As I prepare to go today to Coney Island to teach a new generation of performers, I’m thinking about things that have happened that make me happy about neo-burlesque.
I’m thinking about this because as I prepare my list of links to send them, I am occasionally conflicted.
The other day I looked at a popular online burlesque news site and realized that a new fan could easily go to it and read the first five or so articles and go, Wow, do these people even LIKE burlesque? So many times I think that if someone who wasn’t involved in burlesque – a potential student, someone thinking about attending a show, a journalist – dropped by one of our online discussion forums, they would wonder why the hell we bother, when burlesque is so horrible and divided and full of social justice mistakes and gossip. Well, because there’s so much awesome going on that we bother to try to fix those things so it won’t get totally ruined!
We have done and should continue to do a lot of discussion about problems in burlesque. Over time I have learned a lot, changed my ways, made major mistakes a few times a year, and have been happy to see some of those issues improve and sad to see some of them get worse. Nothing is yet beyond reproach or improvement, and thanks to social media I can, to the extent I have probably become neurotically hyper vigilant, feel naysayers’ disdain about the things that bring me joy, but there are some things that I believe in so truly that no amount of feeling those eyes roll up and down my back (thanks for the many back massages, you rollers of eyes) has yet to change my mind. I want to, right now, talk about the things that have happened that have made me, specifically me, self-interested me, happy. These are not the things I recommend anyone else should care about, but are the things with which I’ve been involved and in which I’ve been invested. I often talk about the importance of promoting what you love, so here I go doing as I say to do.
Legends Night at the Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender
When I first started going to Exotic World on the goat farm in Helendale, I was blown away by what we now call Legends. They weren’t called legends at the time; they had been coming to the ranch for decades, back when they were considerably younger than I am now. I wanted everybody to see what they were: older women, proud of their adult entertainment skills, thrilled to be able to show them again when long after thought they would become of no interest to anyone, being appreciated by cheering throngs and elevated not just to their former glory, but beyond. Back then there wasn’t a special night for legends; everyone showed up at the ranch without an application and performed in the same show in broad daylight on the poolside stage in a single marathon show. I’m not saying it should have stayed the same, but I remember it fondly. I am, however, thrilled to see what it has become: a special night in a fabulous Las Vegas casino where these performers get incredible staging, have costumers fight to dress them in fabulous outfits, and get standing ovations from a thousand people. Those who don’t perform get their due in the Walk of Fame. It’s incredible. When BHOF founder Dixie Evans passed, people all over the world – literally, all over the world – got together and produced shows and classes, raising over $40,000 for her remaining medical bills and final resting place. Toni Elling has gotten funding for heating emergencies and more. I can’t even believe it.
These kids today being so good to their elders. What’s up with that?
Legends Teaching
Since 2006, there have been Legends presenting classes at the BHOF weekender. Many of them have never taught before. Even when the classes aren’t specifically about skill-sharing, the stories they tell are an education. And even when they say things we don’t want to hear, they have a history we’re not going to hear anywhere else. There are no cultural centers for them and their art form, no special libraries dedicated to them and no conferences about them. And there are fewer of them every year. To get to have heard them and taken part in their classes has been an honor beyond my wildest dreams.
Push for Excellence
Neo-burlesque has always involved skill and practice to be successful, but seeing the art form become more carefully developed and professionalized has been remarkable. I always wanted the world to be able to understand why burlesque is an art form, and when people who don’t understand see these gorgeously-executed shows, they begin to get it.
Persistence of Audaciousness
Neo-burlesque would be of significantly less interest to me without the train wreck, neighborhood-oriented, or pure fuckery-mindedness of many of the shows that do not aim for excellence so much as for outrageousness. Some of these are also highly developed, though some of them will never be. I am thrilled that there is still burlesque that doesn’t give a fuck. I realize that sometimes the people focused on excellence and the people focused on outrageousness clash, blaming each other for keeping the world from taking them seriously, but that there is something for all is part of what I love.
Coney Island’s Growth
The burlesque shows at Coney Island have gone from running a few times a year with practically the same cast every time to packed shows produced by dozens of producers, running at least two nights a week for six months out of the year. They are absolutely bonkers, these shows, with some of the most highly-developed and over-the-top nuttiness you can imagine, and the audience is completely devoted. It is incredible to see this arts organization survive and thrive, even through Hurricane Sandy.
BHOF New Museum Space
Through many travails, the Burlesque Hall of Fame museum started by Jennie Lee and developed by Dixie Evans not only continues, but is moving into a larger space this year. I think about how cool this is almost every day. As I said before, our legends haven’t had their own cultural center outside of this. This is happening. The museum still exists. I am so grateful people will be able to see it and understand.
Slipper Room Redux
The Slipper Room, one of the first places I ever performed neo-burlesque, enabled many performers to hone their art form in front of a live audience. Thousands and thousands of performances have occurred on its stage, and people from all over the world light-up at the possibility of going there, never mind performing there (we old-timers all lovingly laugh our asses off the first time those who believe the legend they see the performers’ bathroom). A few years ago it was torn to the ground, and frankly, many of us had doubts it could ever come back. But now it has returned and thousands more performances are taking place there, burlesque performances of every style, every week, and often featuring performers from the global community. I’ve been running student showcases there for over 12 years and it makes me misty-eyed to see people performing for the very first time on one of the very footprints where neo-burlesque was born over 15 years ago.
