Michelle L’amour

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If Michelle L’amour looks familiar then it could be that you caught her as a semi-finalist on America’s Got Talent.  Since 2005 she has been performing the new burlesque around the world and it is estimated that she has been seen by more than fifty million people.  From Sao Paulo to Paris, Switzerland to Los Angeles, Ms L’amour had performed to adoring audiences.  She is the CEO of her own organization which produces her shows and has also published a book of photographs.  Perhaps most popular of all have been her set of instructional videos called, of course, Tools of the Tease.

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She has a more serious side too.  Featured in magazines like Woman’s Health, she is often asked to help out women with low self esteem to feel good about themselves.  A few years ago several of her own students became the striptease troupe The Chicago Starlets who never fail to take the stage at major burlesque festivals across the US.  She even has a star named after her – the International Star Registry called it Toots.  This was a name she used to go under – but it caused way too much confusion as people seemed to deliberately mispronounce it all the time.  When she was on America’s Got Talent Ms L’amour performed a burlesque dance to the theme tune to Knight Rider, which absolutely made the day of The Hoff.

Lyalya Bezhetskaya

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Going east now, the sultry figure of Lyalya Bezhetskaya has been giving the palpitations to Russian burlesque lovers for several years now.  Although based in Russia, Ms Bezhetskaya learned the tricks of the trade in the United Kingdom where she teamed up with a certain Immodesty Blaize.  She had developed her own unique form of dance before she realized that it could be categorized as burlesque and since attending the London School of Stripping she hasn’t looked back.

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She has a variety of turns with which to titillate her audience, by far the most famous and appreciated being the Diamond in a Gift Box number.  In this act she appears out of a giant box wearing over five thousand Swarowksi crystals and very little else.  One of very few burlesque acts in Russia Ms Bezhetskaya is, as you can imagine, very much in demand.  Another of her famous routines includes and number of peacock feathers and, ahem, very little else.  She is hugely popular on the Russian TDK television channel and has done a great deal to raise awareness of burlesque as an art form in her native country.

Immodesty Blaze

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Hitchin in the United Kingdom is hardly the home of European glamor but it is the home town of Immodesty Blaize.  However, we have the small Hertfordshire town to thank for the inspired Immodesty Blaize.  Having seen such films as Gypsy, Ms Blaize determined to blaze her own trail in the world of burlesque, as it were.  That was in the nineties and she has not looked back since.  She started out on the London underground scene and was one of the earliest examples of the new burlesque – many cite her as being critical to its current success.

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Her shows are huge and theatrical and she has, more than most burlesque performers, done a great deal to bring it in to the mainstream.  She is to be found on the bill at many a fashion and art event and has been doing it full time for six years, leaving her previous career as in TV production behind her.  Her most popular act involves an enormous rocking horse but she has also performed on a giant telephone, and a crystal bubble bath.  Her signature items are, however, the huge powder puffs she uses to hide her, well, immodesty. Jo Boobs

Jo Boobs

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If your best assets are your boobs, then why not rename yourself after them? That is what Jo Weldon has done, and this Headmistress of the New York School of Burlesque is very much in demand at the moment.  She has been a featured performer in Margaret Cho’s variety show and even acted as a consultant for an episode of Gossip Girl that featured burlesque.  The holder of many titles, perhaps the best is the 2005 award she received for Best Bump N Grinder, believe it or not.

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She has headlined at many a joint and performed her first fan dance way back in the early nineties.  She is also a well known blogger and this can be read here.  The blog features a host of pictures, interviews and news about the neo-burlesque scene which Ms Boobs herself epitomizes.  She is an activist, essayist and photographer as well as burlesque performer – a woman of many talents indeed.  Even when she is performing burlesque she is adaptable, performing what she describes as dead-on traditional, and dead-on avant garde.  A little something for everyone then.  

Margaret Cho

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Fashion Designer, actor, comedian, recording artist and burlesque dancer – Margaret Cho is a woman of many talents.  The daughter of Korean parents, she was brought up in San Francisco and is a graduate of the school of performing arts there.  She was the star of the short lived All American Girl., the first sitcom in the US to feature an Asian-American in the lead.  Many of her stand up performances deal with the fall out from the show when Cho went through a hard time before she got back up on her feet and performed again.  

