What about a belly dance and burlesque show? - Page 2

Brea · 02-12-2008, 09:32 PM

Well, I think that's where people get confused. Burlesque and vaudeville are pretty much the same thing; burlesque does have some nudity but that's not the entire point of the show. Many acts in it (like magic, etc) are not nude at all. It's a variety show.

Sadly, no, I have not been able to get into a burlesque show yet. However, I will be living in Scotland eventually, so perhaps we can get together on it over there someday.

Sapphira · 02-12-2008, 09:44 PM

Oh right. Are you in the US? Yeah, you must come see us in London! It's nice and open minded down here so everyone is just up for a really good show and we are more than happy to oblige.

I'm so rapt with the line up that I have now, I've deliberately chosen some of best trained and most professional performers on the circuit because I just want it to be nothing short of a class act.

Brea · 02-12-2008, 09:58 PM

Hi,

Yes I am currently in the US, but I am a Scottish history major, so I will be going to school at St Andrews in the fall of 2009. I would like to come and see it, as well as try out if possible someday!

Sapphira · 02-13-2008, 12:23 PM

Cool! I love Scotland. There's a good scene for burlesque up there. I think it's Club Noir, have you heard of it?

Brea · 02-13-2008, 04:16 PM

Hi,

No, I had not! Even so, when I move to the UK, I don't think I'm allowed to work as an entertainer (which is lame). So I might just have to stand and watch on the sidelines!

Sapphira · 02-13-2008, 08:14 PM

Hm, that's a shame. Well, you can definitely find loads to do. Edinburgh and Glasgow have a great vibe, no matter what you're in to! Maybe see you one day!

Suheir · 02-16-2008, 11:32 PM

Burlesque existed for half a century before Sol Bloom's presentations at the 1893 World's Fair.

Here's the definition of the word from an etymological dictionary:
'burlesque
1667, "derisive imitation, grotesque parody," from Fr. burlesque, from It. burlesco, from burla "joke, fun, mockery," possibly ult. from L.L. burra "trifle, nonsense," lit. "flock of wool." Modern sense of "variety show featuring striptease" is Amer.Eng., 1870. Originally (1857) "the sketches at the end of minstrel shows." '

Extracts from John Kenrick's A History Of The Musical Burlesque:

"Most people think that "burlesque" means female strippers walking a runway to a bump and grind beat. But that only fits the form in its declining years. At its best, burlesque was a rich source of music and comedy that kept America, audiences laughing from 1840 through the 1960s.

Some sources try to wrap burlesque in a mantle of pseudo-intellectual respectability. Yes, it involved transgressive comedy and songs, but the primary attraction of burlesque was sex . . in the form of ribald humor and immodestly dressed women"

"In the 19th Century, the term "burlesque" was applied to a wide range of comic plays, including non-musicals. Beginning in the 1840s, these works entertained the lower and middle classes in Great Britain and the United States by making fun of (or "burlesquing") the operas, plays and social habits of the upper classes. These shows used comedy and music to challenge the established way of looking at things. Everything from Shakespearean drama to the craze for Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind could inspire a full-length burlesque spoof. On Broadway, the burlesque productions of actor managers William Mitchell, John Brougham and Laura Keene were among Broadway's most popular hits of the mid-19th Century.

By the 1860s, British burlesque relied on the display of shapely, underdressed women to keep audiences interested. In the Victorian age, when proper women went to great lengths to hide their physical form beneath bustles, hoops and frills, the idea of young ladies appearing onstage in tights was a powerful challenge"

"In the late 1860s, Lydia Thompson's British burlesque troupe became New York's biggest theatrical sensation. Their first hit was Ixion (1868), a mythological spoof that had women in revealing tights playing men's roles. In the Victorian age, when proper women went to great lengths to hide their physical form beneath bustles, hoops and frills, the idea of young ladies appearing onstage in tights was a powerful challenge"

"At first, the American press praised burlesques, but turned vicious under pressure from influential do-gooders. But the cries of the self-righteous had an unintended effect. Editorials and sermons condemning burlesque as "indecent" only made the form more popular! Demand was such that copycat burlesque companies soon cropped up, many with female managers.

