pop, Foxy Roxy and Crimson Sugar – although that might be kinkier.

Yet it’s not strictly scantily clad performers who’ll be on stage at the Folly. Other talents will be offered by aerial acrobats Thieves of Flight, performance art band Alacartoona, clown group the Flock, jazz singer Emily Frost, fire-eater Jason Divad, Shakespeare comedy collective the Lord Mayor’s Company, comic Lucky Deluxe and belly dancer M’Chelle, who may be getting in over her bellybutton – careful, girl, it’s a fast crowd.

Tickets cost $15 to $52; go to follytheater.com

Signing and Singing

Veteran rock ’n’ roll belter-outer Pat Benatar will not only sing for her fans as the opener for REO Speedwagon at 8 p.m. Sunday at Starlight Theatre. Earlier in the day, she’ll also sign copies of her autobiography, Between a Heart and a Rock Place.

The signing is from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. Sunday at Unity Temple on the Plaza, 707 W. 47th. The price of admission is a copy of Benatar’s book that must be purchased from Rainy Day Books. For details, go to rainydaybooks.com.

Tickets start at $25 to catch Benatar at Starlight. She can be expected to deliver such vintage hits as “Heartbreaker,” “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” and “Love is a Battlefield,” although almost certainly no longer wearing the sort of skin-tight black body suit that went along with her pipes back in the day. Well, there’s always the lecture circuit.

God Bless Them, Every One

Do you know of a young lad who might make a great Tiny Tim in Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s 30th anniversary production of “A Christmas Carol”?

KC Rep is holding an open casting call this weekend for potential TT’s and other young actors, ages 7 to 16, who would like to wind up playing a singing, dancing or acting part in the show inspired by the Charles Dickens holiday classic.

Auditions will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Guadalupe Center, 1015 Avenida Cesar E. Chavez; and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center and Museum, 3700 Blue Parkway.

All auditions will be by appointment. To get on the schedule, call 816-235-6067. For detailed audition info, go to kcrep.org.

Hear More on KCUR-FM

For the audio version of yours truly extolling the merits of even more weekend stuff to do, go to kcur.org and click on Thursday’s “Up to Date” show archive. I promise it won’t sound like a lecture.

Brian McTavish

http://www.kcconfidential.com/?p=17467

Illustrated London News. "The Pantomimes and Burlesque." 31 December 1859.

2010-08-30T06:14:00.000-07:00

["The composition of pantomimes, notwithstanding a vulgar notion to the contrary, has of late days greatly improved. In the days of `Mother Goose' they made no claim to a literary status. But nowadays they are carefully written by literary men, and aspire to literary merit. We must go back to earlier periods, if we will compare things new with old, when the pantomime was a classical production. Mr. Rich, to whom their English origin is ascribed, merely revived an old classical form of drama. `The Royal Shepherd of Mount Ida' was the favourite subject with the ancient theatres - the audiences of Greece and Rome were entertained with the Shepherd, the Mountain, and the Apple, all of which were to them intelligible objects, and, therefore, especially suitable to pantomimic exhibition. The same principle was extended in the middle ages, and is still in Italy and Spain to the Mysteries and Moralities, and the dramas that are statedly acted in Catholic churches. A previous acquaintance with the subject is needful for the thorough enjoyment of pantomimic action, though the rule has not always been acted upon either in ancient or modern times, and in some instances been mistaken altogether. Serious pantomimes were once as frequent as comic; and it is recorded that they were occasionally found so pathetic that both actors and audiences were equally affected. Tears both on and off the stage were shed in great abundance. But no opportunity has been given of late years for a Tragic Pantomimist to make a reputation..." (p. 640).]

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/cinder/cin8.htm

Pussycat Dolls turn burlesque club act into child's play

2010-08-30T06:09:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK — When Robin Antin, a Los Angeles choreographer, decided 11 years ago to assemble a burlesque-inspired nightclub revue, she called it the Pussycat Dolls as a tip of the hat to her vision of "making everyone look like a real, living doll."

Interscope Records is taking her words literally.

The label, which, along with Antin,redesigned the act as an R&B-influenced pop group and released its debut CD last year, has struck a deal with Hasbro, the toy maker, to create a line of fashion dolls modeled on its six members. The toy line - designed to mimic the act's playfully risqué style - is expected to be on sale by this year's holiday season. Hasbro executives estimate that the dolls, intended for children from 6 to 9, will carry a retail price of about $14.99, with the label receiving a royalty on sales.

The deal is just one example of how record companies are seeking revenue- sharing arrangements that encompass far more than CDs.

With album sales on the decline, labels are pressing to receive a cut of artists' concert earnings, merchandise sales and corporate advertising fees. Last year, for example, EMI agreed to pay about $25 million to buy an estimated 30 percent stake in the business generated by the rock band Korn.

Interscope has been aggressive in developing new avenues of business that extend beyond the customary ticket sales and T-shirts, two of the biggest moneymakers for many artists, through a slate of recent arrangements.

The label, a unit of Vivendi Universal, struck a unique deal with Antin in 2003 in which the two sides split the profit from all the act's ventures. Since then,the Pussycat Dolls name has landed on a cosmetics line from the Stila unit of Estée Lauder and on a nightclub at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

The toy line, however, reflects perhaps the most ambitious effort yet to generate extra revenue since the group achieved mainstream success. Managing to score at toy retailers would also illustrate how elastic the aura of a manufactured pop act can be, as the Pussycat Dolls straddle the image of late-night lounge dancers and kid- friendly pop singers at the same time.

Interscope's foray into the toy market comes as young children are becoming an important audience for the recording industry. Music executives have been eager to appeal to fans who (they hope) are too young to download music illegally, and children are making their presence known on the Billboard sales chart in the United States.

The soundtrack to the Disney Channel TV movie "High School Musical" has emerged as a bona-fide hit, while "Kidz Bop 9," the most recent installment of a popular sing-along series, recently posted the biggest first-week sales of any album in the franchise.

The Pussycat Dolls certainly did not start with an innocent image. Interscope signed the group after the label's chairman, Jimmy Iovine, saw their nightclub act at the suggestion of Gwen Stefani, a singer on the label who did her own turn performing with the dance troupe. The group stormed the charts in August with its first big single, "Don't Cha," a steamy tease that included the lyric, "Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me/Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?"

But the act's next song, "Stickwitu," was a softer ballad that attracted airplay on kid-friendly outlets like Radio Disney. Since the group's album, "PCD," hit stores last year, it has sold more than 1.3 million copies in the United States alone, according to Nielsen SoundScan data.

Ron Fair, the head of Interscope's A&M Records unit and one of the album's main producers, said the act's more mature image was an asset in appealing to a wider audience.

"When you're dealing with children," he said, "if you shoot for that mode in the music you create, it's very, very difficult for it to translate up. Once it's branded as a tween thing, it's very hard to flip it up. But what the older sister and older brother like definitely trickles down to the kids. That's what's happening to the Pussycat Dolls." Tween is a term that U.S. marketers use to describe those between childhood and adolescence.

Hasbro recognized that dynamic from the outset. Sharon John, the company's general manager for marketing, said she first talked with Interscope executives while "Don't Cha" reigned as the act's first hit. Hasbro executives viewed the Pussycat Dolls as a line that could sell to the same audience of young girls that have gobbled up the Bratz, a line of fashion dolls with curvy figures and coy smiles from a rival, MGA Entertainment.

John conceded that the Pussycat Dolls packaging might be edgy for Hasbro consumers. "Bratz has pushed the envelope in this area and has been extraordinarily successful," she said. "I don't think we're trying to push the envelope any further, but we're trying to add an aspect of realism. These are people that have real careers."

John added that the company sought an alliance with the pop act while it appeared ascendant. "Most of the time, the toy item for Britney Spears, N Sync,is past the success of the act, way down the line. It's really the last thing they think of. We looked at it as, let's not wait for the Pussycat Dolls to become big hits and we take the tail end of the value chain."

As a result, the record label and toy maker are drawing up plans for a series of marketing tie-ins. While the plans are still under discussion, the campaign is expected to involve the release later this year of a new Pussycat Dolls song that would double as a theme for the toy line's advertising, and probably wind up on a future CD release. The fashion dolls might be packaged with a code used to download an exclusive version of the song.

Universal Music Group, the parent company of Interscope, had already been focusing on the children's market through a similar route: releasing CDs branded by the Bratz. The company has released "Genie Magic," an album linked to a new Bratz DVD. Universal's earlier Bratz album, "Rock Angelz," released last summer, has sold an estimated 255,000 copies. But the music company has no share of the actual toy sales.

Interscope's pact with Hasbro provides a glimpse of how the label, based in Santa Monica, California, aims to stretch the revenue-sharing concept even further. Interscope executives are working to produce their own television series. One of them will be based on the Pussycat Dolls and overseen by McG, the former video director who also directed the movie "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle." The company is also examining a publishing venture.

"We're not going to limit ourselves to only traditional and new digital models for selling music," said Steve Berman, the label's president of sales and marketing. "We're going to look at every artist as a unique and special brand and look at what business relationships we can get into."

He said that some artists might generate no business opportunities beyond music, but that for others, "the doors are completely open."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/business/worldbusiness/16iht-music17.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

How to Learn the History of Burlesque

2010-08-27T06:32:00.000-07:00

The mention of burlesque usually conjures up images of bawdy striptease artists bumping and grinding in pointed pasties and skimpy g-strings. Old school femme fatales of the 1950s have recently been replaced by contemporary showstoppers like Kitten Deville, Dirty Martini or the Suicide Girls. Believe it or not, Burlesque originated in the 1860s with Lydia Thompson and her all female cast of bleach blondes performing parodies of Greek tragedies. Burlesque is a form of theatre whose roots rocked American pop culture from the get-go.

