Jo Weldon's New York School of Burlesque

I'm going to devote January to inspiration. My first post is about my long-time friend Lily Burana, author of Strip City , a book that said everything I ever wanted said about working in strip joints--the good, the bad, the nights of shame, the the shameless pleasures, the money, the sexy, the everything it takes to understand what it's really like. Although I had heard about Lily and was fascinated by her portrait in Annie Sprinkle's Post-Modern Pin-up Pleasure Activist Play Cards, I didn't meet her until we were on the set of Debra Devi's video "Take It Off," the opening for Jill Morley's incredible documentary, Stripped. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kyoYL6uJD8 Everyone I've mentioned in this post is a huge inspiration, so be sure to click on all the links, but I thought of Lily in particular today because of this post today on Salon.com , in which Lily says: "Here’s what I know, this New Year, for sure: Darlings, it’s later...

As a burlesque performer with a substantial history as a strip joint stripper, I'm frequently asked what the difference is between burlesque and strip joint stripping, and my favorite difference to cite is that nobody ever asks strip joints strippers what the difference is between burlesque and stripping. Burlesque performers do need to differentiate their style for professional purposes, in order to help the venues and produers who book them choose the right kind of performance for their intentions. Some also prefer not to be conflated with the sex-industry-immediacy of strip joints, while others actually also work as strippers and want to differentiate for professional reasons alone. Many burlesque performers are perfectly comfortable being called strippers and don't care if their moral turpitude is aligned with strip joints. Of course, it rarely occurs to anyone to consider whether or not strip joint strippers would want to be conflated with burlesque. There is some...