Variety Entertainment and the Avant-Garde - New Burlesque

bur·lesque

1.an artistic composition, esp. literary or dramatic, that, for the sake of laughter, vulgarizes lofty material or treats ordinary material with mock dignity.

3.

Also, bur·lesk. a humorous and provocative stage show featuring slapstick humor, comic skits, bawdy songs, striptease acts, and a scantily clad female chorus.

–adjective

4.

involving ludicrous or mocking treatment of a solemn subject.

What comes to mind when one is thinking of burlesque other than exotic woman dancing on stage? The history of burlesque is a lot more than just legs. Some could say America dirtied the idea of burlesque with horny blue-collar workers who drank heavily. But if you look more closely, you'll find that the father of burlesque was really a playwright of 5th century BC Athens, who had his head in the proverbial gutter long before there was anything in America. Aristophanes was the playwright, poet and reformer who penned Lysistrata, the sexy masterpiece in which the wives of the Athenian soldiers hole up in the Acropolis, depriving their husbands of sex until the termination of the Peloponnesian War. The play set the stage for centuries of ribald drama - and the way I read it, these women are teasing their husbands, guiding their minds towards sex, then locking it away. Burlesque started the way we know it around the 1840's and was very popular till the 1960's when the genre began its more modern evolution. It was popular in the lower and middle classes of the U.S. and Great Britain because it did what most people enjoy; make fun of (burlesquing) the lifesty les of the upper class. It also pushed the boundaries for what women could get away with. Some areas of the U.S. it was illegal for a woman to show more than 2 inches of neck or have a skirt more than 3 inches above your ankles. The tease of a burlesque show gave women confidence and reminded what great power the female form has.

Starting around the 20th century, American's used the word ‘Burlesque’ to describe their variety shows and introduced the striptease. It’s only in America that the term Burlesque is regarded closely with the term striptease. For the reason in the 1920's and 30's the word burlesque was banned from advertising and Striptease took it's place. The shows went more towards nudity and got rid of most of the comedy and performance pieces, this is now termed the bum and grind era. Then in the 1960's hard core porn became easily available and men no longer looked to the striptease shows for entertainment. A great revival did take place for Burlesque with the 1979 show "Sugar Babies." This show contained all the great comic spirit of burlesque along with the raunchy skits and lovely chorus girls with their periodical songs.

Modern Burlesque has a wide variety, from SNL, to movies like Spaceballs, and even shows like Jerry Springer, they all fall under this new burlesque term. There are still many cases of classy-comedy filled strip shows that are becoming increasingly popular in Vegas. Cirque de Soleil has even come up with it's own show for Vegas called Zumanity which is a very artistic burlesque that includes comedy, song, physical feats, and more sultry acts. Another new show called "Bite" plays on the idea of vampires, but focus' a lot more on the striptease idea of burlesque. With the movement of avant-garde theatre burlesque has taken on many new meanings and different interpretations. A return to bawdy comedic entertainment poking fun at peoples lifestyles couldn't be any more complete without a little nudity, be cause really, what's funnier than the naked body?















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http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/a-brief-history-of-burlesque-471288.html

http://www.musicals101.com/burlesque.htm

http://quazen.com/arts/dance/the-beautiful-art-of-burlesque-
dancing/