Perform an Internet search on Burlesque History. Early history can be found on History of Burlesque Part I & II. The Ministry of Burlesque is an excellent source for all that was and is Burlesque. At this site, every aspect of this art form is at your fingertips including the history, schools, performers and other related resources.
Read a book. The literary cannons on Burlesque are "Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture" by Robert C. Allen and "Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show" by Rachel Shteir. Other interesting recreational reads include "The American Burlesque Show" by Irving Zeidman written in 1967 (at the height of the decline of the striptease) and "The Josephine Baker Story" by Ean Wood.
Watch a Movie. Burlesque has made excellent subject matter for films for over five decades. Watch classic cinema to learn the life of famous striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee. Natalie Wood starred in "Gypsy" (1962). The HBO documentary "Pretty Things" illuminates the viewer of the intimate details of classic burlesque. One of the major highlights of this film is Zorita's story.
Visit the Museum. The Burlesque Hall of Fame is claimed to be the Smithsonian of striptease. Curator Dixie Evans is a graceful host to the finest collections of Burlesque artifacts and exhibits. The museum is located inside Atomic Todd in Las Vegas, Nevada.
See a local Burlesque show. Burlesque troupes can be found in every major, and most secondary, urban centers. Conduct an Internet search or try the Burlesque Hall of Fame website for an extensive list of performers and their hometowns, and choose "support" from main menu.
Go to a Burlesque festival. Pack up in July and head to the annual Exotic World Weekend where the best striptease artists battle for the crown of Miss Exotic World. The competition recently moved to Las Vegas. Information for this event is found on the Burlesque Hall of Fame website.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2142978_learn-history-burlesque.html

How to Become a Burlesque Star

2010-08-27T06:12:00.000-07:00

There's no easy road to becoming a Burlesque Lovely, but if you're going to start somewhere, start here! The road to stardom is vague and probably very rocky, but the curtains rise and knickers fall and the world will always need Burlesque. It’s not going to be easy; there are many pathways that lead to the glitz and glam of Burlesque. How do you join a troupe? What do you need? Where do you start?

1. Appreciate the art and further your knowledge of it. You can’t just instantly take to the stage, take clothes off, and consider yourself a Burlesque Artiste because you have a feathered fan. It’s about using every little prop, and body part, to your advantage. Is Burlesque for you? What is it? Where did it come from? If you have never heard of Lili St Cyr or Gypsy Rose Lee then you haven't learned enough! History of Burlesque is just as important as the technicalities.

* Find out all you can about the history, and find people who inspire you.
    * Write a list of all the things a Burlesque Artiste has to do, and compare them with what you know you can achieve. Still think you have what it takes?
    * Lovely ladies who you may want to look into are Burlesque artists: Lili St Cyr, Gypsy Rose Lee, Sally Rand, (and more recently) Dita Von Teese, Catherine D’lish, The Sweet Soul Burlesque Troupe from Vancouver… fetish and pinup model Bettie Page, movie icons Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Betty Grable, Barbera Stanwyck, Rita Hayworth, and Mae West for style and glamour inspiration.

2. Get yourself to dance classes if you need them. Learn how to use a pole and a barre, get fit and into shape, and get yourself the way you will be on stage. It doesn't matter whether you're a little chubby or whether you're stick thin. Burlesque used to be for curvy honeys but it's now for everyone. Get classes on dance, drama, and stage work, and choreography if you can. Watch dance shows and films, get to grips with how to work those limbs.

If you can’t find any troupes or shows near you to join, you can start out in pole/strip clubs if they’d take a classier act. Remember that hands-on audiences are a no-no! Burlesque, is, of course, stripping (usually down to pasties and a g-string) but the tease part is the main bit! Remember dolls, Dita Von Teese started out in a strip joint!
If there’s no chance there, then local bars and clubs need shows and performances of entertaining value to draw in customers on the nighttime. A classy bit of Burlesque is great here also, though it does help if you can sing a little cabaret!
If you have trouble finding a troupe, don’t start there. More on troupes later! If you do join a troupe, you probably don’t need the rest of this guide! Listen to these lovely ladies and ask yourself if it’s the life you want. If not, search for another troupe, or go it solo.

3. Get the look.

* In every Burlesque Beauty’s closet (in addition to their own signature props and costumes, of course!) should be: a sheer negligee, a pair of slippers or heels that have feathers or fluff on them somewhere, a pair of heels or stilettos in satin, patent, or covered in rhinestones or glitter, thigh high stockings in nude and black, suspender belts in the three base colours (red, black, and white)- or better - a corset or waspie with suspender snaps! You will also need, of course, matching underwear, and above all: pasties! Pasties and nipple tassels are a must if you intend on taking off so much! You should also have a feather fan to incorporate somewhere. Other musts are bold lipstick colours, black liquid eyeliner, and nail polish to match your lipsticks of course!
* For hair and make-up: try cherry red lips, and black cat-flicked eyeliner. Look at vintage hairstyles for inspiration in the eras 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. Barrel-curled hair is easy, best done with nylon net rollers and pins! You can also use hot-rollers, they are great and quick before a show! Invest in lots and lots of hairspray. Be bold with colour. If you’re wearing a blue corset, wear blue nail varnish and blue lipstick, but line the edge of your lips in black and blend them together for twilight to midnight look. If you’re wearing lilac, wear lilac lipstick, smoking purple eyes, and matching polish. Oh, and don’t forget your toenails need love too!
* Clothing: Be a vintage vixen. Curvy wiggle dresses, cocktail gowns, and all manners of retro clothing remind of a more glamorous era when ladies always wore a pair of stockings. Nothing better than to create the illusion of that in the minds of common males, eh? Pill box hats are brilliant- or any hat with a veil actually. Mini top hats are gorgeous accessories and so are big hair flowers and fascinators.

4. Practice and cultivate a show. If you don’t join a troupe, it’s important that you practice the basics. Taking corsets off with one hand, dancing on your tip toes as though you’re wearing high heels, extending the arms and legs gracefully, and so on doesn’t come naturally to some people. Depending on what type of act you want to do, you will need to learn different things, but as a rule of thumb you need to be able to take your clothes off and look good doing it! The idea is that you don’t look like you’re concentrating. When you get dressed and undressed, always try to do it one-handedly, and also as though someone is watching you so you must keep all your intimate parts covered! Can you change your bra without taking off your blouse?

There are tonnes of props just waiting to be bought or made, and inspiration all around you! You might already have been inspired!

# Signature routines: You must be bold! Dream up anything! So your show is budget… economy versions are often best because they have been thought about! Flick through fancy dress costume catalogues for some great ideas, and traipse through charity stores to see if you’re inspired by a piece of jewellery, or a certain bodice or skirt. Don’t be a copycat darling! Originality is key. The Martini Glass (all credits to the gorgeous Ms. Von Teese) has been done, and so have the diaphonus bubbles! What do you like in your house? What do you like in your city? You can base a routine around anything!
# Seductive tricks: On stage- learn to suspend yourself from a pole and slide down it v-legged. Learn how to take all your clothes off (besides those pasties and panties of course!) with only a fan in each hand as coverage and not show the pasties or panties! Learn how to sit on a chair provocatively. Chairs are great, cheap props, and everyone loves a chair routine! Learn to lock eyes with your audience. They won’t know what hit them. To tease whilst seated, stretch out your legs and rub them round as though feeling the seam up the back, or caressing the stockings. You can also disrobe with your back turned to your audience. Especially taking off that corset or bra… they won’t immediately know about your pasties!

5. You may want to throw away all your drab or store it away for a rainy day. It may come as a shock, but you may find it hard to walk around in jeans and a tee-shirt. Why? Because it's not glamorous. Is Audrey Hepburn famous for wearing jeans? No! Did Marilyn Monroe’s tracksuit bottoms puff up with air? These are two lovely ladies who were known for class, style, sex appeal, and yet they weren’t Burlesque honeys - but they were still icons. You work, learn, and live the fluffy wedge slippers and chiffon nightgowns, but Burlesque is almost about everything we do. If you wear a bullet bra on stage, wear one off stage, and if you wear matching underpinnings on stage, wear them off stage. You’ll probably feel better about yourself too! Be a glamour girl every minute of every day if you want to be a real Burlesque ‘star’. It’s a lifestyle, and it doesn’t have to be expensive either!

Learn to look modest, to pout, to laugh, to adjust your stockings when you know people are looking but pretend to be trying to do it discreetly, be glamour and class personified. Apply lipstick in public in a powder compact, do wiggle when you walk, do wear heels, do act like a 50’s movie star and you’ll feel like one!

6. Promote yourself. Things are smooth, and you’re a glamour kitty, okay, but you want to be a star, right? You want to have the glitz, the real crystals instead of rhinestones, and be booked the world over for famous celebrity parties. You’re doing well at the bar/joint that you work, but you’re not earning wads of cash. So, of course, you need to build a brand for yourself. You need to create a demand, and then fulfill it. Hand out personal flyers and start getting bookings for parties. It may seem seedy, but there’s an art to being subtle and you’ve probably learned it already if you’ve come thus far without being dragged off down the ‘sleazy’ path. People book you, and people tell people. Build a website with your info, be available! Join an agency if you think it will help. Have hunger for it, and it will come. Organise your own show at a nice venue or hall, and make the tickets reasonable but to cover the cost- you can up the price later when there’s more demand. A new type of show will have plenty of support and you can advertise it in the local newspaper, on the radio, and on local news television if you can. Flyers, posters, anything as long as the image it conveys is something that will show people a classy and yet very artful and sexy type of performance. Above all, be original and be different, but not too strange or cult or people will be scared to see your show!

7. Take it up a notch. You’re being booked up, sold out, and the next thing you know is you’re a local celebrity. Time to start planning shows in other cities and venues, no? Take it extreme. Create a troupe if you haven’t joined one. Local dancers might try it, local strippers might be looking for something to be more uptown. Create an interesting venture between yourself and your community, but don’t let any honeys upstage you, no no, you must be the most extravagant of them all. Plain Jane never got any attention after all!