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Yes, that includes burlesque.  Her The Sensuous Woman show in 2007 brought her to the attention of the world’s burlesque fans and they certainly got value for money.  An anything goes mentality produces a unique show – in Cho’s own words “as bawdy and bad-behaving as the cast gets, the whole show feels more like a crazy family reunion than a performance.”  She also finds time, somewhere, to be a political activist and is well known in left wing circles as something of a firebrand.

Dita Von Teese

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Von Teese is perhaps the most famous of the ten burlesque dancers featured in this article.  She began her dance career at the age of eighteen when she presented herself at the local strip club and was welcome with open arms.  What she saw did not impress her – she felt that there was little or no originality in the acts there and so she created a vintage style outfit with elbow length gloves, a basque and stockings with a seam.  This went down a storm and, as they say, a star was born.

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She is known as the Queen of Burlesque and has been at the forefront of the revival in its popularity.  She is noted for her long and elaborate dances with many props and characters appearing in them.  The more notable props have included a carousel horse, an enormous powder compact and a filigree heart.  She has also featured the largest feather fans in the world in her shows but perhaps her best know prop is the giant martini glass in which she playfully cavorts for her audience.  Von Teese has also appeared in films both mainstream and otherwise and has graced the cover of many a fashion magazine.  This girl crosses over big style.

Miss Dirty Martini

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Something of an international sensation, Miss Dirty Martini traveled to Sarajevo in 1997 and performed in the shell-shocked city – this was just after the peace accord had been signed and the Serbian army stopped shelling the place.  She is also the first fan dancer to perform in post conflict Bosnia and why not spread a little happiness there?  When at home in her native Manhattan a favorite with audiences is her irreverent take on the age old balloon dance – it always has eyes as well as balloons a popping.  She also revives the old Dance of the Seven Veils and Dance of the Shadows in her repertoire.

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She is the winner of a number of prizes and, in addition to that, has appeared in a number of magazines including New York Magazine, Backstage, Village Voice and, er, Hustler.  She is popular too in Germany and has done two interviews for TV there.  Upcoming plans include several films and books based on the history of burlesque as an art form and its modern day revival.  She has also appeared in the UK, with appearances in both the English and Welsh capitals, most notably at the internationally renowned night club Heaven – and isn’t she simply heavenly herself?  

Julie Atlas Muz

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Recently described as the ‘the quintessence of fabulousness’ Julie Atlas Muz is at the top her game.  She uses dance to tell stories – and what stories they are.  Always bold and somewhat irreverent her dances do not hold back in terms of emotions or even politics.  Her shows range too, from short to full length huge extravaganzas but whether the show is large or small, Atlas Muz aims to use glamor and sexuality to address serious topics playfully.

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She considers herself a cross genre renegade performer but at the moment it is her championing of the new burlesque that is turning heads and gaining her new fans.  An acclaimed and prolific performer, Atlas Muz is based in New York and the places she has worked read like a performance map of the city.  One night she may be performing in a gay bar and the next appearing on Public Access TV.  She regularly performs at such famous New York clubs such as the Slipper Room, the VaVaVoom  Room and Galapagos.

Elaina Satana

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Based in Las Vegas, Elaina Satana performs burlesque alongside being a pin up model.  She is the founding member of The Sin City Grind Kittens – it does what it says on the packet, as it were.  She specializes in eating fire on stage but, rather more worrying, has also been known to consume glass.  She performs to rock-n-roll and punk music as well as the more traditional burlesque accompaniment and is known for her tattoos and costumes which accentuate her hour glass figure.

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She has featured in several films and books and has performed alongside a host of bands in to the bargain.  Perhaps her biggest moment of fame so far is appearing on the front of the X-Factor magazine.  Altogether quite a startling performer.

Missy Malone

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Missy Malone is perhaps best known for her homage to the Bride of Frankenstein where she walks on stilts to gain the necessary height but has been performing burlesque since the age of eighteen.  She also appears as Jack Frost in a black velvet coat (which doesn’t stay on, silly) and a champagne themed balloon dance which really has to be seen to be believed.

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As a Scot she makes regular appearances at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival but works across the whole of Europe and elsewhere.  She has even appeared in a Bollywood movie.  When on tour she will also conduct burlesque workshops so that local women can experience the thrill that is burlesque performance for themselves.