“For a while your body is definitely not your body and you very willingly give it up for your child, but now I feel more confident and comfortable with what my body can do.

“Plus, I’m just a very sexual person by nature – that’s partly why I agreed to do the movie that I did – I just think the art of the tease is a beautiful art form.”

Dita Von Teese has revealed that she uses extra-strong glue to assure her crystal-decorated breast accessories don’t slip out of place and expose too much flesh.

She explained: “I use serious waterproof glue, because I’m in a martini glass. Crystals are heavy and there’s a lot going on.”
The burlesque dancer’s favourite routine sees her pour water over her near-naked body from a foam olive while sitting in a giant martini glass.

She said: “I’ve got a shower of water going down from the olive, so I’ve got to have something serious. I can’t afford to lose a nipple tassel during my show.”

The big tease: Burlesque grows in popularity
By MARTHA IRVINE (AP) – 4 days ago
CHICAGO — In the Depression-era days of Gypsy Rose Lee, burlesque dancing was about as naughty, and as nude, as it got in public. The emphasis was on the tease more than the strip, until Playboy and harder-core pornography came along in the 1950s.
Now burlesque is back with festivals and club performances, from Amsterdam to Alabama. It’s seen as a chance for some bawdy fun and, some would say, even a little empowerment for the performers who are often amateurs with other day jobs.
But its growing visibility, in mainstream clubs and theaters, is also sparking a debate, and some confusion about what it is and whether it’s appropriate in those settings.
Is it performance art, as some contend? Or is it, as others say, just a (very) thinly veiled excuse to strip in public, even if most performers end a routine in pasties and G-strings?
“The performers are interested in being sexy, but not being pornographic,” says Rachel Shteir, a DePaul University professor who’s written books about burlesque. “They’re trying to strike this middle ground. But that’s very difficult to do in our culture.”
A few recent cases highlight that point.
Earlier this year in New York, burlesque performer Tara Lee Heffner filed a lawsuit against the Learning Annex for referring to her as a “porn star” in an online ad for classes she was teaching. She claimed the label damaged her reputation.
This summer in London, one club owner also shut down long-standing burlesque shows after being told he’d have to purchase an adult entertainment license, something generally reserved for more traditional strip clubs with dancers who make use of laps and poles.
“There’s no doubt that some men watch burlesque and find it as sexy as other forms of entertainment,” says Alex Proud, whose club in the city’s Camden borough bears his last name. “But at the end of the day, the naked bit lasts about three seconds.”
And many audiences of burlesque shows are filled with women, who often focus as much on the costumes, glamour and dancing as anything.
“True burlesque is more of a kitschy Vaudeville act than anything else. It’s all about the art of the striptease, a cheeky and titillating performance that can induce chuckles, cheers and longing sighs all at once,” says Katie Laird, a burlesque fan in Houston.
“Performance is the key word here, not naked gyrations for dirty dollar bills.”
At recent shows produced in Chicago by burlesque dancer Michelle L’amour, performers donned large feathered fans, in the tradition of Depression-era starlet Sally Rand, and costumes that ranged from a scantily clad secretary to a 1950s housewife. The midnight performances at the city’s historic Music Box Theatre also included slapstick comedy acts and a campy magic show, as well as a couple of male “boylesque” performers.
“Even my super-conservative grandmother is totally OK with it,” one performer, Cherokee Rose, said of her work with L’amour’s troupe, the Chicago Starlets. Still, the 28-year-old Chicagoan preferred to use her stage name, rather than her real name, because she’s looking for a job in the psychology field. “I wish people in my field were more accepting of this,” she says. “But sadly, they’re not.”
Most of L’amour’s troupe are professionals or students who started by taking classes with L’amour and moved onto the big stage when she considered them ready. For them, burlesque is a hobby.
The 29-year-old L’amour is, in fact, one of a few dancers who’s made a living at burlesque since its comeback in the last decade. Other professionals include Jo Weldon, a.k.a. “Jo Boobs,” and Dita Von Teese, who regularly makes red-carpet appearances and who’s become a bit of a fashion icon.
Theirs is a style that is more “classic” burlesque, focussed more on subtlety, artfulness and humor. But, L’amour says, it’s no wonder people are confused about what burlesque is when you have harder-core strip clubs featuring burlesque performances or even pop music acts, such as the Pussycat Dolls, referring to themselves as a “burlesque troupes.” Singers Cher and Christina Aguilera also are set to star in a movie titled “Burlesque.”
“It’s become a bit of a pitch word to hook people’s interest,” L’amour says.
In this latest rebirth, even many women can’t decide what they think of burlesque.
“Is it porn? Is it feminist? I would hesitate to say either,” says Shteir, the DePaul professor, whose books include “Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show” and “Gypsy: The Art of the Tease.”
Others say it depends on the context.
“As a feminist, I do not assume that, when women engage in performances that highlight their bodies or sexuality, this is necessarily degrading,” says Barbara Scott Winkler, head of the women’s studies department at Southern Oregon University.
For their part, performers talk about the camaraderie they feel with one another. Often, they create and oversee the shows themselves and make their own costumes.
“It’s about embracing the female form, no matter its size,” says Ruby Rose, founding member of London’s Burlesque Women’s Institute. She led a street protest of the Camden Council’s adult entertainment license requirement and is in talks to get them to reconsider.
In a statement, the council said its only concern was nudity. And that’s an issue that’s not likely to disappear anytime soon, says Molly Crabapple, a New York artist with ties to the burlesque community.
“When you do anything that involves nudity, even performance art, many people want to stigmatize it,” says Crabapple, who founded a group of burlesque-influenced drawing clubs called Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School.
However it’s defined or maligned, Proud, the club owner in London, says he thinks burlesque makes life more interesting — though he has no plan to buy an adult entertainment license.
“Nightclubs should still be a little risque or on the edge. If they’re not, you can just stay home and drink a bottle of wine,” he says.

The 36-year-old burlesque dancer, Teese, wrote on her Twitter page: “Love how journalists “expose” my “secret porn past”.

“Yes, it’s SUCH a secret I try to keep! I SELL the films on my official site, jackasses!”

Burlesque is now known as a form of striptease, but originally it didn’t have any stripping at all.

The Beginnings: Britain

Burlesque has its origins in 19th century British music halls, where the term referred to a theatrical entertainment of a satirical comic bent.

Beginning in the 1840s, burlesque comedy skits entertained the lower and middle classes by making fun of (or “burlesquing”) the operas, plays and social habits of the upper classes.

In the 1860s  shapely, underdressed women were introduced to keep audiences interested. In the Victorian age, when proper women went to great lengths to hide their physical form beneath bustles, hoops and frills, the idea of young ladies appearing onstage in tights was a great thrill.

1860s: Exported to America

Brit Lydia Thompson was burlesque’s first star and was instrumental in exporting burlesque to America. In the late 1860s her burlesque troupe – the “British Blondes” – became New York’s biggest theatrical sensation. Their first hit was Ixion, a mythological spoof that had women in revealing tights playing men’s roles. Underdressed women playing sexual aggressors, combining good looks with impertinent comedy – in a production written and managed by a woman, unthinkable! No wonder men and adventurous wives turned out in droves, making Thompson’s troupe the hottest ticket in American show business. Her first New York season grossed over $370,000.

read more on the history of burlesque here