Spectacles of Agency and Desire: Dance Histories and the Burlesque Stage

Burlesque Theory: Examining Masculine, Grotesque, and Unruly Women

I was originally interested in the audience engagement that Lydia Thompson employed in her acts that gave her agency as a performer and kept audiences swooning. Through my reading I have picked up on a tone that scholars of burlesque use to talk about burlesque that emphasizes the shadiness, transgression and liminality supremely present in the history of the form and have identified some key areas in which I feel contribute to why burlesque is discussed and thought about in this way. The brunt of my questions and curiosities lie in the way that burlesque was received when it first came to America (first as a sensation and later shunned), what about it was so radical, and how that legacy trailed the form into the present. 

This page has paths:

Contents of this path:

This page has tags: