Dear Toni,

What do you think about burlesque today? Gone are the glory days of glitz and glamour. Gone are the Beautiful girls and beautiful costumes. So are the comediennes. Burlesque has been replaced with people who shouldn’t be on the stage in the first place. Instead we have pole and lap dancing… what is a lap dance anyway? Girls in the business today, don’t really care don’t care about doing a grand show- just cold hard cash. What happened? I am still a working dancer in the few spots that are left and I am one of the last.

Sincerely,
Daisy Delight

Dear Daisy,

I love this question! One time I had the great opportunity to have a lovely conversation with Grocho Marx. He told me that the Marx brothers had spent many many years in burlesque and vaudeville honing all the comedy bits that the Marx brothers were famous for. He said with the end of burlesque and the vaudeville circuit, dancers, comics and burlesque ladies had nowhere to work their material, before bringing it to the large screen and television. He also said that all the bits that they had created were completely eaten up by the studios within the first few years of their arrival in Hollywood. I truly feel that burlesque was about illusions. The comics and burlesque women took great pride in their work and it wasn’t all about stripping. Burlesque was about exciting the audience with what might happen. Your right! What the heck is a lap dance?! There is no dignity, no class, no art, and quite frankly it does not do the word “woman” any justice. If you do not take pride in who you are and what you do, you sell yourself short. 

Thank you for taking the time to write.
Toni Attell

Toni Attell is a hypnotherapist and acting coach. For people interested in her acting classes please call (818) 787-8685. For hypnotherapy go to www.hypnosis4you.net.