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[light music]

[light music continues]

[lively music]

Burlesque is a piece of theater, done late at night

that usually ends in nudity or starts in nudity,

is no more than five minutes,

and is in a place that serves alcohol.

[Martini chuckles]

[Martini] I think that's it.

[Bonnie] Neo-Burlesque is burlesque

that's influenced by the history of burlesque,

but it's done by performers of this generation.

So it's seen through the perspective

of this generation.

[lively music]

[announcer] How's everybody doing tonight?

[crowd cheers]

[announcer] That sounds great.

Keep the energy going for your hostess for the evening,

quite literally, with the mostest,

World Famous BOB!

[lively music]

[crowd cheers]

Thank you so much.

Got really excited there.

Hi, my name is World Famous BOB.

And I'm your hostess this evening.

Thank you so much for coming.

We have some of the top-shelf stars

of burlesque internationally

right here, live on stage for you tonight.

New York city's finest.

[crowd cheers]

And if you're new to the world of burlesque,

and you maybe haven't had an opportunity

to soak in their amazingness,

this is an awesome opportunity for you.

Or if you're back

in the East Village 16 years ago,

watching me direct traffic topless...

[crowd cheers]

on the corner of A and 12,

maybe we can be friends again.

People have always done burlesque.

It became very popular during the 19th century,

as people started to encounter other cultures around the world.

When Lydia Thompson and the British Blondes

came to New York City um, in 1868,

they combined that literary trope

with what was called a leg show.

[Dr. Lucky] And a leg show were things like ballets,

feminized spectacles,

that put women's bodies on display.

And in the 1870s,

burlesque and minstrels shows combined,

so that burlesque shows

started to carry the tri-part type structure

of a minstrel show,

with a beginning, opening, a variety of acts,

and then an end piece.

That continued up until the 20th century.

In about the '10s and '20s is when we got striptease.

Which with the two things put together,

it was stripping or disrobing which had occurred before

in the late 19th century.

But it was also the tease element,

where you're sort of like, making fun.

Those things came together in the 1910s, 1920s,

and they gained great popularity.

And that's when the golden age of burlesque is known to be,

the time period from the 1940s to the 1960s.

[lively music]

I believe that there is this common misconception

that burlesque disappeared

in the '70s, and '80s, and early '90s.

And I don't think that's necessarily true.

I think that there's actually continuum

with performers such as,

someone like Catherine D'lish.

[Dita] I can't really think of anybody who has done more

for the Neo-burlesque community,

really, than her.

And done more, for me, as a performer than her.

She's really an incredible performer

that's been putting her heart and soul

into burlesque and striptease

for longer than anyone, that I, that I know.

And at a level that is beyond most.

[Dr. Lucky] Extravagant costumes,

elegant sets,

she very much continued that tradition of burlesque

that was happening in the '50s and '60s.

And there are a lot of strippers

who did that sort of, like, throwback to an earlier era.

Kitten Natividad was a, the Russ Meyer girl

from, um, many, many of his movies.

[Martini] She was touring burlesque

when we had all forgotten about it.

And, if it weren't for people like John Sex,

International Crisis,

who was a fabulous transsexual,

I'm sure that I would not be doing what I'm doing today.

You talk to a lot of the old legends

like Dixie Evans and Tempest Storm,

and they'll tell you that when burlesque died in the '60s,

it's because the dancers tried to become more radical

to keep their audiences.

Because television, everybody had a television.

[Angie] You know, people were staying at home.

So you know, the dancers were like,

"Well, I can't just walk around in my pasties and my G-string,

I better, you know, shoot a ping-pong ball

out of my hooter."

And so, people started getting more raunchy

and the girls started getting, you know, more sexual.

That kind of lost the satirical, ironic edge,

and became something more serious.

And more seriously sexual.

I don't think it disappeared.

I think it was circulating in a different economy.

Um, and I think that it started to emerge in the 1990s

for a bunch of reasons that were actually related

to specific things happening in different geographic areas.

[Doc] Burlesque didn't go away, it just lost its art.

And then all these wonderful art people showed up.

And didn't even know they were doing burlesque.

They were like, "We're just doing performance art.

And it's sexy performance art.

"And then we take our clothes off."

And they came back around

to discovering what it was all along.

[lively music]

[BOB] We're gonna start off the evening with a huge bang.

I'm so excited that she is opening the show

because she brings burlesque to the level that I expect

when I hear the word burlesque.

The level of authenticity, and glamor,

and trickster appeal, right?

She is the head curator and the headmistress

of The New York School of Burlesque.

She also wrote The Burlesque Handbook.

In case you're thinking,

maybe I wanna enjoy this in the privacy of my own home.

There's pictures of her in the book that you can also enjoy

in the privacy of your own home.

She is fag-nomenal. I love her so much.

When I asked her backstage,

after knowing this young lady for 17 years,

"Is there anything special

you'd like me to say about you to the kids tonight?"

She's like, "Yeah.

Could you just tell them that I'm the shit."

[crowd cheers]

So ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together

and make a huge, huge amount of noise

for literally the shit herself,

Jo "Boobs" Weldon.

[crowd cheers]

[lively music]

[Martini] Neo-burlesque is funny

because I think really a newspaper coined that term.

It wasn't us.

We were really just doing performance art.

Personally, I knew I was doing burlesque.

A lot of people didn't.

I did a lot of research.

I wanted to bring burlesque back.

That was my main thing.

People should know what classic burlesque was.

And beyond that, they should be familiar with more names

than just Tipsy Rose Lee and Sally Rand.

[Bambi] At the time, when I started doing

what we are now calling burlesque or Neo-burlesque,

there wasn't any burlesque.

No one was using the word.

And in the early '90s,

that's what any kind of, like, strange performance,

or um, nude performance or anything kind of outrageous

that you would just perform

was called performance art.

I worked in regular old strip clubs

that I always just sort of use them as a stage,

to, you know, act out crazy things.

[lively music]

[crowd cheers]

[Jo] I've always known about burlesque.

And when I was a little kid,

I was really drawn to these images of these wild women

that I would see, that were burlesque performers.

But I didn't see the New York style of burlesque,

the Neo-burlesque style,

until about 1998, when I was hanging out

with my friend Bambi the Mermaid.

And she said, "You should come to this show we're doing."

I go, "What kind of show?"

