Jo Weldon's New York School of Burlesque

As a rule, I don't intend to use this blog as a vehicle for promoting my stuff. I've got a webpage, a myspace, several yahoo groups, a livejournal, and craiglist for all that. This is intended to be a resource for people who like the kind of burlesque I like and are inspired by the things that inspire me, and to foster a sense of community among us. However, I just posted my events update to my email list and I thought it might give a sense of why I've gotten behind on updating this blog. I just had an unusually busy month! But this blog is as important to me as it was when I started, and I intend to continue to interview, photograph, write, and post as my schedule permits. Tomorrow: 7:30 pm, free reading Barnes & Noble 396 Sixth Ave., New York, NY 10014 at 8th St. 212-674-8780 Kelly DiNardo reads passages from her biography Gilded Lili: Lili St. Cyr and the Striptease Mystique. Be one of the first to get your hands on this biography of a hugely influential bu...

My friend Susan Wayward has posted about The Texas Burlesque Festival! 'There is one image that will endure as a defining moment for the Texas Burlesque Festival: A voluptuous, pale Black Mariah, clad in Presidential Seal pasties, a sash emblazoned with "Decider," and a rubber George W Bush mask that seemed to have more expressiveness and personality than the president himself. Walking out on stage in her presidential drag, the crowd played along, booing and hissing. “Welcome to Austin!,” I said to my companion, “We hate the president here.” It was a perfect combination of vaudeville, striptease, and commentary that makes up burlesque in Austin.' Texas Burlesque Festival Roundup Susan and I originally got acquainted through mutual appreciation of this photo of the Hot Mess performing in NYC:

While there is no doubt that the first half of the 20th century was the golden age of striptease burlesque, and that's the era I have the deepest appreciation for, I have a sneaky little passion for the late 1960s. It could be because that's about the time I was old enough to perceive glamour and aspire to it. I had an amazing Barbie doll--a Stacie, actually--that looked like Marilyn Monroe with quite the bouff. One of the movies that influenced my taste in glamourous women was the 1967 version of Casino Royale , for instance. Natalie Wood with what I consider a small but significant bouff: Ann-Margret, always a worthy idol, in "The Swinger": One of my all-time favorites (sadly, not embeddable, but not to be missed, and yes I've ordered a boa like that and a wig like that, I'm such a drag queen): The Silencers For more on the style my next number will be tributing, visit this amazing site: Beauty and the Bouffant A little style from flickr.com; ...

For Sherry's 85th birthday, she had a fabulous party, and the invitation was a charming 8 page booklet. She is allowing me to show part of it here, and I'm very excited to share just a bit of how amazing this woman is and how incredible her life is. She is one of the most gracious, outspoken, and hilarious people you'd ever want to meet! I've been really fortunate to get to know her and have her as a friend. When being involved in the burlesque world means you get to know people with soul, brains, and talent like this, you can see why I stay passionate about the community as well as the art form. Some of the best people in the world are in burlesque.

I love that this article came out just a week after Dixie was talking about the Palace in her interview! 'From Irma the Body to Blaze Starr, the photos display the women's charms....Every woman in the exhibit exhibited herself at the Palace. There is Tura Satana, star of Russ Meyer's Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! And Lili St. Cyr — anyone who can sing along with The Rocky Horror Picture Show would recognize this star of several Irving Klaw fetish films. And legendary stripper Ann Corio, regarded as a premier princess of the pasties.' Eastman House gives us a peep at burlesque photos from famed Buffalo theater

Did you have close friends in burlesque, and do you still have them? For some reason I really got along great with all the girls, and I don't remember having any friction with any of them. If you featured you traveled a lot and had your own dressing room, and the locals and chorus girls hung together more, so I usually didn't get to know them well, but I did make friends. I've still got friends that I still write to from way back. I would say it was a very wonderful comaraderie among the women. There may have been more conflict in the big eastern theaters. When I lost my scrapbook in Miami Beach I put an ad out to help me find it, and I got 14 letters from young people saying they wanted to hear about mortal combat backstage! It wasn't like that. I would say every once in awhile there would be two redheads or two very famous dancers and we'd expect conflict because of what they had in common. Sometimes at 9 am we'd be downstairs for rehearsal with the piano pl...

I love talking with Dixie Evans. She is one of the friendliest, most gracious, most open-hearted people in the world, and one of the most open-minded as well. If you already know all about her, you'll enjoy the stories she tells in this interview; if you're not familiar with her, you'll find a new hero. Image snagged from Java's Bachelor Pad. Click the image for more Dixie. When did you get into burlesque? I was in chorus lines in Hollywood in other types of shows before I got into burlesque, in the late 1940s. I was a page too, that's a showgirl who walks with the curtain as it opens ad then you thrust your hands open as the star steps forward. I had just worked on a show that closed in two weeks. I was hanging out on the steps of a club and the club manager came out and asked me if I could cut my act short and mix with the audience a little more, and I said, "I don't work here!" and got up to leave. He followed me down the street and offered...

Catherine D'Lish at Tease-O-Rama, absolutely devastating. Catherine's Website (which has more photos by me in its gallery.