Get ready for hard work! There is no easy way along this road. The path of Burlesque can be fun and can be glamorous, but there is also a darker side, which is hard. Troupes often go a long time without seeing their families, and life is tough. Make sure you're willing to commit to this.

Half your wardrobe should be lingerie! It doesn’t have to be expensive, you can get cheaper items and then customise them with lace and frills from a haberdashery. Alternatively, you can bargain hunt on the internet or in charity or second hand rose stores for corsets and suspender belts, and some gorgeous vintage finery! Panties are best full and frilled. All the better to whip them off and show off that flash g-string underneath! You can get fabulous panties with corsets up the sides, you can unlace them slowly and just let them fall away! Magic!

Warnings

You must be able to walk in the heels you buy, and dance in them too. The shoes should only come if it’s part of your act!
Hands on audiences: No no! We can’t have the audience copping a feel, that’s not what it’s about. Burlesque is a part of voyeurism. Keep out of reach- and make sure you keep all your props and clothing out of reach too! Having a lovely assistant to collect them is a good way to make sure nothing gets pinched.
Stuck clothing: Velcro = legend. Zippers are great, but they get stuck sometimes so have a lovely assistant on hand to sexily help, or ask a member of the audience for help.
Losing clothing by accident: It happens. Just make like it was meant to! A bra can take a pastie off if it’s not stuck on properly. Hold it in place, cover yourself with a prop or your hand for the rest of the routine, or lose it all together! Another great idea is to flash the pastie-clad boob, and then take them off and keep the bra on! It wont spoil your dance if you take it off at the end, only to be covering yourself up with your arm!
It takes a hell of a lot of time of research, shopping, exercise and travel to be a Burlesque Queen. Make sure you don’t compromise on personal time and family and friend time. Make every precious second count.
Burlesque still comes with the misconception of being stripping. Use a stage name, and stick to it in all interviews, especially if you need a job on the side to pay for the vintage clothing.
Likewise, this is a world where women need to be careful regularly. If you are taking clothes off, dancing provocatively, and showing off lingerie, be careful of the drunks who don't quite get it (especially in a bar scene).
For the reason listed above, avoid alcohol while you're on the job. It can also tarnish your name if you're caught drinking a beer hours before a show, and you mess something up (even if it's entirely unrelated).

For a first tease, you will need: A prop (be it giant ostrich fans or just a towel or a table or a fully fledged giant bird of prey to swoop in on!), lingerie consisting of corset/suspender belt, stockings, bra, panties, and pasties, and some glamorous overclothes!, a good pair of heels, and a musical backing track. A little imagination and practice goes a long way too honies!

http://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Burlesque-Star

Beautiful Burlesque

2010-08-26T06:48:00.000-07:00

Burlesque star Dita Von Teese resurrected the art of Burlesque a few years ago, and these days London features a hugely popular Burlesque scene. Clubs such as Volupté and the Soho Revue Bar are renowned for their Burlesque nights, and now Bar 190 at The Gore Hotel is the first place in West London to host Burlesque Evenings. Bar 190 is proud to present Miss Polly Rae and the Hurly Burly Girlys, who within the past two years have become known as London's hottest Burlesque act, and recently won 'Best Troupe 2007' in the Ministry of Burlesque Awards. Click next to view our gallery of Miss Polly Rae and the Hurly Burly Girlys.

Burlesque refers to theatrical entertainment of broad and parodic humor, which usually consists of comic skits (and sometimes a striptease). While some authors assert that burlesque is a direct descendant of the Commedia dell'arte, the term 'burlesque' for a parody or comedy of manners appears about the same time as the first appearance of commedia dell'arte.

By the 1880s, burlesque had created some rules for defining itself:

Minimal costuming, often focusing on the female form.
Sexually suggestive dialogue, dance, plotlines and staging.
Quick-witted humor laced with puns, but lacking complexity.
Short routines or sketches with minimal plot cohesion across a show.

The popular burlesque show of the 1840s period eventually evolved into the strip tease which became the dominant ingredient of burlesque by the 1930s. In the 1930s, a social crackdown on burlesque shows led to their gradual downfall.

The shows had slowly changed from ensemble ribald variety performances, to simple performances focusing mostly on the strip tease. The end of burlesque and the birth of striptease was later dramatised in the entertaining film The Night They Raided Minsky's.

With its origins in nineteenth century music hall entertainments and vaudeville, in the early twentieth century burlesque emerged as a populist blend of satire, performance art, and adult entertainment, that featured strip tease and broad comedy acts that derived their name from the low comedy aspects of the literary genre known as burlesque.

In burlesque, performers, usually female, often create elaborate sets with lush, colorful costumes, mood-appropriate music, and dramatic lighting.

Put simply, burlesque means "in an upside down style". Like its cousin, commedia dell'arte, burlesque turns social norms head over heels.

Burlesque is a style of live entertainment that encompasses pastiche, parody, and wit and traditionally encompasses a variety of acts such as dancing girls, chanson singers, comedians, mime artists, and strip tease artistes, all satirical and with a saucy edge.

The strip tease element of burlesque became subject to extensive local legislation, leading to a theatrical form that titillated without falling foul of censors.

Originally, burlesque featured shows that included comic sketches, often lampooning the social attitudes of the upper classes, alternating with dance routines

Burlesque originated in the 1840s, early in the Victorian Era, a time of culture clashes between the social rules of established aristocracy and a working-class society.

Burlesque often mocked established entertainment forms such as opera, Shakespearean drama, musicals, and ballet. The costuming (or lack thereof) increasingly focused on forms of dress considered inappropriate for polite society.

http://www.talktalk.co.uk/lifestyle/galleries/view/lifestyle/beautifulburlesque/browse/372033

An Evening of Burlesque, Central Theatre

2010-08-26T06:30:00.001-07:00

Jane Connolly takes in An Evening of Burlesque at Chatham’s Central Theatre

KENT NEWS: AS a newcomer to the burlesque scene, I had no idea what to expect from Polly Rae and friends.
I took along a female friend to see An Evening of Burlesque, as I had the distinct feeling it was something I’d rather see with another woman and I’m glad that I did. Because although the show was easy on the eye for the male members of the audience – who were definitely in the minority, I would say – I feel that it had a lot to offer the ladies too.

Burlesque performers often insist that the art is no longer strictly about the enjoyment of the men watching, but that it actually offers some form of empowerment to the ladies on stage. I confess to feeling a little sceptical about that before but, based on this show in Chatham, I could see what they meant.

Because it didn’t seem sleazy or seedy – in fact, it was rather charming and lovely. Yes, the ladies strip down to their extremely skimpy underwear, with just a few well-placed sequins and tassels preserving their modesty. But it really is done, to quote Kenny Everett, in the best possible taste.

Not only were the acts fun and witty, but some were actually beautiful and rather moving, which is rather an achievement.

Fortunately our hostess, local girl Kiki Kaboom, was on hand to guide us through the etiquette of a burlesque show, which basically involved ooh-ing, aah-ing and cheering for more. The audience was game for a laugh and the atmosphere was already a warm one when the first act took to the stage.

From the rather raucous Hot Cake Kitty to the coquettish charm of Slinky Sparkles, the girls came in all shapes and sizes. Teaming fantastic costumes, hair and make-up with performances that oozed attitude and confidence, these girls seem to transport us back to a classier, more elegant time.

The first act was brought to a close with a stunning performance by Veronica Valentine, whose evident skill as a dancer was beautifully demonstrated during the elegant and rather moving feather dance. She returned later on with a very different turn as a she-devil, a perfect example of the breadth of tone to be found in this highly entertaining show.

The two non-burlesque acts on the bill were Piff the Magic Dragon, a deadpan comic whose sagging costume made his ‘bad magician’ act even more amusing, and Kalki Hula Girl. From the moment she began her jaw-dropping act, Kalki had the audience in the palm of her hand and entertained with her physical comedy as well as her superhuman hula skills.

The headline act was renowned burlesque artist Polly Rae and she did not disappoint. Looking stunning in an incredible fishtail dress, she managed to combine a few coarse gags with remarkable elegance and finished the show with a very classy routine.

As the audience made its way out, I could imagine that most of the women would be secretly practising their bump and grind moves in front of the mirror that night.

POSTED: 08/06/2010 10:00:00

http://www.kentnews.co.uk/kent-news/Review--An-Evening-of-Burlesque,-Central-Theatre-newsinkent36574.aspx?news=local

2010-08-25T08:13:00.000-07:00

Misunderstood Genre

Lydia Thompson, the audacious British showgirl who's troupe of blonde beauties made burlesque a sensation in America.
Most people think that "burlesque" means female strippers walking a runway to a bump and grind beat. But that only fits the form in its declining years. At its best, burlesque was a rich source of music and comedy that kept America, audiences laughing from 1840 through the 1960s.
Some sources try to wrap burlesque in a mantle of pseudo-intellectual respectability. Yes, it involved transgressive comedy and songs, but the primary attraction of burlesque was sex . . in the form of ribald humor and immodestly dressed women. Although many dismissed burlesque as the tail-end of show business, its influence reaches through the development of popular entertainment into the present.
Without question, however, burlesque's principal legacy as a cultural form was its establishment of patterns of gender representation that forever changed the role of the woman on the American stage and later influenced her role on the screen. . . The very sight of a female body not covered by the accepted costume of bourgeois respectability forcefully if playfully called attention to the entire question of the "place" of woman in American society.
- Robert G. Allen, Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture (Univ. of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1991), pp. 258-259.
In the 19th Century, the term "burlesque" was applied to a wide range of comic plays, including non-musicals. Beginning in the 1840s, these works entertained the lower and middle classes in Great Britain and the United States by making fun of (or "burlesquing") the operas, plays and social habits of the upper classes. These shows used comedy and music to challenge the established way of looking at things. Everything from Shakespearean drama to the craze for Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind could inspire a full-length burlesque spoof. On Broadway, the burlesque productions of actor managers William Mitchell, John Brougham and Laura Keene were among Broadway's most popular hits of the mid-19th Century.
By the 1860s, British burlesque relied on the display of shapely, underdressed women to keep audiences interested. In the Victorian age, when proper women went to great lengths to hide their physical form beneath bustles, hoops and frills, the idea of young ladies appearing onstage in tights was a powerful challenge.
Suggestive rather than bawdy, these shows relied less on strong scripts or songs than on sheer star power. When Broadway's The Black Crook became a massive hit in 1866, its troop of ballerinas in flesh-colored tights served notice that respectable American audiences were ready to fork over big bucks for sexually stimulating entertainment. All it took was a daring producer to take things to the next level.