She said, "A burlesque show."

I was like, "Oh, I doubt it."

Because there's so many people that I knew

that did a burlesque number.

But an entire burlesque show

just didn't seem that likely to me.

And then I went to the Va Va Voom Room,

and I saw a full burlesque show. That blew my mind.

[Trixie] In the beginning of the whole Neo-Burlesque revival,

- it was... - It was much more artistic.

It was really, definitively, like, Neo-burlesque.

It was a lot of narrative, story-telling.

It was a little bit political. It's very in-your-face.

- [Trixie] Messy and vulgar. - [Monkey] Messy.

[Monkey] It wasn't about the level of costuming

and how many rhinestones you have.

[Trixie] Or having a beautiful body or being perfect.

Or any of that.

And you know, that's why we got into it.

All the crazy stuff.

[Dr. Lucky] New York Burlesque, in particular,

in relation to the Neo movement

was a very unique bubbling up

of a melding of a couple of worlds.

And those worlds are night-life entertainment, drag,

and performance art.

All of these things came together in New York City

in a very, very unique way in the '90s.

[lively music]

[crowd cheers]

[James] It's fascinating when I think about

like how many people all at once

seem to have the same idea, you know, it,

it came together so perfectly in the mid-'90s.

[Dita] When I first started performing my shows

around 1991, actually before I really even knew

what the word burlesque was,

I was dressing in retro style

and performing, dancing in a strip club,

and performing in the underground club scene.

I didn't really think about taking the strip

out of the strip club and onto a normal stage

until a few years later.

When we started burlesque, you didn't need a résumé,

or you know, we were really on the fringes

of the strip clubs and of, of the art world.

[Bonnie] We were even on the fringes of show business

because there were dancers that had a different body type,

they couldn't get in a dance company.

Or, you are not as bubbly enough for Broadway.

And you enjoyed expressing your sexuality,

but you didn't wanna be in the strip club environment

which can be very emotionally depleting.

I started stripping when I moved here

with my fiancé who ended up being terribly abusive

and I needed to get away from him.

[Velocity] And it was really hard.

I hated the whole experience.

'Cause I wasn't expressing my own sexuality,

I was just basically telling somebody

what they wanted to hear,

I wasn't expressing my own heart.

Someone directed me towards the Blue Angel Cabaret

and it opened up a whole new world for me.

We were sort of the strip club rejects

when we started at the Blue Angel.

[Bonnie] It didn't fit in with the performance world.

It didn't fit in, really, with the strip club

because you had all this avant-garde stuff going on.

It was almost like Fellini meets,

you know, Times Square sets.

Now see, this is one of the differences between you and me.

- I, I've been here since 1980. - Uh-huh.

And if you put a gun to my head,

I wouldn't be able to tell you

where to go for a nude performance night club.

- I know. - Yeah, I know you know.

It's called the Blue Angel.

It's really, really cool, yeah.

[crowd laughs]

[Martini] I remember very clearly

my first burlesque experience.

And I thought to myself,

"Well, this is such an incredible thing."

And I had started to notice the rumblings of burlesque

around me.

And then, sure enough,

I was looking through the classified ads

in Time Out New York,

and I saw a little blurb that said

"Red Vixen burlesque, your den of iniquity

for classic striptease meets new pole dancing."

And I thought, well this is something really special.

[Julie] My first experience in burlesque

was actually while I was doing burlesque at the same time.

Around the milieu of the theater

that we were working with, Chashama,

there was this woman named Catherine Hourihan

aka Selina Vixen.

And she asked me, she's Australian

so I'll try and do an Australian accent.

She asked me like,

[in Australian accent] Julie, would you like to come

and do a burlesque show?

And I said, "What's burlesque?" And she said,

[Julie in Australian accent] It's a short dance

either beginning or ending naked and it's fun.

And I was like, "Yeah,

that sounds really right up my alley."

So, the first time I saw burlesque really was

from backstage.

Meeting all these wonderful new people,

and sort of figuring it out.

I was always experimenting with, with new acts.

Being surrounded by other performers,

that, that were so inventive

was very inspiring and challenging

and I think we all encouraged each other

to keep pushing the boundaries,

to create dynamic, interesting performances,

as well as sexy performances.

We had a common agenda,

a common goal

in the sense that we wanted to see America

become more liberated in terms of sexual expression,

accepting the body.

My road into this world

is sort of convoluted.

There was no scene.

[Tigger] So I was continuing theater

but I was also go-go dancing.

I was doing live sex shows.

And then friends who were doing circus performances

in the back of a bar,

they wanted me to jump in and do a show.

They were doing, you know, great gorilla performance art.

Like, no one knew what was gonna happen.

It was in a set little venue.

So, I pretty much thought,

"Well, I get naked a lot. I can do that.

I could make little, mini-theater gorilla art

freaked-out performance pieces...

to a rock and roll song, go."

And that was pretty much what I was thinking.

So obviously, it was creating burlesque

but I wasn't thinking about the glamor or the history

or any of that.

I started doing burlesque on accident in the East Village

during topless performance art in gay bars.

And then when I was told that I was doing burlesque,

I was blessed enough to seek out Tigger,

and Kate Valentine, and Julie Atlas Muz,

and Dirty Martini, and Matt Moore,

and Scotty the Blue Bunny, and Bambi the Mermaid.

So I really just walked into this beautiful hive

of decadence and pageantry, and self-acceptance and love,

and honoring who you are in the world, and support.

[BOB] It felt like home.

[lively music]

Our next performer is known exclusively

as the girl with the 44

double D...

brain.

Yeah, 44 double-D brain.

I hope you guys can handle it.

Strap yourselves in, enjoy the ride.

And please give it up for Nasty Canasta!

[crowd cheers]

[Bambi] Originally, there was only burlesque

in New York and LA.

Then slowly, every year, more and more is added.

Now, pretty much any small town across the whole United States

has a burlesque scene.

But, the thing about New York is it's cutting-edge,

and it's the leader,

and pushing every boundary constantly.

New York has always been the place of invention

and the place of art.

And this whole burlesque renaissance,

I'm sure it started simultaneously in various places

but a lot of that comes out of New York.

[Maine Attraction] It's the heart of the reemergence,

and the reason why I think it was so important

for burlesque to come back

is because everyone needed a little nostalgia

in their life.

