Burlesque Appreciation Month 2022- An Introduction

In February of 2020, before the world changed, I challenged myself to write mini-essays every day to ponder and reflect upon ideas, institutions, but mostly people in the burlesque community who have made an imprint on me. I called it Burlesque Appreciation Month, and if you care to read any of those entries, you can find the whole blog here.

I planned to do it again in February 2021, but the time came and went. I thought I'd get it done in March, then April or May, but my professional life was and has been both busy and unpredictable. I hoped to publish it in December, which marked my first in-person burlesque show in nearly two years when I attended the Savannah Burlesque Fest. Still no; who has time to finish writing and formatting a blog no one is even expecting during the holidays?  I noodled around, on and off, throughout the beginning of 2022, but the return of a live, in-person Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender is what forced me to finish transferring files, linking videos, cleaning this up, and putting it out into the aether. So June 2022 is now Burlesque Appreciation Month!

I appreciate how so many performers have pivoted to producing virtual content during the Panini, sometimes making work that could never exist in a live theatrical environment. However, as others have noted, burlesque is a markedly different experience absent a crowd, and, speaking only for myself, I have not been as fulfilled or inspired watching acts on a screen. I realize the irony there in that any readers of this blog are going to be watching acts on a screen themselves, but rest assured these are captures of live performances featuring crowd noise, cheering, et. al.

As you may have surmised, burlesque acts are what this exercise will be spotlighting this time around. In 2020, though I tried to mix it up, it became easier to write about performers I've spent time with and gained some insight into their process. This time, in 2022, I'm writing mini-essays about 22 specific burlesque acts that I've enjoyed. I'm not claiming these are my 22 favorite routines, though I certainly appreciate each one featured. I'll just say these are 22 acts that I love in no certain order, because since I'm not judging a competition and this blog is in no way a competition itself, I don't have to rank anything. All of this is just one person's enthusiastic opinion; your mileage may vary.

Also, I have seen all of these acts in person, though the videos are not necessarily those specific performances. I did my best to source publicly available videos with optimum lighting and sound, but you'll see that some are better than others. There were also acts I wanted to include, but for which no clean video, or even ANY video, was findable. Maybe those can be Burlesque Appreciation Month 2030, at the rate as I'm turning these out.

Please read, watch, enjoy, send me feedback if you care to, and I hope to see you at a live show in 2022!

 

Paul Lewis

Twitter - @TheOneWhoKnox

Instagram - @1WhoKnox 




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