Lydia Thompson

The original program to Ixion, Broadway's first burlesque hit.

In the late 1860s, Lydia Thompson's British burlesque troupe became New York's biggest theatrical sensation. Their first hit was Ixion (1868), a mythological spoof that had women in revealing tights playing men's roles. In the Victorian age, when proper women went to great lengths to hide their physical form beneath bustles, hoops and frills, the idea of young ladies appearing onstage in tights was a powerful challenge.
Underdressed women playing sexual aggressors, combining good looks with impertinent comedy – in a production written and managed by a woman? Unthinkable! No wonder men and adventurous wives turned out in droves, making Thompson and her "British blondes" the hottest thing in American show business. Demand for tickets was such that Ixion soon moved to Broadway's most prestigious musical house, Niblo's Garden – the same theatre where The Black Crook had triumphed two years earlier. All told, Thompson's first New York season grossed over $370,000.

Thompson and her imitators did not bother with such mundane matters as hiring composers. Instead, they used melodies from operatic arias and popular songs of the day, incorporating them into the action for comic or sentimental effect. To prevent unauthorized productions, the scripts from these early burlesques were not published. In fact, the material changed so often (sometimes from week to week) that a written script would serve little purpose. We can only guess at the exact content and staging of these shows, but it is clear that audiences were delighted.
At first, the American press praised burlesques, but turned vicious under pressure from influential do-gooders. But the cries of the self-righteous had an unintended effect. Editorials and sermons condemning burlesque as "indecent" only made the form more popular! Demand was such that copycat burlesque companies soon cropped up, many with female managers.

    *
      Mabel Saintley became America's first native-born burlesque star, leading "Mme. Rintz's Female Minstrels" from the 1880s onwards in a stylish burlesque of all-male troupes.
    *
      Burlesque left little to the imagination. The popular stage spectacle Ben Hur inspired "The High Rollers" troupe to produce Bend Her, with scantily clad chorines as Roman charioteers.
    *
      Any stage hit could become a target for humor. The popular melodrama Trilby was spoofed in 'Twill Be.

Americans began creating their own burlesques, and some proved extremely popular. Composer Edward E.Rice teamed with actor Henry Dixey to create Adonis (1874), the story of a statue that comes to life and is so disgusted by human folly that he finally chooses to turn back into stone. The show ran over 500 performances in New York and toured for years, making the handsome Dixey the top matinee idol of his time.

Burlesque Format

As male managers took over the form in the 1880s, feminine wit was gradually replaced by a determination to reveal as much of the feminine form as local laws allowed. But obscenity and vulgarity were avoided – the point was to spoof and (to a limited extent) titillate, not to offend.

Burlesque underwent a crucial change when Michael Leavitt produced burlesque variety shows using something similar to the three act minstrel show format –

    *
      ACT ONE: The ensemble entertains with songs and gags, dressed in formal evening clothes.
    *
      ACT TWO: An "olio" of variety acts (singers, comics, skits, etc.).
    *
      ACT THREE: A complete one-act musical burlesque. These ranged from Shakespearean take offs like Much Ado About a Merchant of Venice to a Gilbert and Sullivan spoof called The Mick Hair-Do.

By 1905, burlesque theatre owners formed vaudeville-style circuits of small, medium and big time theatres. Because big time burlesque companies played these theatres in regular rotations, the circuits came to be known as wheels -- the largest being the Columbia (Eastern U.S.), Mutual, and Empire (Western U.S.) wheels. Unlike vaudeville performers who sought weekly bookings as individual acts, burlesquers spent an entire forty week season touring as part of one complete troupe. For three decades, this system made burlesque a dependable source of steady work.
The biggest burlesque star of the early 20th Century was dancer Millie DeLeon, an attractive brunette who tossed her garters into the audience and occasionally neglected to wear tights. Such shenanigans got her arrested on occasion, and helped to give burlesque a raunchy reputation. Although vaudevillians looked down on burlesque performers, many a vaude trouper avoided bankruptcy by appearing in burlesque – usually under an assumed name, to avoid embarrassment.

Training Ground

Long before his "Cowardly Lion" days, Bert Lahr polished his comic skills in burlesque. Note the outlandish costume and exaggerated make-up, required attire for burlesque comics.

In time, burlesque bills began and ended with "burlettas," extended skits that made fun of hit shows and popular topics. In between came a variety olio where singers, comics, jugglers, magicians and specialty acts were all part of the mix. Herb Goldman points out in Fanny Brice: The Original Funny Girl (Oxford: NYC, 1992, p. 28-29) that burlesque – not vaudeville – was the real "break-in ground" where amateurs could prove if they had the talent and determination to survive in show business. By the time most performers reached vaudeville, they were already experienced pros.

While it was common for burlesque stars to graduate into vaudeville, vaudevillians considered it a fatal disgrace to appear in burlesque, insisting that only those who were "washed up" would stoop so low. However, many a vaudeville veteran hit the burlesque wheels during dry spells, appearing under an assumed name.

Burlesque's richest legacy was its comedy. The lead comic in a burlesque show was referred to as the "top banana," and his sidekicks were known as the second, third, etc. – supposedly because they would resort to slipping on banana peels in order to get a laugh. The lower you were in the "bunch," the more likely you were to suffer the worst of the physical humor (pies in the face, seltzer in the pants, etc.).

Some wondrous comedians learned their craft working the burlesque wheels, including future musical comedy stars Jackie Gleason, Fanny Brice, Leon Errol, Bert Lahr, W.C. Fields, Bobby Clark, Red Skelton, Phil Silvers, Joey Faye and Bob Hope. All used the same basic routines, but no two played them the same way.

So what was burlesque comedy like?

http://www.musicals101.com/burlesque.htm

Eye To Eye: Burlesque Is Back (CBS News)

2010-08-20T03:17:00.000-07:00

London Burlesque Week 2010: The Good, the Bad and the Bawdy!

2010-08-20T02:45:00.000-07:00

It was the biggest and best burlesque show ever to be brought to Blighty's capital city in a long time, and the line-up would have made Lydia Thompson and her British Blondes proud.
Now that the glitter dust has settled on the eight London Burlesque Week hosting venues - which saw 3000 Londoners and international burlesque connoisseurs lapping up six consecutive evenings of striptease, vaudeville variety and burlesque pageantry- let's take a look at the highlights, shall we.
From classic fan dances reminiscent of the Golden Age; hootchy-kootchy dancers; Bump'n'Grind dames; bawdy singers to circus chic and neo-burlesque starlets, LBW 2010 was larger than life, filled with innuendo and coated with glitter. But what made this year so special?
Last year, you asked Chaz Royal for more shows, more glitz, and more vaudeville, so this year he brought you the Peepshow, Twisted Cabaret, The Speakeasy and Sexy Circus Sideshow along with the Battle Royale Newcomers Contest and the Jetsetters Ball. And of course, because he couldn't bring you all to see Burlesque legend Catherine D'Lish, Chaz brought Catherine over to you.
And judging by the sold out events and toxic-levels of decadence at the shows, this year's festival of tease wouldn't have been possible without the fab-glam audience in attendance, who made the whole thing such a roaring success.

“The London audience dress in style and are as much a part of the show as the performers themselves! The festival has grown in leaps every year and I thank the patrons first and foremost.” - Chaz Royal, LBW Producer

VIP Closing Ceremonies
When it was time to say bye bye mein herr, Chaz did it with a bang'n'grind. The VIP Closing Ceremonies & Awards at the Cafe de Paris was an opulent affair almost bursting at the seams with performers from around Europe, US and Australia. Sunday night's line-up and audience was like the who's who of the burlesque scene.
The inimitable Seattle-based compere - Armitage Shanks - suitably lubricated the evening's talent roll out. His evil honey gravelled voice and witty pun-laced humour helped set a glamorous and louche tone for the closing VIP Gala. In between the talent seamlessly shimmying their way out of their clothes to rapturous applause and the stoically sexy clean-up kitten - Tallulah Tonic - prepping the stage, we were also treated to a Secrets in Lace's fashion show featuring the new Betty Page lingerie collection, talked through by a very bond girl-esque Agent Lynch.
And when it was time for the grand finale, the atmosphere was as electric as a Tesla High Voltage Punishment Corset. Catherine D'Lishes' reputation as the mistress of tease is a well-documented fact, having won nearly every striptease pageant and title available to womankind.
Renowned for her elaborate costumes, Catherine sinuously slinked on to that stage wearing a Swarovski-encrusted corseted dress, underpinned with delicate tulle creating a look of complete fantasy. And when she took her stockings off to the beat of the drum, there was steam coming off those legs and many a sweaty brow in the audience.
What other tricks will the self-proclaimed ‘King of Burlesque’ be pulling out of his little black burlesque book next time - is the question on everybody's lips.

http://londonburlesquefest.com/the-tease

Lady of Burlesque

2010-08-19T06:03:00.000-07:00

Christina Aguilera makes her dramatic feature debut as Ali, a small-town singer who takes her shot at stardom performing at a neo-burlesque nightclub in Los Angeles. Situated in a regal old theater that's still dazzling despite having fallen into disrepair, The Burlesque Lounge is the kind of club where legends are born. When club owner Tess (Cher) hires charismatic Ali as a cocktail waitress, the ambitious big-city newcomer goes to great lengths to make a good impression. Taken under the wing of a friendly featured dancer (Julianne Hough), Ali quickly realizes that not everyone is quite as nice when she forms a friendship with bartender/aspiring musician Jack (Cam Gigandet) and incurs the wrath of the club's cattiest showgirl (Kristen Bell). After making her leap to the stage with a little help from a sympathetic stage manager (Stanley Tucci) and the club's playfully androgynous host (Alan Cumming), Ali becomes the star attraction at The Burlesque Lounge, and the crowds start packing in. Later, a wealthy businessman (Eric Dane) makes a bid for the club while trying to charm the talented young performer straight into his arms. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Your request is being processed... Windy City Burlesque Fest: The Art Of Tease Returns To Its Chicago Roots

2010-08-19T03:22:00.000-07:00

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

The Windy City Burlesque Fest blew into town this weekend with nine raucous stage shows that featured dozens of performers practicing the art of tease know as burlesque. Organizers of the three-day fest, Red Hot Annie, Dick Dijon, Jack Midnight and Paris Green, had a dual mission: to focus attention on the vibrant and diverse burlesque scene that has exploded across the country in the past few years and to remind the world that the roots of burlesque run very deep here in Chicago.