Mabel Saintley became America's first native-born burlesque star, leading "Mme. Rintz's Female Minstrels" from the 1880s onwards in a stylish burlesque of all-male troupes.

Burlesque left little to the imagination. The popular stage spectacle Ben Hur inspired "The High Rollers" troupe to produce Bend Her, with scantily clad chorines as Roman charioteers.

Any stage hit could become a target for humor. The popular melodrama Trilby was spoofed in 'Twill Be.

Americans began creating their own burlesques, and some proved extremely popular. Composer Edward E.Rice teamed with actor Henry Dixey to create Adonis (1874), the story of a statue that comes to life and is so disgusted by human folly that he finally chooses to turn back into stone. The show ran over 500 performances in New York and toured for years, making the handsome Dixey the top matinee idol of his time"

Most of what we are seeing presented as "burlesque" in the UK at the moment is faux 1940s/1950s striptease acts of the type that can be seen in the 1959 film "Expresso Bongo" and the 1960 film "Beat Girl". I see no connection with a social dance from the Middle East that everybody, man, woman and child does.

I find it curious that so many established UK belly dance teachers are now jumping on the burlesque band-wagon and teaching workshops in burlesque after taking a few, or one lesson themselves, or maybe having learnt from a video, when they would be the first people to complain about teachers of other dance forms (or even aerobics) teaching belly dance after only a couple of lessons.

Sapphira · 02-17-2008, 10:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Suheir

I find it curious that so many established UK belly dance teachers are now jumping on the burlesque band-wagon and teaching workshops in burlesque

Really, I didn't know there were many belly dancing instructors in the UK teaching burlesque yet but the students are definitely interested in both and perhaps it's arising out of demand.

Many of the moves used in burlesque come from belly dancing, the shimmy, hip circle, figure 8 so it's not difficult to learn the technique for teachers who want to add something extra for their students. And it's FUN!!

Ultimately I guess it attracts the same kinds of performers and students because both are very empowering forms embracing one's feminity, feeling confident about one's body and it means we get to wear lots of amazing costumes and show off!! Sparkles, sequins, crystals galore!

I definitely applaud anyone who wants to give either style a try. Why not? If it makes you feel good about yourself, then go for it!

Goodness knows, there are enough negative messages about the female body and the pressure to conform to diets and losing weight. It's great that belly dancing and burlesque not just embraces but celebrates all shapes and sizes.

Sapphira · 02-17-2008, 11:14 AM

Also, I think you will find this article on the history of burlesque very interesting. It focuses and explains the theatrical and comedy aspect to the original art form.

History of Burlesque - Part II

This last paragraph is great, which you can read if click the link is really thought provoking...

Legacy: Burlesque Today?
While the "golden age of burlesque" is long gone, its legacy is very much alive. Every time a comedian does a "spit take" or tells a joke with a double-meaning, or whenever Saturday Night Live skewers politicians and movie stars, you are watching burlesque in action.

Big screen spoofs such as Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs, and the Austin Powers films are clearly carrying on the tradition of early burlesque -- making fun of well-known entertainments, social mores, etc. Shrek 2 (2004) is a superb example of the kind of comedy that Lydia Thompson and her British Blondes offered in the 1860s, getting in good natured jabs at a wide variety of comic targets while challenging audiences to look beyond appearances -- finding true beauty and bravery in unlikely characters.

The tawdrier burlesque tradition lives on too. Every time The Jerry Springer Show airs a digitally obscured set of bared female breasts, it is a classic burlesque tease -- and Springer audiences are eerily reminiscent of those who sought tacky thrills at bump and grind houses a few decades ago. All of these entertainments have their righteous critics, and all appeal to a nation-wide audience.

In the early 2000s, a spate of "new burlesque" shows are cropping up on both sides of the Atlantic, featuring comics, strippers and specialty acts that offer a new spin on the old "burly-q" mix. Is it too early to fully assess this trend, but the fact that such shows have spontaneously sprung up in places as diverse as Manhattan, Montreal and Oslo suggests there is a widespread interest crossing all sorts of physical and generational barriers.

