The term “burlesque” literally means to imitate, parody or send up it is best described as ‘provocative performance art.’ It traditionally consisted of humor, performance art and adult entertainment often performed by ladies. Burlesque came from the nineteenth century music hall era. It came about as a form of working class comedy and entertainment that was designed to take the” Mickey out of the toffs “which was always to the amusement of the working class in the audience. Because of this, much of the comedy was considered low brow and vulgar which led to more extreme and risqué acts being included within the performances.

Many famous actors and comedians were inspired and some even planted their roots in the genre. Stars like Bob Hope and Abbot and Costello have their roots in burlesque and Charlie Chaplin was a fan also. The historical side of burlesque is vast but we will keep it short at just the above for now. Fast forwarding to nowadays new burlesque or neo-burlesque tends to try and shock the audience and takes on many forms. It includes acts based on the earlier conventions of striptease, cabaret, comedy and beautiful clothing and costumes. Burlesque clothing like corsets, hosiery, stockings and suspenders has become popular once more. Recently performers like the Pussy Cat Dolls and Christina Aguilara have been wearing similar clothing when performing on stage in a provocative manner but however didn’t have the same sort of attitude of the genre. Performances began emerging all over the east and west coast of America with us seeing famous stars like Dita Von Teese emerging into burlesque.

Back to list of questions