Jo Weldon's New York School of Burlesque

Andrew Davis teaches at Otis College of Art and Design and is one of the few people for whom the label “straight man” is a job description. He is the taller, more sophisticated half of the comedy team of Doc and Stumpy, and has performed classic burlesque comedy in Los Angeles and at burlesque and vaudeville festivals around the U.S. He holds a M.A. in Folklore from UCLA and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from NYU. He is the author of America’s Longest Run: A History of the Walnut Street Theatre (Penn State Press) and he operates the website BaggyPantsComedy.com. I interviewed Doc about his spectacularly detailed, informative, and entertaining book,  Baggy Pants Comedy Burlesque and the Oral Tradition. When did you publish this book? How long did it take? The book was published in 2011.  It was actually my doctoral dissertation, which I completed in 2000.  I’d gotten another book contract in the meantime, so I delayed a few years in revising the dissert...

Miss Nude Universe 1975, Tiffany Carter began her burlesque career at the infamous Pink Pussycat in Hollywood, California. An active, in-demand entertainer with Sparky Blaine’s American Showgirl agency, Tiffany toured the U.S., Canada, and Japan from the late 1960s through the 1980s. Tiffany has came out of burlesque retirement and become one of the most beloved and booked burlesque Legends within the international neo-burlesque community! Are you performing at BHOF this year? Yes, I am performing on Friday night! I am doing a great old classic song to begin with and I am just saying how much I love everyone! What are some of your favorite things about the BHOF Weekender? I love getting to meet all the new people in this show biz group!   Have you taught a class before? I taught a class 2 years ago "Panels and Negligee’s and it was my favorite thing that year. I want to give back to all the new people coming into this business. One of the best things about teaching is to b...

Ms Toni Elling got her name from Duke Ellington, a close friend, when she began performing in the 1960s. She became known for her originality and her skillful strut. She worked throughout the US Northeast and in Japan. She created a huge stir with the way she walked across the stage upon her return at BHoF in 2006, and has brought her signature style to stages from Detroit to New York. Today she is known for teaching the Three P’s: Parade, Pose, and Peel. Are you performing at BHOF this year? I will not be performing at BHOF this year; however, I will do the Walk Of Fame What are some of your favorite things about the BHOF Weekender? I love being able to see old friends and making new ones!  Have you taught a class before? Yes, I have done classes before. It makes me happy to share my knowledge.   What do you hope students will get out of your class?   I hope to show students how panels can be used in an act! See Toni perform! http://youtu.be/vX8h...

Delilah Jones was born in Berlin, Germany at the stroke of midnight on a full moon in 1941. She began performing in 1959 and worked with Lili St Cyr at the El Rancho in L.A, Sally Rand in 1965 in Hollywood, Tura Satana, and many other luminaries. She toured North America for two dazzling decades and retired from burlesque in 1980. Her knowledge of the different eras is extensive and her perspective is wry and insightful, with a clear understanding of context, time, and place. She is part of a lovely crew of Las Vegas local legends who make sure to spend time together in the spirit of striptease sisterhood. She will be taking the stage at the Burlesque Hall of Fame for the first time this year. Are you performing at BHOF this year? I’ll be performing on Friday! What are some of your favorite things about the BHOF Weekender? I love being with friends, all long time legends, under one roof. Have you taught a class before? If so, what do you like about te...

Burlesque signs have always rocked my world. As a child, every time I saw a burlesque sign on a lounge I got an illicit thrill, imagining women of impossible repute removing stockings with a knowing wink. I could picture the heavy lashes, the big hair, the chiffon robes. I was mesmerized. As a teenager, I was excited by the signs on strip joints in Atlanta. I knew that the Domino Lounge was one of the last of the old school burlesque venues in town, but the contemporary signs got me riled up with promise—one day I’d be of age, and I’d know where to go by the signs. A favorite was the sign for Tattletale’s, of “Girls, Girls, Girls” fame—a delicate outline of a nude woman’s hip drawn from the back, her weight on one leg, her hand relaxed at her side, based on this line drawing by Picasso: Later they had to take it down, since it incorporated Picasso’s drawing without permission. Bad strip joint! But good taste. In the early 1980s I had started working in those clubs. One of the...