Why? I would suggest that there is a natural human need for the bold comic challenge that burlesque poses to the social, cultural and sexual status quo. The word "burlesque" was seriously tarnished by the mid-20th Century, when it was linked to witless soft porn strip revues in seedy venues. Now, a new generation is open to re-evaluating both the word and the format, recognizing the spirit of spoofery that made burlesque a potent form of entertainment back in the 1860s. At the dawn of a new millennium, burlesque is still alive and giggling.

lizaj · 02-17-2008, 06:28 PM

I do not have a problem with Burlesque in the slightest. It's a clever and fun art when done well.
But it has no connection here in Europe or in the ME with with Belly dance except that belly dancers can be very sexy ( either in a positive or a negative way) and very entertaining as well for adults.
BUT Burlesque entertainers take their clothes off ( yes I know some don't) but the general public have those expectations.
Belly dancers do NOT!
When we learn to belly dance in the UK, we usually learn to do Egyptian or Turkish style dance with all the history and culture that contains. It is also social dancing and Burlesque is not..it is at its' best skilfull showgirl stuff. I have been to a Burley workshop and if I had been younger, I'd have loved to explore it further but for both myself (and I noted the instructor also agreed) it had nothing to do with my role as a belly dancer and dance teacher.
Belly dancing as a form of exercise as well as a performance art is accessable to women and men of all ages and body shapes, women and men who would never dream of doing burlesque. We are starting to muddy waters by blending the two.
If a belly dancer wants to go and learn burlesque, good for her but it is not even a half sister to belly dance.
If belly dance and burlesque were part of a whole show that included other genres of dance as well I would be confortable but I think the two together will do us no favours in the eyes of the homes of Bellydances: Egypt,Turkey and the Lebanon nor in the eys of the GP.

As for Princess Farhana I used to love her style but the last two films I have seem (Underbelly excerpts Osama etc) make me feel uneasy and queazy!

I have just been teaching an ATS workshops and I was discussing with Egyptian style dancers how I would ,along with fellow troupe members, be quite happy not to be counted as part of the belly dance stable because the origins are of course not Egyptian. I like to define the difference in beginnings and premises between the two styles of dance I love dancing.

And for Burley should we start going on about what good bedfellows they are I fear very much , it will do neither any good!

02-12-2008, 09:32 PM	#11 (permalink)
Brea V.I.P. Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: USA Posts: 1,283	Well, I think that's where people get confused. Burlesque and vaudeville are pretty much the same thing; burlesque does have some nudity but that's not the entire point of the show. Many acts in it (like magic, etc) are not nude at all. It's a variety show. Sadly, no, I have not been able to get into a burlesque show yet. However, I will be living in Scotland eventually, so perhaps we can get together on it over there someday. __________________ www.breamorgiane.com

02-12-2008, 09:58 PM	#13 (permalink)
Brea V.I.P. Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: USA Posts: 1,283	Hi, Yes I am currently in the US, but I am a Scottish history major, so I will be going to school at St Andrews in the fall of 2009. I would like to come and see it, as well as try out if possible someday! __________________ www.breamorgiane.com

02-13-2008, 04:16 PM	#15 (permalink)
Brea V.I.P. Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: USA Posts: 1,283	Hi, No, I had not! Even so, when I move to the UK, I don't think I'm allowed to work as an entertainer (which is lame). So I might just have to stand and watch on the sidelines! __________________ www.breamorgiane.com

02-12-2008, 09:44 PM	#12 (permalink)
Sapphira Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: London Posts: 43	Oh right. Are you in the US? Yeah, you must come see us in London! It's nice and open minded down here so everyone is just up for a really good show and we are more than happy to oblige. I'm so rapt with the line up that I have now, I've deliberately chosen some of best trained and most professional performers on the circuit because I just want it to be nothing short of a class act.

02-13-2008, 12:23 PM	#14 (permalink)
Sapphira Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: London Posts: 43	Cool! I love Scotland. There's a good scene for burlesque up there. I think it's Club Noir, have you heard of it?

