The Academic Side of Burlesque
Before becoming a professional burlesque dancer, I trained as an art historian at the Courtauld Institute of Art.
Strangely, I was never interested in performance until I came across a dancer called Hélène Vanel, who worked with the Surrealists. She performed at the opening of their exhibitions, bringing concepts like 'hysteria' to light to comment on how the female body was treated in medicine.
While I was researching for my dissertation, I noticed that most academic works on burlesque fell into two categories:
• Written by burlesque dancers who had some academic training and were transposing their academic rigour onto their performance art
• Historians (mostly male) who looked at burlesque from a distance, tracing either famous performers, influential producers (like Minsky) or considering burlesque as a 'phenomenon' that came and passed in a wave
Both of these have merit, and even though male writers who have no lived experience of something, writing from a point of authority, is annoying and often criticised, their texts are still useful for helping us look at burlesque. After all, to look at something academically means examining it from as many perspectives as possible.
Here are some links and resources to peruse through on a rainy day. If I were to start an academic course on burlesque (a dream!), this would be the reading list.
Top of the list is actually an influencer, who is garnering a lot of attention in the professional burlesque sphere for their analysis.
Erokfor is a breath of fresh air in the industry - the creator of 'showgirl theory'. This overviews how burlesque went from an established branch of the performing arts industry, with burlesque-specific theatres, to something incredibly difficult to sustain as a performer.
Deep-diving into history, she also looks at the irony that burlesque originated as a parody of high art (such as operas) but is now being considered high art itself.
Bringing an academic take on burlesque to Instagram content is so difficult, but Erokfor has explained complex concepts and gained a lot of traction.
If you want to go old school and read some papers:
Pin-up Grrls: feminism, sexuality, pop culture, Maria Elena Buszek, 2006.
Neo-Burlesque is not just Booty Shaking, Simi Horwitz, 2011 in Backstage National Edition 52:19.
Horrible Prettiness, Robert C Allan, 1991.
Victorian burlesque and its legacy, Barbara Pitak-Piaskowska, 2013.
The Untitled Black Burlesque History Project, Sekiya Dorsett, 2017
The Happy Stripper, Jacki Wilson, 2008.
Backwoods Burlesque: Off-the-Grid Tsk Tsk, Bronwyn Preece, 2014.
It is the ugly that is so beautiful: Performing the Monster/Beauty Continuum in American Neo-Burlesque, Sally Lynn, 2009 in Journal of American Drama and Theatre 21. No.3.
Fishnets & Desire: Performing the Neoburlesque, Jessica Thorp, Ryerson University, 2009.
'Strippers and Coochers - the Quintessence of American Burlesque', William Green, in Western Popular Theatre, ed. David Mayer and Kenneth Richards, 1977.
Rachel Shteir, Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show, 2004.
Burlesque, John D Jump (ed), 1972.
Female Sexual Empowerment Through Humour and Burlesque, Pia Savoie, 2013.
Strip-tease Burlesque is Not Dead, Pierre Philippe-Meden, 2016.
Revealing Citations: Citational Praxis in Neo-Burlesque Striptease, Julia Matias, 2023.
Do you have any additions? Use the contact form on my website to share your book recommendations. It's my love language ♥️
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