dressed in pink tights and a short tunic which starts
a whole new generation of women in stage performances and attention to their clothing,
her routine also had a sort of disrobing which is said to start the first public striptease.
In 1866 "the Black Crook" opens which was a big success and a milestone
in dance and nudity on stage.
Burlesque arrived in the USA from France via Britain in 1868 with
the Hootchy-Cootchy &
Can-Can dancers, one of the first was Lydia
Thompson and her British Blondes. Also in 1868 the Folies Bergere opens its doors
in France and the rest is, well, history. Burlesque was originally not about stripping
but rather musical Comedy, Dance and Song which eventually split and became Vaudeville
(Vaudeville was basically dead by 1932, because of film,) while Burlesque
became more and more a girly show. In 1875 Le Divan Fayouau, in the Rue des Martyrs
performs a sketch that requires her to remove most of her clothing one piece at a
time ... Striptease is now official.
The transformation into Risque Burlesque continued onto the early
1900's with the very first runway appearing at the Shubert Theater in 1912 and later
a man named Minsky installs his first runway. Also in 1917 a dancer named Carrie Fenway
would be the first to reveal herself (her breast) onstage, even if only accidentally
an by 1923 and Hinda Warsaw is said to be the first American stripper publicly announced
in 1925. Josephine Baker becomes
the first topless star of the Folies Bergere in Paris in 1926.
Earlier, dancers such as Little
Egypt were shocking the country with her provocative "belly
dance" routine (named by Sol Bloom, however
please note that belly dance
tho it may be erotic, it is not striptease!) and others dancing on the Vaudeville
stage when Vaudeville was transforming back into "Burlesque," as well as
dancing in many regular nightclubs which had fabulous stage shows featuring the talent,
legs and many times the skin of many famous dancers.
Some fabulous dancers found the money and the cheap fame of risque
burlesque very appealing with many changing the way we think, dress and act today.
By the mid 1930's, strip tease or skin Burlesque was at it's peak. Police raids were
becoming standard daily events, payola agreements were on the up rise and many citizens
worrying about the moral decay of society thereby running lengthy political and legal
campaigns to end it's rising popularity. Sometime in the mid 1920s, the tumultuous
Burlesque shows of comedy, skits and dance transformed into the firmly planted Strip-Tease,
then came topless, eventually by the 1950s the G-Strings would be removed as well
and by the mid 1960's many dancers would be starring in Sexploitation films (a
type of soft pre-porn) which helped to further spawn the porn industry and permanently
changed Burlesque.
But whatever happened thru out history to try and stop its rise,
burlesque was here to stay and transformed again into a more sleazier form of entertainment
as time marched on. We are talking the Vegas showgirl and theatre type burlesque on
these pages, not the sleaze, sometimes prostituting, drug ridden strip joints one
may think of when thinking Burlesque as portrayed today (many are listed however).
Many of these dancers or strippers of yesteryear are honored here. Prior to the 1960's,
these ladies would make Burlesque movies, (Cheesecake, B-Movies etc., yet they
were very tame by today's standards), would appear in many magazines, stag parties,
etc. and many times featured the dance acts these dancers used on the stage. Many
television shows and movies were based on or built around burlesque and/or vaudeville
sketches of the past. There is an ongoing effort to bring back the Burlesque shows
of yesteryear that feature acts, striptease, dance, comedy, skits and more.
The following Pages / Section may not be
suitable for Minors as some of the photos
are on the 'risque' side (no frontal nudity or porn here). So caution is advised
as you may want to child block this section. This is the only section on this site
were this may apply ... (The section with photo's to block is: http://www.streetswing.com/histburl/1index.htm). |