Giuliani, not to get all political,

he took the sex out of New York City.

He turned Times Square into Disneyland.

So these smart entertainers and performance artists

took what they already knew and brought it back.

In 2001, when a group of us went to Teaserama in New Orleans,

and we were like, "Oh, my god."

[Tigger] We saw each city as it created itself.

And it was starkly different.

Los Angeles was so glamorous.

They had these beautiful gowns and everything.

And a lot of times the girls would pose

in these amazing costumes.

And we're like...

'Cause all our costumes were from the thrift shop.

[Bonnie] We felt so raggedy.

[Tigger] We're performing on, you know,

a cum-stained hot box in a gay bar.

But we had fucking chops.

It was punk rock, in-your-face,

much cheaper, more tattered,

much more rough and tumble,

but we did our shit.

Night after night, after night.

And we knew exactly who we were.

In particular, for New York,

it's not a revival,

it is a renaissance.

We are not propping up old acts.

We are recreating it for this rebirth that is happening now.

Responding to our world, our life.

With some old-time burlesque tools,

and some new, crazy, freaky shit that we brought along.

[crowd cheers]

[Nasty Canasta] Burlesque here in New York

was very rooted in drag and performance art.

A lot of it came out of drag clubs.

And a lot of it came out of clubs

and real downtown club scene.

And it evolved into a more self-contained

stage performance.

But it's always been very edgy.

[lively music]

[crowd cheers]

[Maine Attraction] I didn't start out doing burlesque.

I started out as a drag queen.

And so...

I was active in the world of performance

when burlesque came back.

[crowd cheers]

Drag and burlesque are inextricably intertwined.

[Tigger] A favorite quote, RuPaul,

"We were born naked. After that, everything is drag."

It's all around us every day.

It's just usually people wear some really boring drag.

But there are, "I'm-a-serious professional-drag."

"I'm-just-a-dude-hanging out-drag"

Whatever.

Everyone has some measure of drag going on.

We choose to celebrate it.

[crowd cheers]

[lively music]

As far as drag queens and their influence,

for god's sake Mae West,

godmother to all of us,

learned her shit from drag queens.

She was picking up stuff,

she was running with drag queens.

And then the drag queens would imitate her.

[Tigger] And it's been that dialogue between strong women

and strong faggots.

That, I think has been the bedrock

of much of what is enjoyable in life today.

Certainly, burlesque.

[lively music]

You guys have been such an amazing crowd tonight.

And I just wanna say

that your rounds of applause are the best tips you could give us.

Truly.

Sometimes people ask me what is the difference

between a burlesque dancer and a stripper,

and I'll tell you the honest-to-god truth.

Strippers make money.

- [crowd laughs] - [BOB] Yeah.

They sure do.

Outside of the burlesque community,

other people interpret what I do.

Um...

Upon first meeting people,

They're like... You say, "Oh, I'm a burlesque performer."

"Oh, so you're a stripper?"

"Well, yes, kind of.

But a little bit different than that."

So I usually find myself having to explain the difference

between a strip club

and an actual burlesque performance

or performance art

or being up on stage and doing these things.

I've always wanted to be a strip club stripper.

Um, but I wanted to make sure that I could do it

and not need it.

Because I knew that, um,

there would be conflict

if it was my only thing.

[Peekaboo] I couldn't do it out of desperation.

My childhood was pretty good, pretty normal.

I grew up in the DC area.

My parents are still together.

I always wanted to be a dancer.

I realized when I was about 12 that I wanted to be a stripper,

but I was afraid to tell anyone.

The DARE program came into school,

and there was this girl who gave a talk

about the evils of drug use and where it will lead to.

And she ran away from home and she became a stripper.

And she used to be on the streets.

I was like, "Ah, she used to be a stripper. Whoa."

And I just, I latched on to that.

I was like, "I wanna be a stripper."

[crowd cheers]

So I started stripping actually when I was 30,

and was already a well-established

burlesque performer.

I kind of do this as a secret at first.

And it stretched for a few years,

like a couple of years secretly.

And I was afraid to tell the burlesque community

because I thought, maybe...

I wouldn't be as accepted as a burlesque performer.

Which it turns out is just not true.

We call it flipping and stripping.

That's what we do.

[Nasty Canasta] Burlesque is a performance.

You are there to present something to an audience.

And it's your creation.

[Trixie] It's selling a story.

It's not about being naked.

It's about actually seducing an audience

and getting naked.

It's about how you do it rather than just doing it.

[crowd cheers]

The entire socio-economic structure

is completely different.

The way money is dealt with is different.

The way that you make your art is different.

The way that you go to work is different.

The way that you feel after work is different.

The way the audience interacts with you is different.

So a striptease performer

is deliberately appealing to men who want to be sexually excited.

[Anita] Or women who want to be sexually excited.

And I think burlesque is in some way,

you assume that the audience

is someone who wants a performative experience.

They want to be entertained. They may be titillated,

but there's not that expectation from the audience

that it's gonna culminate in a sexual act.

[Dita] One of the most interesting aspects

of modern burlesque

is that the audience is different than it was

back in the 1930s and '40s.

You know, it was, without a doubt

because of the striptease element

predominantly a male audience.

And it's very important

that there has been this dramatic shift,

you know, that the audience is predominantly female.

[crowd laughs]

[Nasty Canasta] It's kind of always fabulous

when like, you know,

guys that you look at them, they're like,

"Dude... That, that guy,

What's that guy's name? Mr. Gorgeous?

He was fantastic. I mean, I don't usually like that stuff,

but he was great."

And I love that.

[Mr. Gorgeous] If someone asks what I do,

I wouldn't say I'm a stripper,

I'm a burlesque performer.

If they said, "Do you take your clothes off?"

Well, hell yeah.

Mr. Gorgeous character...

It's funny, actually I went to school

for art and also for education.

And I was teaching a pre-K class.

Um, my last name is Gorsuch

and one child in the class actually called me Mr. Gorgeous.

And it kind of just stuck.

It's hard sometimes when you go to a show and the poster,

and the print, and all the advertisement is girls,

and then you go and you're the guy.

[Mr. Gorgeous] There have been some scenarios

where people aren't sure what they're going to see.

And to see a guy come out

or be announced as, you know, the next performer,

it's hard I think sometimes for some people

to cheer for that.

