CUE: Michael Jackson (The Way You Make Me Feel):
“HEY!” *snap, snap, snap* “You knock me offa my feet now, Baby. Hoooo!”
Why burlesque? Of all genres of performance, why burlesque? I certainly didn’t head off to NYU thinking,
“I’ll get my prestigious theater degree and then go spray myself in glitter and take my clothes off.”
That wasn’t the plan. The plan was Ibsen, Shakespeare, Sophocles. (I was very serious). The plan was to make people feel. Tell the stories that needed to be told, stories that inspired, freed the mind, shook preconceptions up, challenged the status quo.
So I did that. And it was good.
And then, in 1992 I saw a burlesque show in New Orleans featuring Dita Von Teese. I sat front and center, caught a glove (no, not hers) and was hooked from the first number of the show. Miss Teese was lovely, ethereal. She drifted across the stage with her giant balloon. She was the featured guest in with a now defunct group called the Southern Jezebels. It was a show full of mirth (cowboy cap gun tap dancing number) and irreverence (an Elenore Roosevelt tribute – who knew she was into BDSM!?), beauty (Amelia Earhart en point wrapped in wafting silk wind- stunning) above all…the show was joyful. I left with cheeks aching from an hour plus of smiling. I knew immediately that I wanted to do this. It took 5 more years before I worked up the courage. When I finally did…I found…
JOY.
I found joy in burlesque. It was more than a little like finding religion. Now? Now I want to make people feel JOY. I want to introduce more joy into the world I want to surround myself with joy…cover it in glitter and spin it’s joyful nipple tassels. That’s my joyful freak flag. Swarovski crystal, glitter encrusted joy.
Here, have some.
Jon M. Chu – LXD
“When I was growing up my heroes were people like Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Michael Jackson. And those guys, they were like ultimate heroes…those guys made me believe in something bigger those guys made me wanna, like ‘I’m gonna do that moon walk at that barmitzvah tonight for that girl.'”
The LXD, the League of Extraordinary Dancers was formed and “we believe dance can have a trans-formative effect on the world.”
Last year I came across a Ted talk featuring Jon M. Chu and the LXD. (I confess I don’t have a TV, I’d never heard of them before.) Watching their performances, and his talk about how dance has evolved, how the conversation of dance has evolved inspired me. I remembered watching Singing in the Rain enraptured. Poring over Film Noir films to figure out how those actors were so cool and crisp. Watching that LXD Ted talk just might have been the moment I decided to kick it up an notch and I texted my (amazing) costumer J. and said…“It’s time to upgrade the crystals.” That…and rehearse. More.
Go Big, or Go Home.
I’m going to say it… I want to be a Joy Superhero.
There is so much joy to be found in burlesque… joy for the human body, joy for the clever articulation of a striptease, fan dance, costume construction, etc. Joy relishing in the joy of performing and watching others perform. Joy for the story being told or as Jo Boobs, Headmistress of the New York School of Burlesque calls it, “the event.” Joy in the sheer beauty or the ecstatic ridiculousness…or awkwardness. Joy in bending perceptions about what “sexy”, “beautiful”,”alluring” and “sensual” mean.
If you are watching burlesque…I hope you are feeling something… rippling over you skin, tumbling unexpectedly into your lungs, wrapping it’s silky arms around you. Whispering in your ear… “Yes.” Yes… be inspired. Yes…fall in love with yourself all over again. Yes…to joy, happiness, and laughter. Yes to beauty. Yes to quirky. Yes to puns and silly humor. I’m not going to give y’all a history lesson here…but that’s where burlesque started. Turning ideas on their ear. Making fun. It wasn’t always sex and glamour, silk and rhinestones. Now neo-burlesque has made room for it all.
In my book…what ever “it” is… it better be an event…and it better make us feel. Something. Turned on, inspired, ready to go forth and do whatever it is you do, only better.
Inspiration. …I have NO desire to break dance…and I find the LXD incredibly inspiring. I have very little mechanical knowledge, and still I love hearing my honey talk about how to fix an engine or his latest idea for a D & D campaign. Why?
They make me want to be better at what I do because they do what they do so well.
Cyd Charisse, Gene Kelly, Peg Leg Bates, Lucile Ball, Savion Glover, Dirty Martini, Alan Cumming, Donald O’Connor, just a handful of folks that inspire me. Then there are the moms and dads I know who give it their all, and those three friends working on their Ph.D.’s… What inspires me? People doing what they do and being awesome about doing it. Superheros. Real live superheros.
What’s that all about? Passion – skill – sharing with others.
And that’s what I intend this blog to be about: I am passionate about burlesque. And besides teaching classes and performing I wanted another way to not keep all this joy to myself.
What makes you feel? What gets you excited? What inspires you? Share the joy.
I’ll start.
Here’s that Ted Talk I told you about. Soak in this little nugget of joy.
Oh… and I brought a wind machine and erupting fire hydrant . Just in case you were in the mood.
Sweet Louise 