June 19, 2003-

Now, burlesque has reappeared, and the dancers bump and grind to an audience that includes a lot of women, all enjoying the clean retro fun of it all.

And their names are Catherine D'Lish, Kitty Crimson and Vivienne VaVoom.

It's not parody, exactly, but it's called neo-burlesque and it's having a boom, with troupes opening across America. There's the Gun Street Girls in Seattle, the Devel-Ettes in San Francisco, Empire Burlesque Follies in New York, the Shim-Shamettes in New Orleans and Burlesque as It Was in Denver.

One of the hottest tickets in Los Angeles has been the Pussycat Dolls, where such mainstream performers as Christina Applegate, Charlize Theron and Christina Aguilera have performed the traditional striptease for audiences of other celebrities.

And a touring show, Burlesquefest, comes to Tempe on Monday during a monthlong, 18-city sweep across the nation.

In neo-burlesque, the emphasis is on the female. For Burlesquefest, comedy is provided by Kitten on the Keys, the stripper/emcee. Nationally, there is at least one show, BaggyPants Burlesque, that features only comedians.

"Burlesque is really an art form," says Heather Bruck, 26, who performs as Kitty Crimson, one of the stars of Burlesquefest. She is billed as a "Mae West for a new generation."

"It is sexy without being lurid, racy but not X-rated. Striptease is one thing, but burlesque is much more about the tease than the strip," she says.

Michelle Baldwin, creator of Denver's Burlesque as It Was, says, "Neo-burlesque is rooted in the old burlesque, but modern times and changing issues have updated the form. There are often feminist issues in neo. Or performers doing their dance to a punk-rock soundtrack. Or reviving the original idea of satire in burlesque."

The main difference between then and now is the layer of irony and self-awareness.

"Any kind of revival will always be ironic," says Baldwin, 29, who performs as Vivienne VaVoom and is writing a book on the history of the art form and its revival. "Retro movements all have that irony. It's what happens when kids start doing what their grandparents did."

Burlesque began in the 19th century as lowbrow entertainment with lots of bad jokes and sexy showgirls. It was a rung underneath vaudeville, and was filled with Saturday Night Live-style parodies and pasquinade. Songs were the Weird Al of their time, picking on popular culture and ringing funny changes.

It was "a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer in the pants."

In the 20th century, though, the thespian element dwindled and the tassels took over, with strippers doing their ecdysiastical thing in between appearances of baggy-pants comics. Bert Lahr, Jackie Gleason, Phil Silvers and W.C. Fields all began as burlesque comics.

Typical joke:

Minister: Do you believe in the hereafter?

Beautiful woman: Certainly I do.

Minister (leering): Then you know what I'm here after.

By the 1950s, the era of pasties and G-strings was upon us, with rhinestones and feathers. Lenny Bruce was a burlesque comic and married one of the strippers.

The more open era of the 1960s, when nudity became possible in mainstream movies, sank the burlesque circuit, ending more than a century of bump-and-grind tradition.

"Now it's all fantasy. It's playing and pretending," Bruck says. "It's all a camp trash kind of thing."

Gone is the nicotine haze, gone is the subculture of drugs, gone is the seediness.

"I haven't seen any of the seedy side," says Suzanne Ramsey, 39, who performs as Kitten on the Keys and will emcee Burlesquefest.

"I do this because I love it," she says. "If I played in a club run by a sleazy guy, I'd leave and go elsewhere. But this is just a joyous sexual expression."

Ramsey plays keyboard, tells jokes and sings bawdy songs with titles such as My Grandma Sells My Panties on eBay.

Believe it or not, the new burlesque is more about feminist performance art than it is about prurience, they say.

"It's empowering to me as a woman," Ramsey says. "Women are in control here. I'm in control of my act. I decide when I take my bra off; I decide when I shake my tooshy."

Neo-burlesque also makes a point of including a wide variety of body types.

"Women come to neo-burlesque shows and identify with the dancers," Baldwin says. "And the men. Well, men are attracted to women of all shapes and sizes, not just Barbie dolls."

Burlesquefest headliner Catherine D'Lish was born in San Diego and remembers when she was a girl passing a burlesque house in the neighborhood.

"It was a bright, pink building. And as an adult, I know it was not very nice inside, but as a child, I imagined big MGM production numbers. I imagined the strip show full of beautiful costumes."

D'Lish brings that vision of burlesque to her show, which ends with her naked in a bubble bath inside a giant champagne glass.

"It's real campy," she says. "Naughty but fun."

D'Lish, who won't give her age and swears she carries her real name - "My parents were Dr. and Mrs. D'Lish" - has been doing retro shows for about 10 years, she says.

"I'm not a feminist," she says. "I'm an 'equalist.' I'm not trying to control anybody. I'm trying to have a good time. It's a blast."

Yet, for all their insistence that neo-burlesque is just fun and games, there are a few clues that it isn't as Disneyfied as they make it sound.

After all, Bruck began her career in fetish clubs in Southern California.

"That was the most radical type of performance," she says. "Fetish - the fetish stud culture. I'm a bit of an exhibitionist."

And D'Lish made her name on the topless circuit before getting into burlesque. She has been Miss Nude USA, Miss Exotic America and Miss Nude International.

But the women say they gravitated to neo-burlesque because of its less sleazy aura.

"It's not the modern strip club," Baldwin says. "Women come and enjoy themselves. They see the women onstage and say, 'I could be that woman, and she's sexy.' They leave with a new sense of themselves and what counts as sexy."

Burlesquefest also features the Empire Burlesque Follies and Oracle Dance, which Ramsey calls "the Cirque de Soleil of burlesque."

"It's the spirit of fun and sexiness but not embarrassing," D'Lish says.

"Everyone wants an alter ego," says Ramsey, "a chance to be a superhero. I'm quiet during the day - meek and mild and wear tennis shoes." But in performance, as Kitten on the Keys, she creates an entirely different persona.

"Then, I tickle your funny bone and stir your nethers," she says.



http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/
articles/0619burlesque19.html

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