You know, if they're there with their buddies.

So for me, whenever I go into a scenario

where I'm a little bit nervous,

as far as the audience,

specifically like a room, where, like, guys,

you know, that are here to see the girls.

I tend to go more towards the comedy aspect.

So, um, my best experiences have actually been in scenarios

where it's like a very macho-heavy audience,

and I can make them laugh.

You know, and by the end of the act,

they're like screaming and hollering

just as much as, you know, anybody else in the audience.

[crowd cheers]

Boylesque is getting so big right now.

And, and I love it.

I love that men are comfortable enough with themselves

to not mock us and just, and just get out there

and be just as confident, and funny, and sexy too.

Some people win titles. And other people create titles.

Our next performer is a perfect example of this.

He was reigned the very first

King of Boylesque in the Las Vegas pageant in 2006.

Please welcome to the stage,

the trailblazing,

mind-blowing, and he doesn't stop up there,

he's often found on his knees blowing something else...

Tigger!

[screams]

The one faggot in the crowd says his name.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen.

He's got a reputation.

And he's here to make sure that you know

he's still good for it.

Please welcome to the stage, the original King of Boylesque,

Tigger!

[crowd cheers]

[Stormy] Boylesque is the branch of burlesque

that is boys doing burlesque

rather than it being women.

Tigger was one of the first Boylesquers.

He was actually the first to be crowned Mr. Exotic World.

[Stormy] In the recent years,

more and more boys, I should say men,

although I still think they're boys,

have been getting involved in burlesque,

and they're just as strong

and doing just as much as the women are now.

I moved to New York in the '80s,

desperate to become myself,

to discover what I could be,

to do theater always, always, all my life.

[Tigger] And I was always drawn to really sexual,

political theater.

And for my life as a faggot in New York in the '80s,

sex was politics.

In 2001 was the first burlesque,

big burlesque festival, Teaserama in New Orleans.

And we got in the van and drove non-stop,

New York to New Orleans.

And it was Miss Astrid, and Julie,

and Dirty Martini, and World Famous BOB, and me

all going.

And we're all talking about "Ooh, what to expect there."

And BOB was saying, "Ooh, Tigger, isn't it exciting?

You're gonna be the only boy."

And I was like "Oh, please. Every troupe must have a boy.

If not, you know, every city at least."

But, I looked all around,

all of us looked around.

And there were definitely men doing crazy things,

but actually stripping

in a burlesque context and making themselves

the object of sex, humor, derision,

joy, whatever, wasn't happening.

That was my personal feminist activism.

And I felt very strongly that

the mission is not complete.

Yes, women are doing great things for other women.

To see women celebrating themselves and their sexuality,

that's wonderful.

What about the men sitting down?

Yes, they're seeing more personality

than they do in their titty bar.

But they're still getting off a little too easy.

They need to deal with their gender

up on that stage.

Them being focused on,

which they breezed through their life avoiding.

So I felt adamant

that I had to get every bit as naked as my sisters,

to work every bit as hard, to craft every bit as carefully.

My feeling is we live in such a puritanical society.

The very act of getting on stage

live in public and getting naked,

showing your sexuality,

bearing a measure of your vulnerability,

your humanity to strangers

is political.

For a woman to do that,

to own her sexuality is political.

For a man, to expose himself

to objectification and possible ridicule

is incredibly political.

And for us to all share that stage

and open it up for a live moment

is a political act.

Everything about burlesque is political.

Whether people admit it or not.

It was as men started coming into it

that I started looking very seriously

at it as a genre.

And I started to feel really paternal about it.

And it was really important to me that they do it right,

that they keep that spirit,

and that they never let go of that sense of shared struggle.

[lively music]

I find that burlesque delivers a certain message

in feminism where you can be sexy.

You can be sexy and you can be smart.

And if you think that you can't be those two things,

then that's a horrible way to think.

That's a horrible view of women.

Like you don't think that you can wear red lipstick

and have big hair, and wear stilettos

and have a brain?

Then you're the one who needs to rethink your life.

Not me.

She is the mermaid of Coney Island.

She's been bringing strippers back to the people's playground

for 16 years.

And she's here tonight to show you how to spell class

with a C instead of a K.

Please welcome to the stage

Bambi the Mermaid!

[Anita] There's a perception that femininity

is going to be displayed in a certain way onstage.

But I think what's really interesting

about the New Burlesque movement

is that people are exploding that.

They can be masculine, feminine.

There can be experiments with gender on the stage.

People can take a masculine body and feminize it.

Or take a very feminine body

and do, um, very aggressive, masculine spatial acts

that are unique.

I think that that's the place where the New burlesque movement

is making a difference or changing the parameters

of what was once a feminine display of the human body.

The power that burlesque gives most women

is that if they feel like it's inappropriate

for them to do something

because of the way they look or the way they act,

or what they like,

burlesque gives them a venue to say,

"I choose to be inappropriate and be applauded for it."

I really think it's just another revolutionary time

for women empowerment.

[Marla] And instead of what women did in the '60s,

where they kind of took on these masculine roles

in order to get what they wanted as women,

it's reverse,

where we're empowered by our femininity.

And that's what makes us powerful.

And I mean, being on stage,

and being feminine,

and owning your body and owning your sexuality

in front of an audience is...

one of the most intense, empowering things you could do.

♪ Camel Toe ♪

It's very exciting

to see women express their feminism

as well as their femininity.

[Velocity] And combine the two.

There's so much more of that now.

♪ Camel Toe ♪

♪ Camel Toe ♪

I think burlesque offers being very sex positive

and comfortable with your sexuality

to women these days.

Especially in America,

because of our TV shows, and all these violence and sex

that is thrown on our faces.

[Marla] We're actually not that comfortable with sexuality.

It's still taboo.

[Dr. Lucky] There's a new feminist movement emerging.

And a lot of it is very pro-sex.

A lot of it is able to find pleasure

in the pin-up, for instance.

You know, so it's not trying to

argue that all images of women

that are based in a patriarchal society

are oppressing you.

But instead, it's offering the possibility

that you can be empowered in a Playboy bunny outfit.

[Maine Attraction] I think that burlesque

totally objectifies women,

and I think that women are embracing the idea

of being objects of voyeuristic gaze.

And seeing what they can do with that experience

in order to be able to empower themselves.

