Wish list #1: A giant moon to lounge on.

The paper moon effect has been a popular photography set, since photography’s earliest days, and has become a covetable glamour set piece for cabaret and burlesque performers…. including me! I want one!

Burlesque Frequently Asked Questions Part 3
What is the difference between burlesque and stripping?

The main difference between burlesque and stripping is the idea of the tease. Stripping is simply about revealing nudity, whereas burlesque is an entertainment art, based around dance, musicality and the art of the tease. For instance, in the time that it would take your average strip-act to have removed the entirety of their clothing, a burlesque performer may have only just finished peeling off her satin glove, before sashaying off-stage with a wink. Despite the fact that every audience member has their bare hands on display for all to see, the tension built up by the tease, the anticipation of catching a glimpse of her naked wrist, her palm, her fingers, mean every audience member is spellbound!

Burlesque also evolved alongside vaudeville and cabaret, so it has an entertainment focus that is missing in stripping. Burlesque is often light-hearted, involving comedy, parody or theatrical elements. And of course, modern burlesque celebrates real women with real bodies. If you’re looking for fake tan and plastic perfection, go to a strip club. If you’re looking for vintage glamour, sophistication, spectacular entertainment and a little bit of fantasy, see a burlesque show!

Photo: Dixie Evans

Sally Rand feather fan dance video:

Born as Harriet Helen Gould Beck, the young Sally Rand literally ran away to join a carnival as a teenager. Over the years she worked as a nighclub cigarette girl, life model, cafe dancer and stage actress (working under the name Billie Beck), before finding herself in Hollywood, where she landed some roles in silent films in the 1920s. Cecil B. deMille gave her the new name Sally Rand as her career blossomed, and she was even named a WAMPAS Baby Star in 1927 (other recipients included Clara Bow, Mary Astor, Joan Crawford, Dolores Del Rio, Fay Wray, Loretta Young and Ginger Rogers).  However, the arrival of sound in motion picture brought the end to her film career, allegedly because of a lisp.

In the late 1920s she began to work as a chorusgirl and then in 1932 responded to an ad at the Paramount Club in Chicago, calling for ‘exotic acts and dancers’. She purchased two large ostrich feather fans at a second-hand store, with the intention of procuring for herself a flowing Grecian robe to wear for the act also. Running out of time, she instead performed the act naked, dancing gracefully with her feather fans to the classical tune Claire de Lune, swirling the 7-foot pink fans as she danced to cover herself, never offering more than a momentary glimpse of her bare skin. Though she promised the Paramount managers the act would be even better with the gown, not surprisingly they insisted that she continue the act exactly as it was.

Not long after this, unable to gain a role at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, she staged a Lady Godiva inspired stunt at the gates, arriving entirely nude, atop a white horse. The scandal boosted the World Fair’s popularity and Sally became a featured performer in the ‘Streets of Paris’ exhibition, performing her feather fan dance in a mock Parisian street scene.

Though she found herself in court under charges of indecency, the entire event catapulted her to stardom. She became a burlesque headliner and a household name. At the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair, Sally debuted a new act that would become another of her signatures. The bubble dance involved a translucent balloon bubble, larger than Sally herself. She had fronted the funds for the scientific experimentation to  create this bubble herself. In 1934 she also appeared in the film Bolero, in which she performs her fan dance.

Quick Facts
Birth Name: Harriet Helen Gould Beck
Birth Place: Missouri
Birth Date: 3rd April 1904
Height: only 5′ 1″
Figure: 35-22-35
Died: 31st August 1979 in Glendora, California

To find out more about Sally Rand, visit The Fantabulous Sally Rand to read her entire tale.

1912: A jazz orchestra organised by James Reese Europe plays at Carnegie Hall

1913: Darktown Follies at Lafayette Theater (the “beginning” of Harlem nightlife)

1919: 369th Regiment (AKA the Harlem Hellfighters) parades up Fifth Avenue to Harlem after WWI

1920:
National Prohibition Act goes into effect.
Jack Johnson (the first black heavyweight champion) opens Club Deluxe (name changed to the Cotton Club in 1923).
Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association holds a national convention in Harlem.

1921: Shuffle Along (an all black musical) sets a new standard on Broadway

1922: The Harmon Foundation is established

1923: Running Wild, an all black Broadway musical, introduces the Charleston

1924: Louis Armstrong plays at the Roseland Ballroom with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra

1925: Small’s Paradise opens

1926: The Savoy Ballroom opens

1927:
The “400″ Club starts at the Savoy
The Cotton Club starts a live radio broadcast of the Duke Ellington Orchestra
Charles Lindbergh’s trans-Atlantic flight

1929:
Chick Webb’s orchestra and “Shorty George” Snowden featured in After Seben
The Stock Market crashes (Beginning of the Great Depression, which effectively ends Harlem Renaissance)

1931: Chick Webb’s band starts its long residency at the Savoy

1932:
Duke Ellington releases It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got the Swing, heralding in the Swing Era
The Apollo Theatre becomes a black vaudeville house

1933:
Weekly floor shows introduced at the Savoy
National Prohibition Act repealed

1934: Chick Webb records Stompin’ at the Savoy

1935:
Harlem Race Riots
The first Harvest Moon Ball dance contest

1936:
A business peak is reached at the Savoy Ballroom
The Lindy Hop is introduced to Europe by Harvest Moon Ball contestants
The Cotton Club relocates downtown
Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton join Benny Goodman
Jesse Owens makes heroic achievements at the Berlin Olympics in Nazi Germany