"We are honoring our heritage and tradition because American burlesque started here in Chicago," Jack Midnight, a.k.a. Mark Henderson, told HuffPost Chicago. Midnight acted as the wisecracking master of WCBF ceremonies. Midnight was referring to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, when a dancer on the midway named Little Egypt titillated fair-goers with the "hootchie-kootchie" and became the talk of the town.

By the time Sally Rand performed her infamous "fan dance" at the Chicago World's Fair in 1934, burlesque was everywhere, commonly presented by troupes of performers that featured exotic dancers, as well as comedians and magicians.

Two of Chicago's best know burlesque troops, Vaudezilla and Belmont Burlesque, lent their best performers to the weekend's festival. Other dancers traveled from throughout the U.S., Canada and the UK to perform. Although much of the burlesque scene pays homage to the glamorous pin-up style of the genre's heyday, other sub-genres such as "neo-burlesque" have opened the door for reinvention.

Headline dancer Foxy Tann practices a style that incorporates 70s music and gymnastic feats of athleticism.

"The stuff I do is dramatic and over-the-top, inspired by drag shows and other people who do not want to follow convention," Tann said. "I want to show that everybody is beautiful and that acceptance is the best part of burlesque."
Penny Starr, Jr., whose grandmother also danced in burlesque shows many years ago, is a Los Angeles-based TV costumer by day. She was drawn to the burlesque scene by its cultural history and its emphasis on female empowerment.
"I get to put together a lot of things I love, such as insane show-girl costuming, dance, humor and the total freedom to be creative," Starr said. "Audiences love burlesque because they are seeing something original and different and real. There is something for everyone."
Chicago's Red Hot Annie agreed.
"There are so many different styles of burlesque, people who are very retro, beautiful acts filled with feathers and rhinestones," Annie said. "But for me, burlesque is all about asking questions. I really like to make people laugh and I like to pick a situation that people wouldn't think of as traditionally sexy. I like to ask a question with each of my performances: 'Is this sexy?'"
For the growing number of burlesque fans who attend shows throughout the year, the answer is yes.

The cast of the Windy City Burlesque Fest gathers on stage.

Madame Mae from Vancouver, BC.

Claire de Lune from Chicago.

Kellita from San Francisco.

Headliner Kitten Deville from Hollywood.

Delilah from San Francisco.

Chicago’s Red Hot Annie.

Chicago's Jack Midnight hosts the show.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/20/windy-city-burlesque-fest_n_545208.html

Burlesque Dress

2010-08-18T06:29:00.000-07:00

Burlesque dress is also matched with the type of makeup worn by these glamorous divas. Red lipstick, black eyeliner, flawless foundation and even false eyelashes are all part of the total look that goes with burlesque.
The main image we have of burlesque is of a beautiful and extremely feminine woman wearing a corset and stockings. In fact the right lingerie is a necessity for burlesque dress. So, before you buy anything else for your burlesque wardrobe you’ll need to visit the lingerie department and search for suitable corsets.
You don’t have to go to a specialised shop for burlesque dress unless you want to, as most of the major department stores have a good selection of corsets, suspenders and stockings. The classic style of corset favoured by burlesque fans are so lastingly popular that you’re sure to find them easily. The trick to burlesque is to get an hourglass figure and corsets will help you. You may need extra padding to get the right shape, or you might need more restraint to squeeze into your dress.
Try buying just one corset at first to test it out before shopping for a burlesque dress. It’s possible that you’ll find it too uncomfortable and you aren’t going to get that casual burlesque feminine charisma if you’re not able to relax. So make sure you get a corset that shapes you but still lets you move freely and you’ll have burlesque dress off to a T.
There are different types of corset, from the whaleboned and highly restrictive, to the very attractive lace-ups, and also elasticated versions, and they will all work well with burlesque. It’s important to make sure you get exactly the right size, as each type of corset will squeeze you into shape and this can only be effective for a burlesque dress look if the measurements are exact. Burlesque dress may look wonderful in a cabaret act, but it’s also great for a date. You can keep your corset on through the date and also for a goodnight kiss and any ample folds of flesh will be smoothed neatly out of sight and touch. Burlesque dress corsets are far more attractive than the type of ‘big pants’ worn by Bridget Jones to keep her figure streamlined!

Most men find stockings and suspenders irresistible so burlesque dress gives you an unfair advantage in the attraction stakes. Again you’ll find that the lingerie departments of most stores have a fantastic range of the types of stockings and suspenders that will make your burlesque wardrobe complete. Accessorise by investing in stylish stilettos and matching handbag, and your burlesque dress will catch the eye of everybody you pass in the street.

http://www.burlesquedress.com/

How to Dress Burlesque Like Dita Von Teese

2010-08-18T02:45:00.000-07:00

Burlesque is a branch of the many new trends revived nowadays.
What could be more classy than to adopt a glamorous vintage style?

The burlesque style not an easy style to pull off, you'll need ambition, money and last but not least imagination. The world's most famous burlesque queen, Dita Von Teese is indeed the quintessential of what burlesque really means.

The sexy, sultry image is very flattering to many of the women sporting her style.
The ideas below help you figure out how to dress brulesque like Dita Von Teese.

Find the lady in you

The first step is to invoke your feminine and alluring side. Burlesque pros advise you to look at female icons from the past. Inspiration is the key when trying to adopt this style. Details are as important as the overall image. These all boost your attitude and make your look mysterious, and at the same very sultry.

Enhance those curves

If you are familiar with this style, you might have seen, how curvaceous these ladies are. The trick is in fact in the underwear. Corsets, the favorite undergarments, are must haves.This way all the ladies can transform their body type to the hourglass shape.

There are several corset types, sizes and colors. The point is to find the most comfortable for you. This style is not really comfort oriented - burlesque emphasizes the beauty of the narrow waist and rich bosoms. If you find these uncomfortable you can still buy tops with no bones only laces.

No trousers, darling

Trousers are a no-no piece since these would hide your femininity, but you can still wear pants but do it right and opt for well-tailored, wide-leg trousers. Balance out the masculine look with heavy vampy makeup - red lips, the specific eyeliner flick and faux lashes - and a very feminine retro hairstyle.

It's your choice, either you pull off an extravagant burlesque style or begin with a classic, elegant more daytime look. Dresses and skirts are fabulous, whether you opt for long or shorter ones. Vintage stuff are more than perfect for you.

Work those heels

How could you emphasize your legs and ankles more than wearing high heels - these are a must to adopt Dita Von Teese's burlesque style. Go to vintage shoe hunting and opt for the highest classy pumps. Meow!

Be unique

Try to adopt the burlesque style by blending it into your personal style. If you don't want to go to over the top, then don't! There are several aspects you can try out. Accessories or hairstyles can be a good beginning.

You can find a signature color or accessory: bows, feathers, gloves, all these can make you look like a real burlesque bombshell.
Whether you apply these tips only on special occasions or regularly, it depends on your preferences how burlesque you want to be.

http://www.fashion-style.becomegorgeous.com/new_trends/how_to_dress_burlesque_like_dita_von_teese-675.html

The New York Burlesque School

2010-08-12T06:35:00.001-07:00

From New York, where American Burlesque Striptease was born...
...the NY School of Burlesque combines direct training from the most glamourous performers of the 1940s-1960s with the mischief and creativity of the most prolific neo-burlesque scene in the world!

The New York School of Burlesque gives you access to amazing and experienced teachers with a real commitment to joyous, dazzling burlesque, and a love of performance. These teachers will fully engage and inspire you! We are the first, the original, and the most fun burlesque school in NYC. We're not jumping on the burlesque bandwagon--we built it! We have been producing classes for 7 years, as well as producing DVDs and handbooks. We produce student showcases from some of our classes, presenting NYC's newest burlesque performers. Join the feathery, fringe-y fun!

More classes for August and September will be added shortly! Join our email list (see the left hand column of this page) to be notified when they become available.

Headmistress Jo Weldon performing with Storybook Burlesque at The Burlesque Handbook show.

Take our Classic Moves class, perfect for beginners or anyone who wants to learn the basics of burlesque. Get in touch with the history of sensual, magnetic, powerful women, and become part of that history yourself! You'll learn to bump, grind, shimmy, peel, and twirl tassels from the originals, the teachers who started it all in NYC! Enjoy the sparkle of rhinestones, the flash of fringe, the dreamy drop of a boa...
Tuesday August 10, 7-9
Preregistration required.
$30.00. Click below to pay and register.