They can now make political statements

through the work that they're doing on stage.

As they say to the world,

"Hey, this is my body. You wanna look, look.

And see what I can do.

How I can manipulate your gaze to make me feel better.

[crowd cheers]

[Matt] People pay money to watch someone believe in themselves.

We're all uncertain.

Everyone is neurotic.

Everyone is worried about every little step they make,

and every word they've said.

To have the illusion,

even though the most neurotic person,

the most fragile person,

the most vulnerable person in the room is the performer.

But they give this illusion of complete and utter control.

And it feels good to watch someone believe in themselves.

[Rachel] A lot of what I see coming out of burlesque

is this, this willingness to go there.

And I think people break through a lot of barriers

of fear in their personal life to do it.

And a lot of people have told me

that burlesque definitely changed their life,

even if they didn't perform or stay in burlesque.

They've told me that using burlesque to get over that fear,

gave them a willingness

to be more courageous in other parts of their life.

Doing this type of performance,

that they weren't physically considered appropriate to do

made them willing to try to do other things

that they thought they may have not been appropriate for.

[crowd applauds]

[sensual music]

[BOB] There are titles in the burlesque community.

There are pageants in the burlesque community.

The first pageant was known as "Miss Exotic World"

and it happened in the middle of the desert

in Helendale, California. Where is that exactly?

It's this tiny, little dusty farm called, Exotic World.

And once a year, strippers from all over the world...

Literally. Australia, Tokyo, Brooklyn.

Would go to this little dirt-patch

and they'd get up on a wooden, crickety stage.

And it really cut the grease, right?

Like, who is gonna pack their shiniest G-string

to go and get it crusted with sand

in the middle of a sandstorm

in the Mojave's desert sun at high-noon?

She did.

She travels all over the world.

She's internationally famous for burlesque.

She was one of the co-stars of Tournee,

She walked the red carpet in Cannes.

Please welcome to the stage, Miss Exotic World 2004,

- Dirty Martini! - [crowd applauds]

[Martini] It's given me, really, an outlet

that I don't think that I would have had,

had I not found it.

An outlet to be bigger than myself.

An outlet to just show everybody what a curvy woman is

and how beautiful all women are.

Not just somebody who's thinner, somebody who's big.

But all these women of different shapes and sizes.

I want the whole world to see that.

I don't want them to see the narrow view

of women's sexuality that we have

And so, I think it's really gone so much more

beyond the professional for me

and into a realm of spiritual and personal for my own life

and given me a sort of superhero persona

-to inspire the revolution -[crowd cheers]

[dance music playing]

The most important thing is the fact that we are women

getting on stage in front of audiences

that are 100 percent mixed of genders and experiences

and saying, "This is what we do."

I mean, there is a sexual component to it. There's a...

Obviously, there's titillation to it, but...

to bring that to the comfort level,

to the average person's experience,

I think, is really important.

[crowd cheering]

Because many of us, women particularly,

were brought up

to not necessarily feel terrific about our bodies.

Well, we weren't brought up that way

but we just weren't nurtured necessarily

to take pride in our bodies

and we're confronted all the time with physical issues

or judging ourselves.

[Rachel] And being in the audience,

and watching women of all shapes and sizes

dance and move and jiggle...

It's refreshing and it's reassuring that

sexiness comes in all shapes and sizes.

And seeing them be confident about it and own it,

and move it that way is...

is inspiring.

[dance music playing]

The very first time I saw it was

seeing a show out of Coney Island.

[Rosebud] I went to go see the gameshow, "This or That."

I had a really intense reaction to it because

the women who were performing were not a size zero.

And they had a lot of cellulite. And I had my mother's reaction

to their nudity, which was,

"They have absolutely no business being naked on stage.

That is offensive. They need to put their clothes back on.

And it... everybody else around me was having such a good time.

And I didn't understand why they were all okay

[chuckles] with what was going on.

And so, as I sat on the show

and everyone else continued to have a really good time,

I realized I was being a stuck-up bitch.

And so, I need to get over myself

or whatever it was that was inhibiting me

from being able to enjoy what they were doing,

'cause they were really good at what they were doing.

That was a breakthrough moment for me in terms of

my personal acceptance of living in a female body

And it made me wanna do it, of course.

[slow music playing]

[Rosebud] I knew from very early on

that I didn't identify as female.

And I really thought that I was gonna have to have a sex change.

And so, being able to see these

very glamorous, very beautiful women

for what they really were and not through the lens of what

I have been taught, was a really amazing moment.

I came out of the closet because of burlesque...

and it saved my life.

[crowd cheering]

I grew up in the '70s in California

and I didn't have a word to describe how I felt in my body.

[BOB] My gender fluidity as a young person.

I did realize and notice how the world reacted to me

because of the body I was in

and the limitations that were put on somebody

in a female body.

And also, in my household,

being a woman was the worst thing you could be.

So, my mom was on the bottom of the totem pole

and not treated well.

So, there was no real incentive to want to follow that path.

And the reactions from the world

outside my home didn't really fight against that.

So, I think, the interesting thing that burlesque did for me

was it provided me with examples of women

that I actually did wanna be like.

And it provided me with examples of men

that I did wanna be like.

And it was a huge opening for me.

It just provided a choice.

I didn't have to be anti-female anymore.

Meaning, for me, you know, not putting down other women.

But I didn't have to be resentful of the female body

that I was born into

and I could explore the power that it holds.

[sensual music]

[sensual music continues]

I think the burlesque movement is headed towards death.

It's died before. It's come back.

But, I think if people aren't careful,

if they codify it too much and make it be too perfect,

I think it's just gonna go towards a slow, mediocre,

mainstream death.

[sensual music playing]

[James] I think that over the years,

the scene has gone through many different changes, you know.

When I first started doing performance

that became known as burlesque,

it was mostly just done in the gay world.

But then, like the classic striptease thing

kind of came in...

You know, right around the turn of the century

that started to become the popular thing.

And for a little while there, in...

maybe the fourth or fifth year...

We were opening. I kinda looked around

and I felt like it was just this parade of striptease.

2008, 2009,

burlesque started to become more popular.

And, you know, venues started to, to grasp onto it.

[Darlinda] More like, "Oh, let's do something

comfortable and pretty and like, skinny women and rhinestones

and just music and dancing." And it was... just got boring.

