Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
6,393
result(s) for
"Burlesque"
Sort by:
The Aesthetics of Glamour in the Subversive Art of Burlesque
This article explores glamour as a complex and contested cultural phenomenon situated at the intersection of aesthetics, gender politics, and feminist critique. While glamour has traditionally been associated with the spectacle of the female body and framed as a patriarchal tool of control, contemporary feminist and queer theories highlight its disruptive potential. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from Laura Mulvey, Judith Butler, Susan Sontag, Naomi Wolf, Deborah Ferreday, and Angela McRobbie, the article examines how glamour operates as a visual code that oscillates between accessibility and unattainability, discipline and emancipation. Special attention is given to the performative practices of neo-burlesque, which reappropriate glamour through parody, exaggeration, and camp aesthetics. Performances by troupes such as The Velvet Hammer, queer reinterpretations of Cabaret, and artists including Perle Noire, Dirty Martini, and Moira Finucane illustrate how glamour becomes a site of negotiation between patriarchal beauty norms and feminist reclamation. In contrast, the highly stylized burlesque of Dita Von Teese highlights the persistence of the traditional glamour aligned with the heterosexual male gaze. By analyzing the inclusivity, gender fluidity, and political agency of neo-burlesque, this study argues that glamour should not be understood as either purely oppressive nor liberating, but as an ambivalent and dynamic practice that continues to evolve in dialogue with feminism, queer theory, and contemporary performance culture.
Journal Article
Baggy pants comedy : burlesque and the oral tradition
\"Baggy Pants Comedy takes readers inside the burlesque houses of Depression-era America to explore the role of comedy in a show remembered mostly for strip-tease. It examines how burlesque comics, straightmen, and talking women approached the craft of comedy, working in a genre that relied not on scripts but on a remembered tradition of comedy bits that circulated orally. The book opens a long-neglected area of American folklore, presenting dozens of fondly-remembered routines like \"Who's On First\" and \"Niagara Falls (Slowly I Turned),\" as well as long-forgotten classics in print for the first time\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Rust Belt Burlesque
The performance art of burlesque, once a faded form, has made a
comeback in the twenty-first century, and it has shimmied back to
life with a vengeance in Cleveland. Thanks to fans and
entrepreneurs, neo-burlesque has taken the stage-and it's more
inclusive, less seedy, and emphatically fun.
Rust Belt Burlesque traces the history of burlesque in
Cleveland from the mid-1800s to the present day, while also telling
the story of Bella Sin, a Mexican immigrant who largely drove
Northeast Ohio's neo-burlesque comeback. The historical center of
Cleveland burlesque was the iconic Roxy Theater on East Ninth
Street. Here, in its twentieth-century heyday, famed dancers like
Blaze Starr and comics like Red Skelton and Abbott and Costello
entertained both regulars and celebrity guests.
Erin O'Brien's lively storytelling and Bob Perkoski's color
photos give readers a peek into the raucous Ohio Burlesque Festival
that packs the house at the Beachland Ballroom every year. Today's
burlies come in all shapes, ethnicities, and orientations, drawing
a legion of adoring fans. This is a show you won't want to
miss.
eBook
Challenging Narratives : Gender, Politics, and Performance in Mid-Victorian Classical Burlesque
This thesis aims to challenge the accepted historical narrative developed by classical scholars on mid-Victorian classical burlesque, which they describe as a demotic form of entertainment encoding politically subversive meanings in terms of gender. The first section challenges the assumption that classical burlesque authors had politically radical beliefs in relation to the issue of gender. Despite their Bohemian lifestyle, the analysis of memoirs, novels, comedies, and farces written by classical burlesque authors, as well as the satirical representations of gendered social types in magazines like Punch and Fun, illustrate that their degree of political involvement was limited. The second section of this thesis claims that classicists have interpreted classical burlesques merely as written scripts, thus neglecting the comicality embedded in performances. The acting styles, use of cross-dressing and linguistic conventions of classical burlesque are analysed as elements which enabled the achievement of comic effects in performance and undercut the serious significance of the characters' verbal claims. The third section of this thesis questions the alleged demotic appeal of classical burlesque despite the lack of sufficient evidence. It argues that a considerable portion of the burlesque public may have been composed of upper- and middle-class young gentlemen, who lived a 'fast' and mildly dissipated lifestyle. Ultimately, this thesis offers an historical investigation which aims to re-instate the centrality of classical burlesques as comic performances which satirised the conventional mid-Victorian gender paradigms, without seriously endorsing the need for reform, and without aiming at indoctrinating their audiences, whose background may have been more privileged and conservative than classical scholars have acknowledged.
Dissertation