Burlesque Dancers: Immodesty Blaize

this woman is a world-famous burlesque
dancer hi I’m Maya fear and welcome to
watchmojo.com and today we’re talking to
a modesty blaze to learn a little more
about burlesque dancing so for the
uninitiated what is burlesque
well burlesque is a vintage form of
erotic and ironic cabaret and it’s three
things it’s funny man sexy women and
it’s entertainment and what can we
expect from a classic burlesque show you
can certainly expect a lot of glamour a
lot of teas big theatrical eccentric
funny humor
how did you first get involved in
burlesque
oh I mean I’ve been doing this for well
over a decade now in London at that time
it was mostly performance art so really
it grew from there
so were you a performer prior to
burlesque dancing and what sort of arts
did you do I used to work in film
production and I used to produce them
direct
commercials by write novels I make film
I perform and it’s anything where I can
just create these fantasies really so
are there any rules to burlesque or can
you do whatever you please well I
wouldn’t say that any art form has rules
as such but there are certainly elements
that are important to it obviously the
humor and and the comedy and the schtick
is as important as the strip and the
tease is incredibly important the art of
the tease how you deny your audience and
then pull them back in again and well
those kids a piece of theatre as opposed
to a sexual encounter so um that’s why a
lot of women come to my shows because
it’s you know it’s a rhotic and it’s fun
and it’s glamorous and it’s theatrical
and it’s accessible for men and women
and I know that you guest appeared on
Britain’s Next Top Model so would you
say that modelling and burlesque dancing
has any similarities modeling acting
performing burlesque all of those things
crossover somewhere on a Venn diagram
you know when you are an entertainer you
obviously have to present yourself in
the best way possible so elements of
each all crossover have you noticed any
major differences between European
audiences and North American audiences I
would say in actual fact the North
American audiences do tend to be a
little bit
more conservative than the European
audiences yeah do you have any advice
for newcomers in burlesque
well I always was attracted to ballast
because it’s about the individual and
it’s about persona and personality and
so it’s about finding what makes you
special and polishing that and making
the best of what you have