There's definitely been...

more recently, a shift in...

like, emphasis on costumes.

You know, or...

It's definitely become a little bit more classic-oriented.

Whereas when I first started, It was definitely like

much more performance art

and pop-culture referenced and stuff like that.

It was the forming of the worldwide community.

It's been very homogenized.

Not in a bad way necessarily, but...

[Medianoche] There's definitely something about New York City

and the old Slipper Room

and how things were in the early 2000s maybe

that isn't necessarily there anymore.

Now, it's a lot more commercial.

I think rather than what's happened as

"people not going to the crazy places anymore",

is that there are less crazy places."

[Mat] And that the new taste of a new burlesque audience

is more mainstream.

And they're more influential on the booking policy.

Of some of the producers of the main houses of burlesque.

As things sort of evolved

and progressed and become more formal,

like, you have to buy your tickets in advance online

and all that kind of stuff,

[Julie] I think that things become a little bit more...

deliberate...

and less...

dangerous.

Whenever anything becomes too mainstream,

there is an appetite

of the mainstream that needs to be fed by it

and the mainstream...

culture cannot digest things that make them question.

[BOB] I do feel that producers cater to the mainstream

because it becomes economical.

Once there's a big enough audience, then it's about money.

And there are few producers that aren't that way.

And you're privileged if you get to go to one of their shows.

Well, The Slipper Room is still, like, what we would consider

the New York City clubhouse of burlesque.

It's really one of the only places that don't

ask you what act you're doing.

You... They don't censor you in any way.

You can literally do anything you wanna do.

[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,

welcome to The Slipper Room.

And now, please put your hands together

for our host this evening,

our very own aging, international man of mystery,

the one and only Mr. Mel Frye!

[crowd cheering]

Hey there. How are ya?

How you doing? You guys feeling good?

[crowd cheering]

The performers, when they come to perform at The Slipper Room,

are given free rein to do whatever they wanna do.

I'll get performers calling me up and saying,

"Oh, I'm booked in the show tonight.

Is there a specific act that you want me to bring?"

And I always say to them, you know,

"Bring whatever act that you feel like doing."

You know, "What is it that you wanna do?"

And then, you get the most out of them.

We have an amazing show for you tonight.

It's an incredible lineup that came down here just because

they, they love it and they wanna be a part of it.

The quality is very high.

I know I am.

[crowd laughs]

The idea of drawing a line and saying,

this act is too extreme for The Slipper Room stage...

I think there have been a few times along the way

where I've said that, and then I've always gone back on it.

I've finally been like, "No, let's do it. What the hell."

I hope you're drinking heavily

because it's just gonna get weirder and weirder

and it's best if you're deeply loaded. Right?

I'm still constantly blown away by what people do. I mean...

You know, last week, Mat and Julie

came back from London and did a new number together

that I thought was absolutely amazing.

-Hey there -[crowd] Whoo!

[crowd shouting]

You know, in England, where I'm from...

- Bruh. - [crowd laughing]

And in America...

there are people, men and women...

who go out there

and, on our behalf...

do the jobs that...

most of us are just not prepared to do...

out there in the field, in danger.

Making the world right for us.

I'm speaking, of course, of the drug dealers...

the strippers, and the prostitutes.

It's both fantastic and challenging

being married to your performing partner.

I mean, Julie has a plethora of very famous solo acts.

And I have a couple, not famous but, solo acts.

But we have duets as well that we do and we like doing those.

[crowd cheering]

I dedicate this to them.

["Confederate Song" playing]

♪ Oh, I wish I was ♪

♪ In a land of cotton ♪

Can I get reverb?

♪ Old times there Are not forgotten ♪

♪ Look away, look away ♪

♪ Look away Dixie land ♪

I once remarked to Dirty Martini,

about the quick level of success I've had

as a burlesque performer here in New York.

You know, it's amazing. My entry level was so high.

I...

I feel really blessed and she said,

"Well you married into royalty, didn't you?"

Ladies and gentlemen,

through the power of nude interpretative dance,

Julie Atlas Muz communicates with you.

[crowd cheering]

[Nasty Canasta] I mean, the first show I ever saw,

Julie Atlas Muz was in it.

And to this day I get...

I mean, I've worked with her for years now,

but I get tongue-tied on the phone with her.

[Nasty Canasta] There are some incredible performers and...

some really ballsy people

I mean, I think that's what I find the most inspiring.

The people who, who aren't afraid to put things out there,

and go, "Maybe you're not gonna like it...

but I don't care if you don't like it."

- ♪ Look away, look away ♪ - [crowd cheering]

♪ Look away ♪

♪ Zombie land ♪

♪ Glory, glory ♪

♪ Hallelujah ♪

♪ Glory, glory ♪

♪ Hallelujah ♪

♪ Glory, glory ♪

♪ Hallelujah ♪

♪ His truth is marching ♪

[Mat] I liked what was happening in Britain.

But there's a big thing of like pretending it was 1968 or 1948

and that everyone had to dress up

in a double-breasted suit and a cocktail dress

And I feel very uncomfortable like that.

Plus, I wasn't allowed in clubs in the late '60s.

My kind weren't allowed inside.

So, when I came... You know,

It didn't matter what you wore in the audience in New York.

It was very contemporary.

There was funny, political, savage, sexy work going on.

Blurring the boundary

between actual striptease, as we know it, and burlesque

and bringing performance art in and the fact that they felt

comfortable with the "sideshow" terminology

because a lot of it started at Burlesque at the Beach

in Coney Island.

Through Bambi the Mermaid.

I just felt that I'd landed in my home.

[crowd laughing]

For those that have never been to Burlesque at the Beach

in Coney Island,

then, basically, you have not seen New York City Burlesque.

[Bambi] We're the oldest, longest,

continuously-running, Burlesque show anywhere

in the world.

We celebrate a lack of taste and a lack of decorum

and anything lurid and vulgar.

So, that opens people's minds a lot

to what they can achieve in a performance

and what the audience wants to see

and people just go crazy and they bring their

very, very, very best, most innovative ideas to Coney Island

[crowd cheering]

So, I'm Jo Weldon and this is "Living Dolls"

at Burlesque at the Beach at Coney Island

-Hi -[crowd cheers]

Thank you for coming.

So, uh, sometimes, we were talking about the show

and people are talking about what they wanted to do.