"Your Face For The World To See!"
exclusively presented by World Famous *BOB*!!
learn the beauty tricks of showgirls, burlesque stars, & drag queens all in one class! *BOB*'s brilliant ability to channel glamour girls such as Liz Renay, Jayne Mansfield, & Marilyn Monroe will be shared in this demonstration only two hour class. Learn how to apply lashes, lash customization, lip tricks- glitter application, liner, proper base & more!
Bring a notebook, pen, questions, & pictures of your favorite makeup style! More Info / Enroll

Flirting with Burlesque
One of our most popular classses! More Info / Enroll

Hula Hoop with Miss Saturn
HULA HOOPING FOR AN AUDIENCE. This workshop can apply to any type of prop manipulation in performing as well as all levels of performers. We will focus on cultivating a performer's "bag of tricks." We will work beginnings, middles, and ends, attempt to strip away extraneous movement, incorporate exercises that bring focus from inward to outward thus sharpening the performer/audience relationship, and finally looking at different techniques in handling nervous energy. Please come with shoes you like to perform in or a costume piece that will help you organically get in touch with your performer "persona." It helps to bring something that is not apart of your day to day-for example if you never wear lip stick or a bowler hat trying wearing it during the workshop. It does not matter how developed the "persona" is. Come to play. More Info / Enroll

Bachelorette, Birthday, and Other Events
We are the original burlesque party providers. Don't risk hiring someone who's just jumping on the burlesque bandwagon. Trust your event to our experience and expertise, and treat yourself and your friends to a fabulous class! More Info

The Essential Burlesque Dance Series
Want to take the entire series of beginner burlesque dance classes? Learn all the moves that make burlesque so much fun: the sexy shimmy, the tantalizing glove peel, the devastating bump n grind, and the dazzling tassel-twirl, chair dance, fan dance, and more! More Info / Enroll

August 29, noon-7 pm. NYC, location TBA.
By frequent request, we are producing a costume intensive! Learn all about burlesque costuming! You can bring your costumes and images of costumes to class. You'll learn the basics of classic costuming in the first section, plus the essentials of making street clothes into costumes in the second half, incorporating our Stripping Out of Street Clothes class. You'll learn how to lace and trim a corset, and how to purchase stockings and gloves. There will be tips for making headdresses, go-go costumes, and more! Plus, every student will make a pair of tasseled pasties, all materials provided. Includes burlesque dance howto DVD. $175. Please bring a copy of The Burlesque Handbook to class, available on amazon.com or wherever books are sold. No dropins, as class size is limited. Click button to register!

Burlesque Dance and Choreography
Get your burlesque groove on! More Info / Enroll

The Classes
Most classes are suitable for beginners as well as for experienced performers who are interested in learning the vocabulary of burlesque. Classes are suitable for entertainment purposes or training to perform. For more information, see the schedule.

CBS This Morning, Burlesque Story

2010-08-12T06:35:00.000-07:00

Burlesque Dancing

2010-08-12T06:27:00.000-07:00

Burlesque dancing is fun and builds confidence. Made famous by Dita Von Teese and Immodesty Blaize (as seen on Channel 4's Faking It).

It has all the sexiness of a striptease WITHOUT the strip. These classes are aimed at beginners and there is absolutely no nudity in these classes - you'll learn how to remove gloves and stockings but that's about it!

These lessons can help to improve posture and loosen lower back muscles.

What will I learn?

After a few lessons you'll learn

how to pose to create pretty shapes with your body as well as using facial expressions. Learn to create definate yet soft movements while still teasing (think 1950's cheesecake icons).
how to take a glove off - then put it to music
the sexy shimmy
how to put all of this together in a burlesque dance using feather boas
a chair dance - on, off, and around it (think caberet). These will improve your strength and co ordination.

Remember while you're doing this - you're burning calories!!
Don't worry you don't have to be a great dancer. It's all about feeling fabulous and glamourous.
Don't worry - you can wear whatever you feel comfortable in, it can be shorts, skirt, trousers etc. I would suggest you wear heels if possible.

What do the Burlesque sessions cost and where are they?

Private individual lessons Come on your own or bring a friend. The Burlesque sessions are 30 minutes long and cost just £12 -first lesson £10 (£5 each if you come with a friend).

The Burlesque sessions take place in Corfe Mullen which is in Wimborne, Dorset, 7 days a week at your convenience - before work or after work or on your day off! 7am - 9 pm.
We use great music (including the famous stripper music),have a lot of fun and you'll leave feeling much more confident about yourself.

What should I wear?

You'll need to wear high heels in order to get the posture right - you'll learn how to wiggle your hips and stick out your bottom. If you want to wear a skirt or even a corset to the lesson that's fine. If you'd prefer to wear trousers/leggings with your heels and a t-shirt that's fine too!!

How to dance like Dita Von Tesse

2010-08-10T06:15:00.000-07:00

How to Burlesque Dance

2010-08-10T06:14:00.000-07:00

1. Research burlesque shows in or around your immediate vicinity so you can make a special to watch a burlesque performance live. Go to a show and drink in the festivities. Take a little note pad and jot down your impressions of things you liked and things you didn't like. Use this list to develop your own style when the time comes.

2. Look into the history of the burlesque show by reading some articles or books. Understand that the history of burlesque was intended to not only be a little playful and naughty, but also a social commentary and provocative food for thought.

3. Sign up for a burlesque class. These classes can be found through searching the Internet or visiting a local dance studio and inquiring about class offerings. Consider ordering a how to video online if you are in an area that doesn't offer a burlesque dance class.

4. Pick a character or group of characters to portray during your performances. This should be a character you can personally relate to, something sexy but also slightly comical. Many burlesque dancers invoke the spirit of pin up as this captures a time in history that was rife with social commentary. Develop a dance routine around this character persona.

5. Choose songs or a set of songs that sets a tone for what you are trying to convey. Make the decision early on about how much clothing (if any) you plan to take off during your performances. Make sure that your dance is tasteful as burlesque differs from stripping in that the sensuality comes from the sense of mystery and subdued sexuality as opposed to overt sexuality.

6. Take classes in other forms of dance such as ballet and jazz, since these dances are strong influences in burlesque style. Utilize these various forms in your own routines to capture the eclectic spirit of burlesque dancing.

Slinky: The Nekyia Belly Dance Burlesque

2010-08-10T06:11:00.000-07:00

Exotica Burlesque dance

2010-08-10T05:46:00.001-07:00

"Striptease for Burlesque, Exotic Dance and Every Day" DVD with Jo Weldo...

2010-08-10T05:46:00.000-07:00

MARILYN MANSON & DITA VON TEESE-INTERVIEW "THE NEW TOM GREEN SHOW"

2010-08-09T03:19:00.000-07:00

Dita Von Teese Interview

2010-08-09T03:18:00.000-07:00

Dita Von Teese. Interview. By Stefano Pilati, Photography Albert Sanchez

2010-08-09T03:02:00.000-07:00

If anyone thought that Dita Von Teese was just a passing character upon the pop culture stage, they'd be advised to take a closer look. With celebrated and attention-grabbing acts, a new book, Burlesque and the Art of the Teese (Regan Books), due this spring, and a recent high-profile marriage to shock-rocker Marilyn Manson, this queen of burlesque is proving to be the sort of multifaceted player who is anything but a flash in the pan. Here, she grabs the attention of someone who knows a thing or two about the powers of seduction-Yves Saint Laurent creative director Stefano Pilati, who happened to have his own reasons for celebrating on the day they spoke.

Dita Von Teese: Happy birthday Stefano-I would jump out of a cake if I were there!

Stefano Pilati: I don't know if I should be happy or depressed about turning 40. [laughs]

DVT: I think 40 is exciting-plus, you're dashing, and that's what matters most.

SP: So where are you?

DVT: I'm in London. Manson and I got married last weekend in Ireland. Our friend, the artist Gottfried Helnwein, has a castle there, which is where we had the wedding.

SP: [laughs] Did you have fun? Was it great?

DVT: I had the time of my life. I think we both did.

SP: What did you wear?

DVT: I wore a giant purple silk-and-grosgrain taffeta dress by Vivienne Westwood and a Mr. Pearl corset. I also wore a little tricorn hat from Stephen Jones. I didn't want a white wedding or a Gothic wedding. It was somewhere in between-just beautiful, rich colors everywhere.

SP: Well, I'm so happy to have this opportunity to talk to you, because every time I've met you, it was always in situations where you couldn't, or I couldn't, really talk.

"If I admire someone, I prefer to see them at their best. I don't want to see a woman that I think of as glamorous in the grocery store wearing sweatpants and a ripped T-shirt.—Dita Von Teese"

DVT: And every time I see you all I want to do is tell you how crazy I am about what you're doing at Yves Saint Laurent. I still have every look in my head from your last show! [both laugh] But I'm sure you hear that all the time-you must have women throwing themselves at your feet, telling you how much they love what you're doing. Hip clothes and shoes and handbags can drive a woman wild. I think it's even stronger than sex for some. [laughs]
SP: It's stronger for me as well. [both laugh] One of the things that was so appealing to me when Interview asked me to do this was that they suggested the conversation be around beauty and the return of glamour. And I was like, well Dita is all of those things!
DVT: Oh, I try to be. I love glamour and artificial beauty. I love the idea of artifice and dressing up and makeup and hair.
"I have had a lot of boyfriends who would get upset if I was too dressed up, because they felt like I was showing off. It's nice to be surrounded by people who appreciate and encourage the way you dress. But a lot of people take it the wrong way. They think it's vanity, and it's not-it's just something I get a lot of pleasure from, like a hobby.—Dita Von Teese"

SP: Making yourself more beautiful is what I try to do with my work. Fashion is my form of expression, and, somehow, I want to convey the idea that beauty and elegance is a positive thing that we should all embrace.
DVT: I feel like everyone's trying to make things simpler, and I like things that are intricate and detailed and luxurious and fancy! [both laugh] I love all the details and fancy stuff.
SP: Yes, but without being too extravagant. Sometimes people hide themselves with extravagance and end up looking vulgar.

