Kaitlyn Regehr - The League of Exotic Dancers: Legends from American Burlesque

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Regehr, Kaitlyn, author. | Temperley, Matilda, photographer.

Title: The League of Exotic Dancers : legends from American burlesque / Kaitlyn Regehr and Matilda Temperley.

Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016034963| ISBN 9780190457563 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190457587 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: StripteasersUnited StatesInterviews. | Burlesque (Theater)United States. | League of Exotic Dancers (United States) | BISAC: PERFORMING ARTS / General. | PERFORMING ARTS / Dance / Popular. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Womens Studies.

Classification: LCC PN1949.S7 R44 2017 | DDC 792.7092/273dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016034963

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Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America

For our mothers

Contents

The League of

Exotic Dancers

Former Miss Exotic Worlds perform at the Burlesque Hall of Fame, 2015

The Titans of Tease Showcase at the Burlesque Hall of Fame, 2015

Circus de Moccos performers compete in the Tournament of Tease at the Burlesque Hall of Fame, 2015

Tammi True at the Titans of Tease Showcase, 2013

AT THE TITANS OF TEASE Legends of Burlesque Showcase at the Burlesque Hall of Fame Annual Weekender, seventy-five-year-old Tammi True glided onto the stage and performed one of her traditional striptease numbers. She beamed as she slowly caressed and swayed her hips from side to side. She then swiveled, turned her back to the audience, and attempted her signature move: bending over and looking between her legs while shaking her beaded panties. Although Trues range of motion and ability to actually get her head between her legs was simply a nod toward what the move used to be, the burlesque enthusiast audience of 800, mostly young women, cheered in anticipation of Tammis big reveal. Finally, after removing her bra, Tammi stood with her arms in the air, belly out, joyously bouncing her pastie-clad, stage-veteran breasts and anything else that cared to bounce with them.

Perhaps out of gratitude for the expression of freedom and defiance of common preconceptions of womens bodies, particularly aging ones, or perhaps viewing the performance as a means to undermine the shaming that has been, or often still is, directed at sexually expressive women, or perhaps because they just really liked it, the crowd leaped to their feet in outright celebration. One woman beside me dabbed tears from her eyes; another, in front of me, pounded her fist in the air and exclaimed, Fuck yah!

The Burlesque Hall of Fame has its roots in the Exotic Dancers League (EDL), a group started by Jenny The Bazoom Girl Lee, Eventually, however, the group took the form of a social group for dancers that included a softball team named the Barecats and an annual meeting that continues today as an annual reunion in Las Vegas.

Fremont Street, 2015

Situated five miles and fifty years away from the tourist strip is downtown Las Vegas, or Old Vegas. Iconized by its decrepit casinos and vintage neon signage, this once rundown and forgotten enclave is now home to both a hipster-driven rejuvenation and the current Exotic Dancers League headquartersrenamed the Burlesque Hall of Fame. The Burlesque Hall of Fame reunion now operates as a social gathering and support group, where these late-life dancers perform their now half-century-old routines from the golden age of burlesque to a rally of counterculture fans.

Five years ago photographer Matilda Temperley and I headed to Nevada to begin photographing and interviewing this communitya group that, like Old Vegas itself, continues to survive sixty years past its supposed prime. Here, in a smoky, off-strip casino, we found women, at times well into their eighties, subversively bumping and grinding away preconceptions about appropriate pensioner behavior and enjoying their young adoring burlesque enthusiast fans who lovingly refer to their burlesque elders as legendsa rare intergenerational support group and sisterhood.

Kaitlyn Regehr and Matilda Temperley with Dirty Martini at the Burlesque Hall of Fame, 2015

Over the past twenty years, burlesquea mid-twentieth-century, working-class entertainmenthas been embraced and reclaimed by a counterculture movement, known as neo-burlesque, for purposes of artistic, sexual, and personal expression. In the last ten years, burlesque dance or striptease has moved further into the mainstream in the form of womens fitness trends (even Oprah tried striptease aerobics), hen nights, and Hollywood blockbusters, staring at the likes of Cher and Christina Aguilera. The rhetoric that surrounds most of these striptease-themed entertainments and activities is often one of female empowerment and sexual liberation. This narrative positions dancers of the mid-twentieth century as feminist icons and situates burlesque as an inclusive, liberated safe space thatin contrast to (lowbrow) modern-day strip clubsis (and always was) art.