Arts & Culture

Burlesque star and fashion diva Dita Von Teese is in town promoting her new book and album.

This book reminds me of the resurgent interest and reinvention of burlesque during the last ten years. The bump-n-grind and the swoosh of the twirling tassels is new again (according to Ann Corio's This Was Burlesque performer Carrie Finnell could make one tassel go clockwise and the other go counter-clockwise!).

Burlesque was a staple of the vaudeville scene in American stage from the 1900s on. Post 1930s, vaudeville declined (possibly due to the expansion of movies in the 1920s/30s) and burlesque changed to more striptease in the 1940s-60s era only to decline again as nudity became legal and commonplace on stage. More recently, burlesque has been reinvented and reclaimed by female performers (including Ms. Von Teese) in a variety of settings.

You may be familiar with Gypsy Rose Lee, possibly the most renowned burlesque dancer/stripper still in today's memory. The movie Gypsy with Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood is based on Lee's memoir (as are the Broadway shows highlighting Sondheim's music). 

There's even some Canadian burlesque content.

Determining the dividing line between burlesque and striptease is difficult -- rather like the problem of defining pornography (or good taste) where one is tempted to say "I'll know it when I see it".