Um, some of them will go, "Well, is this a doll?

Is it technically a doll?"

And I'm like,

"Who gives a shit?"

- [crowd laughs] - Right?

They're saying, like, "Well is this really feminism?

Is this really rock and roll?

Is this really burlesque?"

I don't care.

[crowd laughs]

Either it's fun or it's not.

And this woman is a great time, ladies and gentlemen.

- [crowd cheering] - I know.

[Jo] Yeah, okay.

[dramatic music playing]

[mouthing]

[dramatic music playing]

Coney Island is just like, yeah, wild, crazy good time.

I mean, it's just amazing.

[Trixie] It's really not a summer

unless you perform at Coney.

It's, it's, sweaty, it's messy, it's unpredictable...

If the weather turns to shit, no one's there.

[chuckles] It's like, there's just

all these variables,

but it's just a fun, crazy, rowdy time.

I mean, obviously, but, you know,

- those are our people. - Yeah.

[Monkey] I felt like Coney still has

that feeling of like, the Neo...

when we first started, that feeling that you would get.

- [Trixie] Mm-hm. - [Monkey] Yeah.

Where anything, anything was possible and...

-And it's designed for freaks - Crazy and, yeah.

[Jo] At Coney Island, you can really do whatever you want.

[crowd cheering]

[Julie] Oh, Coney Island is...

Coney Island is the American Freak Dream.

It's a place where outsiders are celebrated

and outsiders can find a home.

It's where summer begins...

in the United States of America.

Coney Island is...

is our heritage. So, so important.

From a Disability Arts perspective,

it's the most integrated, um, non-disabled

and disabled performer, performance collective ever.

And the oldest.

I mean, that's massive if you put it in those academic terms.

Like the fact that the disabled body

is really celebrated in that way as is the female body.

Honestly, sure, in a gritty, hot experience

where, like, topless girls are, like, natural

It's super special.

[crowd cheering]

[crowd applauding]

[whimsical music]

We've been showing a lot of trailblazers

in the Neo-Burlesque performance arena.

And the only way you can keep a fire burning is to add new wood.

That's right.

So, please welcome to the stage,

she is known as the "Sideshow Showgirl".

Say that ten times fast,

then try to do it with a cock in your mouth.

Please welcome to the stage, Marla Marquise.

[crowd cheers]

[dramatic music playing]

[Matt] It turns to be that at a burlesque show,

you're going to be provoked if you're in the audience.

No matter who you are, what your limits are,

- what you think... - [Rachel] Can be tested.

What you think you're okay with, that's going to be nudged a bit.

[crowd gasps]

[Matt] And I want that from any art.

I wanna be provoked, I wanna be opened up

and I want to be challenged.

And I think that this is a direct...

Again, in the moment, you're in that room with somebody

and they are challenging you.

- Yeah, you wanna feel something. - [Matt] And...

[sensual music]

[Martini] Some people say, "Well, what do you find vulgar?"

or "What extent would you go to make an idea happen?"

I guess is the real question.

And the thing is, is that the idea is

in service to burlesque.

So, if you don't have a really strong through-line concept idea

then you don't have anything.

And whatever it takes

to make the audience know what you're feeling inside,

and how you view the world, is what you have to do.

So, I don't believe that there's any limit

that should be off-limits for burlesque.

It's a down-and-dirty art form. It's always been...

ten cents a ticket to get in.

[crowd applauds]

[Martini] It's never been a high art form.

Except in the way that some people have been able to do it.

So...

yeah, I think that for burlesque,

there really isn't vulgar.

The only vulgar thing,

or the only off-limits thing is to not love yourself.

To not get your point across...

and to not be true to your ideas.

[crowd applauds]

[crowd cheering, screaming]

"Subtool" is a really good word

to segue into our next performer.

She created an evening...

I like to refer to it as "Burlesque Without Borders".

You know what I'm saying?

It was, like if you see panties or panty lines as a border,

or rules or legal restrictions

or moral codes of ethic as borders...

This was a place where you could let your freak flag fly.

You could catch it on fire, you could shove it up your ass,

you could cough it up on your neighbor, you could send it...

Federal Express.

I still think it's a really important time

to have that space and that wiggle room

to just break all the fucking rules.

She started this at a time when

burlesque was being defined a lot by

you know, a nod and a wink to nostalgia

and then the performance art was thrown in.

And I just like to refer to her as the woman

who took the jar of burlesque

with the tightly screwed lid on the top...

Just poked holes in it so that we can all breathe.

[exhales deeply]

You wanna breathe with me?

[man 1 breathes deeply]

That's good.

It is with huge amounts of pleasure

rippling over the entire surface of my body

that I bring out our next star. Please give her a huge welcome.

Velocity Child.

[eerie music playing]

[James] I don't really think there's anything

that I would not allow to happen...

as long as nobody's gonna get hurt.

I think that's where I draw the line.

And I think some of the performers do really

push the envelope on that.

[Nasty Canasta] Um...

There's a performer named Velocity Child,

who is one of the ballsiest performers I've ever seen.

And she puts things on stage...

I mean, people get very uncomfortable.

She works with images of violence a lot,

and images of...

power and, and lack of power

and assuming a lack of power deliberately

or assuming a power deliberately

and, um, you know, very iconic images of religion

and, um, it's...

gender and politics very, very deliberately.

They're also incredibly gorgeous.

I mean, just beautiful.

And she's been performing for...

I wanna say probably close to 20 years now or something.

She is, I mean, just...

She is so at-home on stage.

"They're very problematic", a lot of people have...

"I can't... What are you... How am I... How do I accept this?"

And I think...

I feel like her point is,

"You figure it out."

I know that she has taken some very difficult parts of her life

and created performance out of it

that are very difficult to experience from an audience

and it makes her incredibly vulnerable.

It also makes an audience incredibly vulnerable

and that's...

There's such a power to that that's really wonderful.

[crowd gasps]

[giggling]

[crowd applauds]

I suppose my favorite thing about burlesque...

There's a lot of things that I really do enjoy.

But I guess the sense of community

is probably my very favorite thing.

- [Gal] Good to see you, woman. - [Martini] Good to see you.

- [smooching] - Hi!

- [smooches] - [Martini] How are you?

- Good. - [both] Hi!