DVT: Yeah, but at least it's amusing to look at. [both laugh] I would rather look at someone who has overdone it than someone who is wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. I love when you see an old woman who's been wearing her makeup and hair the same way for 40 years.
SP: Well, there are a few like that in Paris, I have to say. What is also very nice is that there are still women here who change to have tea with friends or to have dinner or who dress up in a certain way on Sunday morning-for me, it's very sweet.
DVT: I can't stand wearing the same clothes all day. It makes me insane. I like to dress for the afternoon and for dinner. It's less for the occasion and more because I just like to change clothes.
SP: Have you always been like this?
DVT: Yeah, when I was a little girl I wanted to dress the way the stars did in movies from the '30s and '40s-especially ones that were set in the 1890s. The hair was just exaggerated versions of '40s hairdos with big bonnets.
SP: Do you think that there's a lack of beauty these days?
DVT: Living in California, I think there definitely is. People are in such a hurry and they don't really know how to dress.
SP: They want to be comfortable.
DVT: I suppose. It's nice to be comfortable, but I'd rather be uncomfortable. [both laugh]
SP: What was genius for me about the divas from the '30s and '40s was that they each had a look that reflected their personality and lifestyle. For me, people are really beautiful when they find a way to reflect who they are in the way they dress.
DVT: Yes, like Marlene Dietrich. She knew her own style and took risks and wore pants when people said it wasn't glamorous and was a terrible thing for a woman to do. She had a signature style. Greta Garbo, too. They kind of embraced their own cliché and their persona, and I love that. Women love to dress up now, but I feel like there aren't a lot of risk-takers. I really enjoy watching people like Madonna, or Cher, or Barbra Streisand on the red carpet. I want to see people wearing exciting things that are different and to know that they're not just looking for the latest, most normal thing.
SP: Do you think that beauty is female or male?
DVT: I think it's both, but of course, I love the exaggeration of feminine beauty. I also love the look of a dandy, though. Obviously-I just married one. I love seeing men like yourself who dress in beautiful suits. I'm very impressed by that sort of beauty. Physical beauty isn't so impressive to me.
SP: Do you normally surround yourself with a lot of beautiful things?
DVT: Yes! [laughs] As best I can! I love things that are from the art deco period and the turn of the century. The things that I think are beautiful happen to be things that were made in a different time.
"I feel like everyone's trying to make things simpler, and I like things that are intricate and detailed and luxurious and fancy!—Dita Von Teese"

SP: Do you decorate your house by yourself?
DVT: Manson and I do it together, but we don't use a decorator or anything like that. I can't imagine letting someone come into my house the same way I can't imagine letting a stylist come in and throw out half my clothes. I like to decide on my own. It's more fun that way.
SP: Do you like L.A.?
DVT: I like some things about L.A. We're sort of hidden out in L.A. and no one knows where we live. We used to live in a place that everyone knew about, and these fans of Manson's were constantly coming by the house and ringing the bell, but now we're in a secret place. I love to be in Paris every time I go there, though. That's the only other city I could live in.
SP: Do you think there's a more pronounced sense of beauty in Europe right now than there is in L.A. or New York City?
DVT: Yeah, I think so. You can see it in the people and the culture and the way of life. In L.A., I don't go out to nightclubs and bars; I would rather go have tea or a nice champagne cocktail at a beautiful hotel bar. It seems like a more civilized, elegant way of living to me-I'm not really into the wild nightlife. L.A. is more about a party lifestyle, and I don't really feel like I fit in. If I go out to a club, I wear a hat and gloves and maybe a corset, and people look at me because I'm not wearing a short Paris Hilton dress or a dress cut down to my navel.
SP: Do you think that beauty has to somehow be accessible?
DVT: I don't think so. I like it when people seem slightly unapproachable or intimidating.
SP: I've always taken a lot of care about my look and all that, but that gave me a bit of a problem at times when I was younger. Today, obviously, I don't care so much about what other people think.
DVT: I feel the same way. I'm 33 and, over the years, I have had a lot of boyfriends who would get upset if I was too dressed up, because they felt like I was showing off. It's nice to be surrounded by people who appreciate and encourage the way you dress. But a lot of people take it the wrong way. They think it's vanity, and it's not-it's just something I get a lot of pleasure from, like a hobby. [laughs]
SP: Don't you think that it's also a very generous gesture when you make that effort?
DVT: If I admire someone, I prefer to see them at their best. I don't want to see a woman that I think of as glamorous in the grocery store wearing sweatpants and a ripped T-shirt. I think that it's nice to live up to something and to show people that you're the real deal.
SP: I remember when I was kid watching my two sisters putting their makeup on in the bathroom. I would sit on the side of the bathtub with my mouth open watching them transform themselves. Personally, I think it's okay to apply lipstick at the dinner table as long as you have a really beautiful compact. It can be a whole seduction technique.
DVT: And it is. I think a lot of men love that.
SP: Well, Dita, it was so lovely to talk to you. I'll let you know when I come to L.A.
DVT: We can go have champagne together and go out looking fabulous. We'll get a horse and carriage to take us around Los Angeles, and put some plumes in the horses' manes! We'll teach them a lesson about how to get dressed up. [both laugh]

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/fashion/dita-von-teese/2/

Honey Cocoa Bordeauxx — July 2009

2010-08-06T05:26:00.000-07:00

Honey Cocoa Bordeauxx recently sat down with us to talk self confidence, inhibitions, bombshells, voodoo, and being a woman of color in the Texas burlesque community.
1. For someone who knows nothing about burlesque, how would you describe it?
Burlesque is an art form that takes classical dance, vaudeville, and striptease and mixes it with satire and comedy.
2. What three things should a great performer/performance have?
A great performer has to have that natural stage presence and be able to connect with their audience. I love watching performers who you can tell are totally uninhibited when they perform. You gotta dance from your heart, the audience can feel it. I also think that a performance has to be innovative and original. It’s a performer’s ability to take the basic elements of burlesque and make them into something new and all their own that makes for a great routine. And last but not least you have to have wonderful costumes and props to match.
3. How did you get started in burlesque? Describe your first perfomance.
My start in burlesque was really by coincidence. I was working at Joann’s Fabrics at the time and Amy Marquez, one of the original founders of the Vixens of Vaudeville, came in looking for tassels and invited me to a show. After seeing the show I totally fell in love with burlesque and about four months later I was invited to perform as a guest performer with the Vixens. My first performance was a chair dance to “Minnie the Moocher”. It was such an exciting, nervous, and exhilarating experience. The moment I walked on stage though, I felt at home and I just knew that I had found my calling.
4. You are introduced as “The Creole Bombshell”. How does this on stage persona suit you?
I have always taken a lot of pride in my Creole heritage and I wanted to have that be a part of my stage persona. I also get a lot of my inspiration from the classic bombshells like Marilyn Monroe, Jane Mansfield and Bridgette Bardot. A bombshell is curvy, buxom and voluptuous, she’s just oozes sensuality and she is also confident, sophisticated, and powerful. I wanted the mixture of exotic uninhibited sensuality and classic sophisticated beauty.
5. I recently heard another performer describe your perfomance as “Completely empowering… She reaches in and finds that inner sexy, soulful, goddess like quality of a woman and unleashes that voodoo on stage.” How do you feel burlesque empowers women?
I feel that burlesque makes women feel good about themselves. Burlesque takes all the socially constructed views of feminine beauty and throws them out the window. EVERY woman is beautiful and posses a natural inner sensuality that should never be restrained. Burlesque performers have the ability to connect with women in the audience and dance for them in a way that they themselves may not be able to. When women watch me perform I want them to imagine themselves on the stage and be able to, if only for a moment, get lost in the dance and feel a sense of freedom. I want them to go home feeling rejuvenated and totally in love with being a woman.
6. There are only a handful of black burlesque performers in the scene and even fewer in Texas. Why do you think this is? Do you feel an extra obligation to represent women of color?
I think the black community, especially in the south, hasn’t fully caught on to the burlesque movement yet. There have always been black burlesque dancers and vaudeville performers, but a lot of that history is harder to dig up. I think the more women of color that start performing and unearthing all the history and reaching out to other women, the more we’ll start to see women of color in the scene. I feel an obligation to preserve the history of blacks in burlesque and make sure that we continue to be active players in the art form that we played a great part in creating. I also have the opportunity that a lot of black performers didn’t have because of the color lines and I feel that those who came before paved the way for me to be able to do what I do and the history of women of color in burlesque is something that needs to be kept alive.
7. What has your family’s reaction been to your performances?
My mom and my aunt are the only two who have seen me perform, and I think at first they were a little concerned, but they have been really supportive of me and everything that I’ve wanted to do my whole life. I was brought up to believe that whatever you set your mind to you can achieve and every goal or dream you have you should go for and never let anyone stop you. I think they just see this as another endeavor of mine and If it makes me happy then their happy.