02-13-2008, 08:14 PM	#16 (permalink)
Sapphira Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: London Posts: 43	Hm, that's a shame. Well, you can definitely find loads to do. Edinburgh and Glasgow have a great vibe, no matter what you're in to! Maybe see you one day!

02-16-2008, 11:32 PM	#17 (permalink)
Suheir V.I.P. Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Europe - London Posts: 1,227	Burlesque existed for half a century before Sol Bloom's presentations at the 1893 World's Fair. Here's the definition of the word from an etymological dictionary: 'burlesque 1667, "derisive imitation, grotesque parody," from Fr. burlesque, from It. burlesco, from burla "joke, fun, mockery," possibly ult. from L.L. burra "trifle, nonsense," lit. "flock of wool." Modern sense of "variety show featuring striptease" is Amer.Eng., 1870. Originally (1857) "the sketches at the end of minstrel shows." ' Extracts from John Kenrick's A History Of The Musical Burlesque: "Most people think that "burlesque" means female strippers walking a runway to a bump and grind beat. But that only fits the form in its declining years. At its best, burlesque was a rich source of music and comedy that kept America, audiences laughing from 1840 through the 1960s. Some sources try to wrap burlesque in a mantle of pseudo-intellectual respectability. Yes, it involved transgressive comedy and songs, but the primary attraction of burlesque was sex . . in the form of ribald humor and immodestly dressed women" "In the 19th Century, the term "burlesque" was applied to a wide range of comic plays, including non-musicals. Beginning in the 1840s, these works entertained the lower and middle classes in Great Britain and the United States by making fun of (or "burlesquing") the operas, plays and social habits of the upper classes. These shows used comedy and music to challenge the established way of looking at things. Everything from Shakespearean drama to the craze for Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind could inspire a full-length burlesque spoof. On Broadway, the burlesque productions of actor managers William Mitchell, John Brougham and Laura Keene were among Broadway's most popular hits of the mid-19th Century. By the 1860s, British burlesque relied on the display of shapely, underdressed women to keep audiences interested. In the Victorian age, when proper women went to great lengths to hide their physical form beneath bustles, hoops and frills, the idea of young ladies appearing onstage in tights was a powerful challenge" "In the late 1860s, Lydia Thompson's British burlesque troupe became New York's biggest theatrical sensation. Their first hit was Ixion (1868), a mythological spoof that had women in revealing tights playing men's roles. In the Victorian age, when proper women went to great lengths to hide their physical form beneath bustles, hoops and frills, the idea of young ladies appearing onstage in tights was a powerful challenge" "At first, the American press praised burlesques, but turned vicious under pressure from influential do-gooders. But the cries of the self-righteous had an unintended effect. Editorials and sermons condemning burlesque as "indecent" only made the form more popular! Demand was such that copycat burlesque companies soon cropped up, many with female managers. Mabel Saintley became America's first native-born burlesque star, leading "Mme. Rintz's Female Minstrels" from the 1880s onwards in a stylish burlesque of all-male troupes. Burlesque left little to the imagination. The popular stage spectacle Ben Hur inspired "The High Rollers" troupe to produce Bend Her, with scantily clad chorines as Roman charioteers. Any stage hit could become a target for humor. The popular melodrama Trilby was spoofed in 'Twill Be. Americans began creating their own burlesques, and some proved extremely popular. Composer Edward E.Rice teamed with actor Henry Dixey to create Adonis (1874), the story of a statue that comes to life and is so disgusted by human folly that he finally chooses to turn back into stone. The show ran over 500 performances in New York and toured for years, making the handsome Dixey the top matinee idol of his time" Most of what we are seeing presented as "burlesque" in the UK at the moment is faux 1940s/1950s striptease acts of the type that can be seen in the 1959 film "Expresso Bongo" and the 1960 film "Beat Girl". I see no connection with a social dance from the Middle East that everybody, man, woman and child does. I find it curious that so many established UK belly dance teachers are now jumping on the burlesque band-wagon and teaching workshops in burlesque after taking a few, or one lesson themselves, or maybe having learnt from a video, when they would be the first people to complain about teachers of other dance forms (or even aerobics) teaching belly dance after only a couple of lessons.