[smooches]

[Stormy] I love burlesque because

it's a safe way to exploit myself and it's way with things.

And you have the support of a wonderful community.

There's never been a bigger inspiration for me

or a great group of girls, and men too,

that were wonderful friends and that I look to as family

for advice or inspiration and to watch and learn.

Just having like-minded female friends...

That was actually a huge reason

why I started doing burlesque was...

I wanted to perform but I also, I had no girlfriends.

So, that was a huge reason and...

Since I've started doing this, I found some of my...

my truest, greatest friends.

Generally, especially in New York,

backstage is the most wonderful place to be.

It's easier if you just...

Onstage should be the most professional place to be.

But backstage is often home.

- Hi, sweetheart! - Hi! How are you?

[Rosebud] My favorite thing about burlesque is that

it's like living in an enchanted bubble

where women feel safe enough to

give up to give up any baggage that society has put on them.

It's the only place where I've ever encountered

like, a large community of women

who they feel no need to be competitive with you at all.

That we're all so different

and we're all trying so hard

to make something original and, and unique

when, when it's hard to make something original anymore.

[chuckles]

[Rosebud] That when it's at its best,

we all support each other unconditionally.

I've been wanting to do this color forever.

And even if we don't really like what the other person is doing,

like, we can respect

how much effort they put into it.

[woman 1] Dude.

It's just a very communal, kind of...

approach to art and love and self-love.

And the fact that it can be that affirmative,

is really special.

Because I have never been involved

in any other artistic community that

has ever treated women with that much reverence.

And given them that much freedom to just enjoy themselves.

And I feel like everybody else has a better time

when things are like that.

[dramatic music]

I think it's very difficult if such a female-dominated world

with female voices showing what's beautiful,

showing what's ugly, showing what's scary,

scary to a lot of the population...

Boo! [chuckles]

[Martini] So, I think that it's gonna be difficult

to push real burlesque

into a place where mainstream people can see it

for what it really is.

I think like any outsider cultural phenomenon,

Neo-Burlesque will go through its various phases

and I often equate it with punk rock.

[Mat] Being a punk man,

much more than being able to play a fast rock song,

You know, it was a revolution.

It meant that you didn't agree with society,

rejected everything that have come before.

You wanted to build a new society

built on different Ethics, la, la, la...

It was huge.

[crowd cheering]

And then, you travel forward to Green Day,

who are very happy to be the capitalist beneficiaries

of a Broadway version of their music.

It sounds like punk, it looks like punk,

therefore, it must be punk.

But it isn't quite punk, is it?

And I think in a way, modern burlesque

is in danger of becoming that.

So, Dirty Martini, Bambi the Mermaid,

Bunny Love, Julie Atlas Muz, Tigger,

and then, Little Brooklyn and the next wave lot...

They were revolutionaries in terms of

presenting celebration of female's sexuality.

That wasn't imprisoned by the "Cosmo ideal", if you like.

And now, you've just got kids who are in a rock band.

And it's great and they still look great and I love rock music

and it sounds great and I still go.

But it's not the revolution it was before.

I think it's exciting

because people are gonna get really bored.

And that makes a lot of room for mass amounts of creativity

and going outside of the box.

[Velocity] So, if it's saturated, that's okay.

That just means people are gonna want something

a little different than that.

My feelings about the changing world of burlesque

are "Shit changes".

[Tigger] No matter when you move to New York,

there's someone here to tell you,

"Oh, girl. You missed it. You should've been here.

The underground, whether it's burlesque

or performance art

or theatre or anything, it's "Whack-a-mole".

You know, like,

yeah, they kinda killed that with commercialism.

It pops up somewhere else.

It's going on. It's always going on.

There's always a thrilling,

exciting, transgressive thing happening.

You just have to find it.

And people who think it's over, it's done,

they lost the scent.

Thank you, kids. Great job tonight.

All right.

Got that taken care of.

Got that squared away. Check.

[crowd laughing]

[sighs] It's the finale.

[crowd moans, cheers]

Unless you count what we could all do later in a cab.

[crowd laughs]

I want pictures.

It is the finale and the definition of a finale

is a beautiful and grand ending.

And I do wish that for each and every one of you,

it is not the last finale you do experience this evening.

[crowd cheers]

Hello.

She's known as "The Naked Girl of Burlesque" and this is her...

This is a shout out to all the geeks out there.

If you're a geek or a nerd,

you better sit up straight and take notice.

Please welcome to the stage, all the way back from London,

Stormy Leather!

[crowd cheering]

[electronic music playing]

[electronic music playing continues]

[Dr. Lucky] To me, when someone asks me

what is the Neo-Burlesque movement about,

I'd say, "Oh, it's monsters-slash-beauty."

I think that that is the defining characteristic

that makes burlesque so unique.

It's like these two extremities happening simultaneously.

It's its very defining characteristic.

And it's what makes it irreducible to a singular thing.

Hopefully.

We'll see what happens in the future.

[electronic music playing]

[crowd cheering]

I'm so grateful for the many, many, many years I've had

with a bunch of crazy downtown performance freaks

but I look forward to more.

[Tigger] My big hopes for the future

are to keep being surprised.

And to keep opening doors.

That's exactly what this should be doing.

More than anything else, is opening doors.

[crowd cheering]

[crowd cheering continues]

It's all happened before and it'll keep happening.

People will keep opening doors and breaking down barriers.

'Cause we have to to survive.

[crowd cheering]

[electronic music playing]

[calm music]

♪ When you look at me Can you tell me ♪

♪ "What do you see?" ♪

♪ In a little lace And a pretty face on display ♪

♪ Hiding all the pain Inside me ♪

♪ Something frightening ♪

♪ When you peel away All the layers ♪

♪ Know that's not me ♪

♪ Disguises trying to express ♪

♪ What's burning in my chest ♪

♪ So much inside of me ♪

♪ Socially never accepted ♪

♪ Outcast from the rest ♪

♪ Always felt alone ♪

♪ Oh, on stage I come alive ♪

♪ So much here inside ♪

♪ And no one ever sees ♪

♪ No one judging all the flaws ♪

♪ It's okay to bare it all ♪

♪ In the Shadows, I come alive ♪

♪ In the Shadows, I come alive ♪

♪ Alive ♪

♪ In the Shadows I ♪

♪ In the Shadows, I come alive ♪