I've had this interview for awhile and have been trying to write the perfect intro for it, and I give up. She's just too awesome. I am so thrilled to have this woman as an instructor at The New York School of Burlesque, and that's that. Above: Veronica Varlow and me with David Byrne at the Bowery Hotel. Why not? How did you learn to do burlesque? When I first saw burlesque, it was as if I was spying on an ancient and secret rite of women to claim the power in their own sensuality. I was awe-struck that first night I stumbled upon this world of burlesque in 2000 at the Slipper Room. That little corner of Orchard and Stanton became my version of church which I visited weekly to worship the power and beauty of the performers there. At that point, I was learning. I was an eager pupil to learn the movement of confidence, to learn the slowness of sensuality, to learn the power of being unafraid. I was a bystander for 3 years. A witness to the world I longed for. ...

About ten years ago I began a website called G-Strings Forever!, a tribute website to both strip joint strippers and burlesque. I was posting fuzzy digital photos of the scene I knew and setting up links and writing articles without the benefit of much site programming ability, and without blogging technology, flickr, or youtube. Inspired by the original Velvet Hammer website, I interviewed curfnt performers and burlesque legends. I wanted desperately to convey what was amazing and inspiring about these art forms and the people in them. Fortunately, as the School of Burlesque and The Burlesque Handbook have begun to keep me busier and busier, other, more able people have picked up that job, and one of the most inspiring is Holli-Mae Johnson, Editor-In-Chief of 21st Century Burlesque. Above: Holli-Mae, The Editor-In-Chief. How did you become interested in burlesque? Well, I suppose it was likely that, as a performer and with the friends and interests that I had, I would come across ...

With their express permission, I teach the moves certain legends of burlesque have taught directly to me. One of my favorites is the one I call "The Dee Milo," a naughty little forward bump n bend move that Dee did in the 1950s and still does today. Dee performs regularly at the Burlesque Hall of Fame Reunions, has taught there and at Burlycon, and traveled to New York last year to perform in our Mother's Day Burlesque Show. You can learn her move from my book--or better yet, go to Las Vegas this June and see her perform yourself! In anticipation of that fabulous weekend, I'm reposting my interview with Dee, for your pleasure. Image from The Las Vegas Sun. When did you get into burlesque? 1949. How did you come up with your stage name? My manager wanted to keep it short to fit on marquees. Since my name is Dorothy we used Dee, and then we used "Milo" so I could be called the "Venus of Dance." Where did you begin? New Orleans. I had great ...

Interview with Deirdre Timmons Director, A Wink and a Smile http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjDNZJYuQAY "An intoxicating mix of private thoughts and public behavior, A Wink and a Smile exposes more than the human body by putting gender, power, sexuality and social identity under the glittery spotlight, as it follows the lives of ten "ordinary" women who do something extraordinary – learn the art burlesque dancing and striptease. Through their adventures, we see how a homemaker, a reporter, a doctor, an opera singer, a taxidermist and a college student, join the American cultural revival of burlesque, as it moves from fringe fascination to mainstream obsession, engaging a world where performance art and showgirl spectacle, music, theater and sensuality crash into over-the-top glamour - a world where many want to go, but very few dare." On Saturday, May 2, I'll be performing with some of the subjects of this film at Quad Cinema in New York, so I took it up...

If you've ever seen Immodesty Blaize perform, you don't have to ask what burlesque is; she's it. With a larger-than-life stage presence and a smouldering charm offstage, Immodesty leaves a warm, curvy, sensual impression wherever she goes, and leaves every person she encounters with a happy yearning. Without further ado, I present the neo-legend that is the UK's gift to modern burlesque, Miss Immodesty Blaize. When did you first see burlesque? I blame my mother. We watched Gypsy together when I was very young, 5 or 6 I think. Obviously Natalie Wood was beautiful, but I thought Mazeppah was the coolest lady I had ever seen. I liked her humour and even then I knew she was HOT. Were you a performer before you began doing burlesque? I never went to stage school, however I used to travel the country as a little girl doing national dance competitions, with modern, disco and rock ‘n’ roll styles. It was all very ‘Solid Gold’ but I loved the sequins, spandex and the smell ...

I have been extremely lucky to work with some of the best musicians in burlesque. I've been performing, or at least dancing, to live music all my life, including one glorious night with Spinal Tap, but most of the time I was just dancing along to the music. In burlesque with live music, there's real collaboration. The dancers rehearse their numbers with the bands, and the musicians watch the dancers to see if they need to give them a drum hit when a glove drops to the floor, if the music needs to be sped up or slowed down, or if they need to repeat a form until the dancer is ready to finish her number. In New York we have live music at the Slipper Room every Wednesday night with amazing musicians including Brian Fisherman, with whom I've been performing for over 10 years, Le Scandal has featured The New York City Blues Devils and the Le Scandal Orchestra, Big Apple Burlesque features a live band every week, Brian Newman produces a burlesque show with his trio at Duane Park...