8. You have both a strong solo presence in the community as well as being a founding member of the “Vixens of Vaudeville”. Do you find it hard to maintain both?
I am actually not one of the founding members of the Vixens of Vaudeville. The Vixens were founded in 2006 and I have been a member for a little over a year. It is really easy to maintain both. Besides being troupe mates the Vixens are also some of my best friends and they support me in whatever I do. I love being a part of a collaborative effort and there is nothing like having your troupe to support you and fuel your creative energy.
9. Speaking of the troupe, how do you describe the style of your shows? If readers aren’t familiar with the Vaudeville style, how is it different from adjectives like “modern” or “classic” burlesque?
Well our show features both modern and classic burlesque, but I think what makes us different is that we really try to bring the classic feel of the 1940’s burlesque theatres to our show. We are a variety show and we try to make sure that we keep the comedians, slap stick, singing and vaudeville skits that were all an intricate part of burlesque theatres as part of our show.
10. Who are your idols in the burlesque world?
Oh wow, there’s so many! I just got back from exotic world weekend in Las Vegas and was able to meet many of my idols such as Dixie Evans, Satan’s Angel, Dusty Summers, Toni Elling, Dirty Martini and Perle Noire. I also love Josephine Baker, Lottie the Body, Tempest Storm and Zorita.
11. Where do you find inspiration for your numbers?
Everywhere! Sometimes I’ll just hear a song and an idea for a routine will pop into my head or it will just be a reflection of different things that are going on in my life or society in general.
12. What does the future hold for Honey Cocoa Bordeaux?
That I’m not exactly sure of, but I can tell you one thing, I don’t plan to stop performing for a very long time. I am the happiest now that I have ever been and I want to just keep perfecting my craft. Burlesque is something that will be in my heart forever and all I can hope is that I’ll die an old woman still doing what I love.

http://pincurlmag.com/honey-cocoa-bordeauxx-july-2009

New York Burlesque Festival 2008

2010-08-06T05:24:00.000-07:00

Honey Cocoa Bordeauxx :Burlesque

2010-08-06T05:23:00.000-07:00

New York Burlesque Festival 2010

2010-08-06T05:21:00.001-07:00

THE EIGHTH ANNUAL NEW YORK BURLESQUE FESTIVAL 30 SEPTEMBER 2010 — 3 OCTOBER 2010

2010-08-06T05:21:00.000-07:00

Thursday September 30th: Teaser Party
Brooklyn Bowl
61 Wythe Ave,
Brooklyn NY 11211
Doors: 8pm
Show Time: 9pm

Friday October 1st: The Premiere Party
The Bell House
149 7th street (between 2nd & 3rd)
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Doors: 8pm
Show time: 9pm

Saturday October 2nd: The Saturday Spectacular
BB Kings
237 W 42nd Street
NY,NY 10036

Doors: 6:30pm
Show time: 7:30pm- 11pm
Saturday Night Official NYBF After Party
11pm-1am @ Lucille's Bar
(Next door to BB Kings and free for all Saturday ticket holders)

Sunday October 3rd: The Golden Pastie Awards
Highline Ballroom
431 16th Street
NYC, 10011
Doors: 7pm
Show: 8pm

http://www.thenewyorkburlesquefestival.com/

How to Dress Burlesque? Burlesque style and clothing

2010-08-04T03:15:00.000-07:00

Burlesque style is all about sexy sophistication. It is about tease and seduction. To dress burlesque is to dress like a lady - a lady with a naughty side. Its about stockings, corsets, high heels, feather boas, satin gloves, vintage clothes and old fashioned glamour.

Burlesque as it was - Miss Orchid Mei

2010-08-03T05:01:00.000-07:00

Burlesque hourglass curves

2010-08-03T04:58:00.000-07:00

Curves are most definitely hot - which is why many girls who have "the look" are seen in corsets, which either give them boobs and a waist or enhance the ones they have. If you haven't yet learned to breathe in a corset, either invest in an underbust one (which leaves the bosoms free) or raid the vintage shops for tops and dresses with no boning but lots of lace, satin and textured material.

A bit of skirt

Trousers simply aren't allowed in the world of burlesque unless you're going for the boyish rakish look. French knickers, yes... But not trousers (how on earth are you going to flash those stockings under trousers, dear creature?)
You can either go for short and fitted pencil skirts, or go all the way with crinolines and elaborate pieces.

http://www.mookychick.co.uk/style/burlesque.php

Burlesque revival! How to get the look...

2010-08-03T04:50:00.000-07:00

by Roswell Ivory

Mookychick tips on achieving burlesque style, and delving further into the sleek, red-lit and velveted world of burlesque.

Dita Von Teese did not invent burlesque. She may be leading the burlesque revival, but the Art of Tease has been around for a very long time.

It started in the 1800s theatres and music halls of the nineteenth century, turning the art of the tease into the perfumed, scented, evocative striptease!

In the days when ankles were considered soft porn, striptease involved a flash of a jewelled stocking, gorgeous corsets, decadence, and *gasp* possibly the glimpse of a thigh. But it also involved imagination. Dance and comedy was important, and - as any modern-day burlesquer will tell you - the attitude is as important as the glamour and extravagance.

Forget playboy bunnies. Burlesque glamour is all about being a lady, although a lady with a naughty side! Make-up and hair should always be immaculate, and one should stand with confidence, but not be afraid to stand out. Burlesque is all about elegance and what you leave on is easily as important as what you take off. This is the new glamour.

Modern day burlesque wear is all about high heels and old fashioned glamour. If you're not performing onstage, you can achieve the burlesque look fully-dressed. You don't have to turn up to Tesco in home-made burlesque tassles and an 18-inch corseted waist (unless you want to).

http://www.mookychick.co.uk/style/burlesque.php

Dita Von Teese Makeup Tutorial

2010-08-02T07:36:00.001-07:00

Burlesque Makeup

2010-08-02T07:36:00.000-07:00

Burlesque essentials

There are hundreds of different looks you can adopt, but the essentials stay the same.

Red lipstick (applied perfectly, of course)
Eyeliner (either big, smoky eyes or cat-like flicks at the outer corners)
A good set of sexy underwear! Stockings, suspenders - the works. (Try Anne Summers, Agent Provocateur or La Senza. The lacier and more elaborate the better!)
Heels (Yes, I'm afraid you must learn to walk with a wiggle - and heels are sexy!)
Nails (They can be short, but they must be painted! Any all-over shade of red or pink is perfect, or you can leave the moons and tips natural - that's what the 40's pin-ups did)
Impeccable hair (see our retro pin-up girl hair tips, and view further retro hair tips below.

http://www.mookychick.co.uk/style/burlesque.php

A Tribute To Dita Von Teese

2010-08-02T07:32:00.000-07:00

Dita Von Teese - Wondebra commercial

2010-07-30T04:17:00.000-07:00

Dita Von Teese Loves Pain

2010-07-30T04:16:00.000-07:00

2010-07-30T04:00:00.000-07:00

What is the Burlesque?

2010-07-30T03:56:00.000-07:00

Burlesque is a humorous theatrical entertainment involving parody and sometimes grotesque exaggeration. In 20th century America, the form became associated with a variety show in which striptease is the chief attraction.

The term burlesque may be traced to folk poetry and theater and apparently derived from the late Latin burra ('trifle').

The origin of the term 'burlesque' is contentious with most citing the French burlesque, which was, in turn, borrowed from the Italian burlesco, derived from the Spanish burla ('joke') as its root. Its literal meaning is to 'send up'. In Britain 'burlesque' in verse and prose was first popularised in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer's satirical The Canterbury Tales. Later many Irish and British satirical writers came to prominence with political and social burlesques in the 18th and 19th centuries such as William Makepeace Thackeray. In 16th century Spain, playwright and poet, Miguel de Cervantes, ridiculed medieval romance in his many satirical works. Among Cervantes' works are Exemplary Novels and the Eight Comedies and Eight New Interludes published in 1615.

The first widespread use of the word was as a literary term in 17th century Italy and France, was where it referred to a grotesque imitation of the dignified or pathetic.

Beginning in the early 18th century, the term burlesque was used throughout Europe to describe musical works in which serious and comic elements were juxtaposed or combined to achieve a grotesque effect. Early theatrical burlesque was a form of musical and theatrical parody in which a serious or romantic opera or piece of classical theatre was adapted in a broad, often risqué style that ridiculed stage conventions. In late 19th century, the United Kingdom, in particular, such dramatic productions became very popular, especially at particular theatres such as the Olympic and the Gaiety in London. In Britain, burlesque was largely a middle class pursuit, where the jokes relied on the audiences' familiarity with known operas and artistic works. Its predilection for double entendre and casting female stars in the lead male roles (or 'breeches parts') gave burlesque its risqué popular appeal. Gradually burlesque performers started appearing in music halls too, performing musical sketches for the working classes with political and social satire. This form remained popular well into the 20th century and can still be found today on television sketch shows. To save confusion, the traditional British burlesque style is now known as 'musical burlesque' or 'classical burlesque' (in the case of sendups of the classics) and is still active today with a handful of specialist writer/performers and producers.

In 20th century America the word became associated with a variety show in which striptease is the chief attraction. Although the striptease originated at the Moulin Rouge in 1890s Paris and subsequently became a part of some burlesque across Europe, only in American culture is the term burlesque closely associated with the striptease. These shows were not considered 'theatre' and were regarded as 'low' by the vaudevillians, actors and showgirls of neighbouring theatreland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlesque

Magic Burlesque

Burlesque Performers

Dita Von Teese

The first lady of Burlesque. The scene's most famous star.

Immodesty Blaize, UK

Immodesty Blaize - the Uk's most famous burlesque star.

Miss Polly Rae, UK

Angie Pontani , US

Angie Pontani is one of America's hottest and sassiest burlesque stars. Angie was recently crowned "The Reigning Queen of Burlesque, Miss Exotic World 2008".

Kitten De Ville, USA

A former winner of Miss Exotic World, Kitten is a fast rising star in the world of burlesque.Kitten's signature look is her platinum blond Marilyn Monroe-esque locks. Her fantastic shimmy has earnt her the title "Queen of the Shake".

Roxi Dlite , Canada

Roxi Dlite is Canada's most popular burlesque star.

Masuimi Max

Burlesque dancer, fetish model and pin up girl, Masuimi Max is of Korean and german descent and is hot, hot hot!

Ivy Paige, UK

Lola Bel Aire, USA

Michelle "Toots" L'amour, comes from Chicago. She was Miss Exotic World 2005. She hit the big time this year when she prefromed a sexy Knight Rider inspired burlesque routine in front of Simon Cowlell, David.

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http://fashion.about.com/od/celebritystyle/ig/Dita-von-Teese/Dita-Von-Teese-in-Navy-Gown.htm

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Illustrated London News. "The Pantomimes and Burlesque." 31 December 1859.

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How to Become a Burlesque Star

A former winner of Miss Exotic World, Kitten is a fast rising star in the world of burlesque.
Kitten's signature look is her platinum blond Marilyn Monroe-esque locks.
Her fantastic shimmy has earnt her the title "Queen of the Shake".