Live Burlesque Music at Duane Park
Much of the history of burlesque is related to its music, and while there have always been a few shows that featured live music from he likes of Fisherman’s burlesque orchestra, there has never been anything quite like Duane Park, where there is live music and performance very night. The venue is not only devoted to it, it was rebuilt and developed with live music and burlesque in mind. This is the commitment of not just e3nergy and money but actual real estate to the art form as a fully staged, live, immersive performance style. I love it.
International Burlesque Circuit
While there were always people such as Julie Atlas Muz, Dirty Martini, and Tigger who had been performing burlesque internationally from the start, there was not the international burlesque circuit there now is. In the beginning when we were throwing down in drag and fetish bars with costumes we assembled off of our closet floors and with a little bit of glitter and cardboard, we had no idea there would ever be a worldwide community of burlesquer booking each other and traveling to work as there is now. You can sleep on a burlesquers’ floor and perform in their show on any continent. Burlesque is now literally not just on the map but on the globe!
BurlyCon and How Burlesque Education is Actually a Thing
If it wasn’t yet clear the extent to which this article reflects my personal concerns and taste, my excitement about this should confirm it. This was always my interest, and the idea of education about and in burlesque is something I have always sought to foster, even fifteen years ago when I had my website G-Strings Forever! and was trying to just let the world know burlesque was out there. The neo-burlesque movement got a good deal of its impetus at Tease-O-Rama in New Orleans in 2001, and classes were a significant part of their agenda. Not only do students benefits from an improved learning curve, and the curious have a chance to learn more, but also now performers – often struggling financially in burlesque as in so many other performing arts – are able to augment their incomes with classes. This is one of the things that makes burlesque sustainable, and also that helps burlesque performers and producers build new audiences via the people who come to see first-time students perform. It is definitely part of the expansion of burlesque and I am grateful to be part of it.
More Burlesque Books And Films
The number of books and documentaries that tell the stories of both vintage and neo-burlesque is truly gratifying. Over the past ten years there have been dozens. I recently took a group of my Playwrights Horizons students to Scott Ewalt’s house to see his huge collection of books, photographs, and signs, and their perception of what burlesque is totally changed when they saw that there was an entire library of study available on the topic. With the addition of the past ten years of publishing and documentary production, I can now only show my NYU students (who are too young to go to shows because of the liquor) not only what burlesque used to look like, but what it looks like now.
People of Color Getting Recognition for their influence on the history of burlesque and becoming a more visible and vocal part of the neo scene.
When I first started burlesque, I had just come from a very segregated strip joint culture in Atlanta, where the assumption was not that people of color weren’t welcome in the white clubs, but that they’d rather not deal with a bunch of white people. To be fair, that was sometimes the case, but it was used as an excuse to keep the clubs separate. If POC had seen themselves at all the clubs, they would have been comfortable working there, but the vicious circle meant that since they weren’t there, they weren’t there. In neo-burlesque, the original number of performers was too small to even staff one of those strip joints, and it didn’t occur to us that the rarity of color, not just in our casts but in our history, was racist. As it grew, people of color made their presence known, got their performances seen, and spoke their history, and let people know it needed to be fixed. There is now hope for burlesque to become not just inclusive, but truly diverse. The Burlesque Hall of Fame had, for a year, their primary exhibit on people of color in burlesque, an exhibit curated by Chicava Honeychild, The Shanghai Pearl, and Dr. Ginger Snapps. This year there were more people of color teaching during the legends classes and performing on Saturday night than ever before. The winner, Miss Poison Ivory, is the first black burlesque performer to win the coveted title of Miss Exotic World in 20 years. It looks as there is a real promise of a better time to come.
The Persistence of Self-Directed Burlesque
And, it remains the case that there is an entire performance field, some of it professionalized and some of it not, where performers get to be their own directors and producers, inventing their own themes and characters, designing and possibly constructing their own costumes, deciding what values they want to ascribe to, and if n one hires them they can start their own damn shows. That’s realer and truer than ever before in the history of burlesque. I love it. I really do.
Best of all, the field has broadened enough that a burlesque performer can have an entire career, performing as often as anyone in their region (some regions having more opportunities than others), without paying attention to any of the venues or organizations that matter to me. They can and have built their own networks and companies and systems within and outside of what existed when I started.
I make no claim whatsoever that what matters to me should matter to other burlesquers. None. You can have an entire burlesque career based solely on what inspired you and what you think is important and have none of it be any of this. If you decide that you value what I value, I can’t stop you; if you also ascribe importance to it, that’s on you. If you don’t like what I like, fly, my friend, be free, and have burlesque your way. If you like what I like, here’s the koolaid. If you don’t like what I like, make and serve your own koolaid!
The New York School of Burlesque has been operating for 12 years, and I am so proud of that. Sometimes when people ask what I do for a living and I tell them I’m the Headmistress of the New York School of Burlesque, they’ll then ask how I got that job, and I’ll say, “I made it up!”
When I first started doing burlesque, there were people who told me I didn’t belong there because it was too fine for someone with a background in the sex industry, it was too theatrical and I would sully it. I kept going. I’m now a university teacher without the requisite degree, a professional dancer without the formal training, a published author with a major publisher who had no previous connections in the publishing industry, and a self-invented entrepreneur without a backing investor. I’m proud of this. I got around some serious gatekeepers. I hope I’ve sullied burlesque for the better.
Do it! You are the future of burlesque. I’ve been telling my students for over a decade to do whatever the fuck they want, and I mean it. As long as you are respectful of strip joint strippers and do cut the tag out of your fucking bra, it’s all good.
As I've been saying in my speeches at BurlyCon for years: Be the burlesque you want to see in the world.
Love,
Jo Weldon
Headmistress of the New York School of Burlesque