02-17-2008, 11:14 AM	#19 (permalink)
Sapphira Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: London Posts: 43	Also, I think you will find this article on the history of burlesque very interesting. It focuses and explains the theatrical and comedy aspect to the original art form. History of Burlesque - Part II This last paragraph is great, which you can read if click the link is really thought provoking... Legacy: Burlesque Today? While the "golden age of burlesque" is long gone, its legacy is very much alive. Every time a comedian does a "spit take" or tells a joke with a double-meaning, or whenever Saturday Night Live skewers politicians and movie stars, you are watching burlesque in action. Big screen spoofs such as Young Frankenstein, Spaceballs, and the Austin Powers films are clearly carrying on the tradition of early burlesque -- making fun of well-known entertainments, social mores, etc. Shrek 2 (2004) is a superb example of the kind of comedy that Lydia Thompson and her British Blondes offered in the 1860s, getting in good natured jabs at a wide variety of comic targets while challenging audiences to look beyond appearances -- finding true beauty and bravery in unlikely characters. The tawdrier burlesque tradition lives on too. Every time The Jerry Springer Show airs a digitally obscured set of bared female breasts, it is a classic burlesque tease -- and Springer audiences are eerily reminiscent of those who sought tacky thrills at bump and grind houses a few decades ago. All of these entertainments have their righteous critics, and all appeal to a nation-wide audience. In the early 2000s, a spate of "new burlesque" shows are cropping up on both sides of the Atlantic, featuring comics, strippers and specialty acts that offer a new spin on the old "burly-q" mix. Is it too early to fully assess this trend, but the fact that such shows have spontaneously sprung up in places as diverse as Manhattan, Montreal and Oslo suggests there is a widespread interest crossing all sorts of physical and generational barriers. Why? I would suggest that there is a natural human need for the bold comic challenge that burlesque poses to the social, cultural and sexual status quo. The word "burlesque" was seriously tarnished by the mid-20th Century, when it was linked to witless soft porn strip revues in seedy venues. Now, a new generation is open to re-evaluating both the word and the format, recognizing the spirit of spoofery that made burlesque a potent form of entertainment back in the 1860s. At the dawn of a new millennium, burlesque is still alive and giggling.

02-17-2008, 06:28 PM	#20 (permalink)
lizaj Moderator Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: UK Posts: 1,266	I do not have a problem with Burlesque in the slightest. It's a clever and fun art when done well. But it has no connection here in Europe or in the ME with with Belly dance except that belly dancers can be very sexy ( either in a positive or a negative way) and very entertaining as well for adults. BUT Burlesque entertainers take their clothes off ( yes I know some don't) but the general public have those expectations. Belly dancers do NOT! When we learn to belly dance in the UK, we usually learn to do Egyptian or Turkish style dance with all the history and culture that contains. It is also social dancing and Burlesque is not..it is at its' best skilfull showgirl stuff. I have been to a Burley workshop and if I had been younger, I'd have loved to explore it further but for both myself (and I noted the instructor also agreed) it had nothing to do with my role as a belly dancer and dance teacher. Belly dancing as a form of exercise as well as a performance art is accessable to women and men of all ages and body shapes, women and men who would never dream of doing burlesque. We are starting to muddy waters by blending the two. If a belly dancer wants to go and learn burlesque, good for her but it is not even a half sister to belly dance. If belly dance and burlesque were part of a whole show that included other genres of dance as well I would be confortable but I think the two together will do us no favours in the eyes of the homes of Bellydances: Egypt,Turkey and the Lebanon nor in the eys of the GP. As for Princess Farhana I used to love her style but the last two films I have seem (Underbelly excerpts Osama etc) make me feel uneasy and queazy! I have just been teaching an ATS workshops and I was discussing with Egyptian style dancers how I would ,along with fellow troupe members, be quite happy not to be counted as part of the belly dance stable because the origins are of course not Egyptian. I like to define the difference in beginnings and premises between the two styles of dance I love dancing. And for Burley should we start going on about what good bedfellows they are I fear very much , it will do neither any good!