Jo Weldon's New York School of Burlesque

My friend Basil Twist is involved in bringing these amazing puppets to New York. From the website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux7uywhWZIA July 28-August 2, 2009 Grotesque. Charming. Sordid. Tiny. Los Grumildos are automated puppets, miniature beings that skulk about a world somewhere between Victorian dollhouse and red light district. The brainchildren of Peruvian artist Ety Fefer finally land in North America at HERE Arts Center, after four years of touring catacombs, suburbs, festivals, and bars in Europe. This voyeuristic experience was inspired by the characters that inhabit the shady areas of downtown Lima, Peru. Fefer creates a kind of magical world that serves as a home for these marginal creatures that tend to be rejected and despised by society. The hyperrealist details of each plasticine puppet bring out their most intimate feelings, but the narrative is left to the viewers. A 30-minute self-guided tour. Half-installation, half-kinetic theater. $7 only. 6...

"The Council has met with the burlesque community in response to their concerns and agreed to seek a clearer understanding of what constitutes adult entertainment. This will help define what reasonable measures premises should put in place prior to adult entertainment being performed. " The Camden Council's Statement on Burlesque Previously: Is Camden Council Banning Burlesque? Certain comments below the Timeout article seem to be related to Penny's argument against burlesque . (I find it so ironic that this article is illustrated with an image of Julie Atlas Muz .) Penny diluted her argument herself in her discussion with Dr. Lucky when she said, "I'm a massive fan of burlesque," a position nowhere reflected in the inflammatory article. It appears certain kinds of burlesque are ok, others not so much. If it's not laden with politics, if it's just pretty, watch out! There goes the neighborhood.

'One of his most memorable interviews, he later said, was with Hinda Wassau, the burlesque star who invented the stripper pole. 'When [Walter] Cronkite, desperately searching for something he could get into family-friendly newspapers, asked her about the role of burlesque in boosting wartime morale, Wassau grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket. ''Let me tell you something,'' she snarled at the shaken Cronkite. ``The morals behind a burlesque stage are just as good as the morals at Radio City.'' ' Click here to read remembrances of Walter Cronkite. Read More: Most trusted' voice in America goes silent Does anyone have any pictures of Hinda Wassau?

The Flickr Burlesque Group now has over 1200 members! Recent posts have included images from Milano, London, and Paris! Click the images to find out who and where.

One of my favorite burlesque shows of all times was Sealboy and the Blondes at the Slipper Room in 2008, featuring Mat Fraser and Julie Atlas Muz. I was in a dark place and it brought me to the light. And it ended with this cream pie fight: Night before last they took this show to Fire Island--read all about it! Nardicio Presents Sealboy & the Blondes at the Palace, Burlesque for a Full Moon Night

Last fall I reviewed Lisa Kereszi's book, Fantasies. Burlesque continues to inspire visual artists, as it always has! There is a new interview with Lisa at Photoeye, one of my favorite photography websites. Also, Lisa's photo of my roommate, Julie Atlas Muz ( who is a visual artist as well as one of everybody's favorite burlesque performers, is in a new exhibition. The exhibition's press release: Sexy and the City New York Photographs July 9, 2009­August 28, 2009 Yossi Milo Gallery is pleased to announce Sexy and the City, a summer group show on view from Thursday, July 9, through Friday, August 28, 2009. Sexy and the City shows the alluring, romantic and sometimes scandalous side of New York¹s people and places. Capturing private, intimate moments and blatant displays of sexuality, these photographs span the decades from the 1940s to the present day, taken in landmark locations like the Brooklyn Bridge and in the quiet, out-of-the-way corners of the city. ...

"The exciting strippers, the great baggy-pants comics, the shabby straight men, the off-key tenors, the fast-talking candy butchers and the chaotic chorus lines--all of the great moments of america's most colorful theatrical art." So reads the back cover of Ann Corio's history of burlesque, published in 1968. Corio herself was a star in the 1930s and 40s, beginning when she was 15, and her self-deprecating autobiographical chapter is one of my favorite parts of the book. Of her first encounter with burlesque, she said, "Stripteasing was already in full swing when I arrived, and my eyes opened wide. What kind of show business was this? Girls were taking off their clothes and making gestures never seen in church plays....Then I noticed something...I was wearing less clothes in the chorus than the featured stripper at the end of her act....I wrestled with my conscience and my pocketbook and you know who always wins that match." In the opening, titled ...

The American Burlesque Show Irving Zeidman Hawthorne Books, New York, Ny 1967 "The trouble with the American burlesque show, from beginning to end, is either that is has been too dirty--or else that it hasn't been dirty enough." The first sentence of Irving Zeidman's history of burlesque in the United States (primarily New York) cites a dilemma that continues to haunt burlesque even now, when burlesque is serving in most venues as a couples' or women's alternative to the more commercial, more directly sexual environment of strip clubs (although in New York we have a few venues that are decidedly more hardcore than any burlesque shows of the past--and my story on that is upcoming). Zeidman quotes Sime Silverman saying, "Were there no women in burlesque, how many men would attend?" in 1909. He describes the history of American burlesque as "the history of its producers' endless efforts to please both the censors and the audience." ...

Something like this! "This will be Trixie and Monkey’s debut at the Hustler Club, the largest and newest club on the Block, the city’s radically diminished but still-breathing downtown adult entertainment district. Most of their local shows have been in very different venues—stripping for artsy crowds at the Creative Alliance or hipsters at the Ottobar. If there is any doubt that Trixie and Monkey will be out of their element here, it vanishes at noon, when the club opens and the house dancers hit the stage. These strippers begin their routines where Trixie and Monkey leave off...." Read more of this great great article, featuring interviews with everyone from Gal Friday to Satan's Angel, at Urbanite Baltimore.