1937:
The battle of bands at the Savoy features Chick Webb vs. Benny Goodman
Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers featured in Marx Brothers’ A Day at the Races
“Cotton Club Revue” featuring Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers tours Europe
All female swing band “The Sweethearts of Rhythm” formed in Mississippi

1938:
The battle of bands at the Savoy features Chick Webb (with vocalist Ella Fitzgerald) vs. Count Basie (with vocalist Billie Holiday)

1939:
Chick Webb dies and Ella Fitzgerald assumes the leadership of the band
New York World’s Fair (features swing, television is introduced)

1940: The Cotton Club (downtown) closes

1941:
Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers featured in Hellzapoppin
Teddy Hill hires Thelonious Monk and Kenny Clarke at Minton’s Playhouse
U.S. enters WWII - the Lindy Hop is introduced around the world by the U.S. soldiers.

1943: The staff of hostesses at the Savoy is discontinued

1944: Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., elected the first black congressman from the East

1945: WWII ends

1949: Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson dies

ca1950: Mura Dehn documents dancers from the Savoy Ballroom on film

1958: The Savoy Ballroom closes

1959: The Savoy Ballroom building is replaced by Delano Village

Burlesque Frequently Asked Questions Part 2
Is all burlesque the same?

Burlesque takes many different manifestations, as varied and unique as the many individuals who strut the burlesque stage. Burlesque is not a danceform that you need to conform to, but a danceform that moulds to your individual tastes, style and body type. Burlesque is for everyone! Your personality, your body type, your musical instincts and your personal inspirations will influence your particular brand of burlesque.

At Sugar Blue Burlesque we adore the 1920s, 30s and 40s and we love authentic vintage jazz and swing dances. But you might be a burlesque beauty of the bell epoque, a glitter and glam burlesque showgirl, or maybe punk-rock burlesque might be you thing, or gothic burlesque, burlesque-a-go-go, even boylesque… anything you can imagine!

Photo above of Sugar Blue Burlesque’s A’dora Derriere.
Taken by David Woolley: www.vintageglamourphotography.com

The 12 October 1942 edition of the New York Times (page 13) gives us this little gem, an article about the New York Society of Teachers of Dancing finally accepting jitterbug - in a modified form - into the world of ballroom dance. This is the beginning of the end for Lindy Hop, its transformation from a social street dance to the institutionalised, simplified and soulless ballroom jive we know today.

There are so many things I like about this article - how the “Lindy Hop” is in quotation marks every time, that the jitterbug is an “indoor sport”, the idea of “modified cavortings”, especially those demonstrated by Mr and Mrs Rutherford, oh my…

Click on the thumbnail to see the original article, or read the text below:

Jitterbug Jumps From Low To High
Teachers Here Approve Modified Cavortings for Ballroom

The jitterbug, handmaiden of swing, is rising from its lowly estate, members of the New York Society of Teachers of Dancing were told yesterday at their October meeting in the Hotel Astor.

This delight of the youngsters, hitherto scorned or derided by the conservative pundits of the ballroom floor, and a direct descendant of the “Lindy Hop”, no longer can be ignored, according to those who spoke of the trend of social dancing.

With its cavortings refined and modified to fit the usually crowded floor, this season it will take its place beside rhumba, samba, foxtrot and waltz. As in all the history of social dancing, it was stated, the old must give way to the new.

To demonstrate how this refinement and modification can be brought about and how teachers can meet the demand of the tweenagers [sic] for recognition of one of their most popular indoor sports, George Rutherford of Poughkeepsie, with Mrs Rutherford, presented combinations of the “Lindy Hop” and jitterbug steps.

A short article I found in the New York Times, 25 January 1939 edition (page 18).

Advises Jitterbugs to Train
Jitterbugs should train in the same way that athletes do, or face the prospect of thick ankles, broken, maladjusted feet and exhausted nervous systems, according to Dr. John J. Lalli of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathy. He holds that no good can come from doing the Susie-Q, the Big Apple or other such modern dances, and describes them as “throwbacks to the war and religious dances of primitive tribes.”

Burlesque Frequently Asked Questions Part 1
What exactly is burlesque?

Burlesque is the hottest trend in town, a type of performance bringing together a sizzling dance style with elaborate vintage costumes, cool retro tunes and a lot of sassy fun!

Burlesque as an entertainment artform evolved from the late 19th century through to the “bump and grind” era of the 1940s and 50s. In burlesque’s heyday (those golden days before television, when people had to go out to be entertained) burlesque was a grand affair. A burlesque show combined live music, comedians, variety acts, a chorus line and of course, glamorous burlesque headliners, in an elegant theatre with a full orchestra, grand sets and elaborate costumes!  A burlesque queen in this golden era would enchant with her beauty, delight with her dance, and captivate her audience with the art of the tease.

Burlesque died out in the 1960s, as the sexual revolution transformed gender norms and sexual taboos, and full nudity and explicit pornography flooded the market, but it was revived in the 1990s as a postmodern movement by women for women. The neo-burlesque movement champions the natural beauty, glamour and sex appeal of women of all ages, shapes and sizes. In particular, neo-burlesque performers around the world have adopted the aesthetics of the 1940s and 50s, embracing the womanly curves denied by modern popular culture.  Today’s burlesque is a sugar-coated approach to sexuality, bringing mystery, allure, fantasy and glamour back to the stage!

To find out more visit www.sugarblueburlesque.com