Jo Weldon's New York School of Burlesque

Above: The awe-inspiring and amaze-inducing Sparkly Devil. I freakin LOVE Sparkly Devil, and have been fortunate to know and love her long time. She's a fierce and gorgeous and super smart lady, and you should read her blog! Below, one of my favorite recent posts: "The heyday of burlesque was cultivated in simpler times, when the 4-martini lunch ruled, computers were giant hulking beasts that only the government owned, and phones took forever to dial 9 and were connected to a wall. "As the burlesque revival has grown since the late ‘90s, it’s been fundamentally shaped by the technological innovations that our generation has access to. Today, we can pick a concept, do a keyword search on iTunes, order the costume on eBay, promote the new act on Twitter, videotape the performance from our phone and then post in on Facebook – in less than a week’s time. "That said, having the tools to create an act readily available at one’s fingertips does not mean a great ac

While working on the cleanup for gstringsforever.com, I found a few links still alive to older articles about neo-burlesque. Enjoy! ' "We have been getting all types at the shows," Baldwin says proudly. "We get young people, hipsters, people who know nothing about burlesque, and others who've had their interest piqued. The best is when we get these ninety-year old people who actually remember burlesque from the first time around. We had this one old guy sitting in the front row, catcalling the girls. He had a great time. When they come up to us afterward and say we really had it down, that is very cool." ' Above: Michelle Baldwin at the New York Burlesque Festival. Article in The Denver Westword , June 22, 2000 'Neo-burlesque comes out of two tendencies: One is the American Gothic stream, the stomping ground of David Lynch movies, S-&-M punk band the Cramps or drag queen Divine; the other is pop culture's ongoing affair with nosta