Burlesque Performer Immodesty Blaize talks inspiration
Mar 5, 2009 | 1 Comment | ByBirds Eye View
Immodesty Blaize, dubbed the “undisputed queen of British burlesque” by the Sunday Times, will be introducing the Vamp film Salome this weekend on Saturday 7th March 5.30pm at the BFI Southbank. We realised that she would probably be a dab-hand at writing after hearing she has a couple of novels out soon, so we invited her to write a little piece about what inspires her gorgeously cinematic, burlesque performances.
“When I first performed burlesque, research from books was easy; but actual footage of the old burlesque legends was scarce and hard to source. Since one of the things I loved about them was their strong and unique stage personae, it was only natural for me to find inspiration in female icons of the screen too.
Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita
My most enduring image of what a woman should be was statuesque ‘dream woman’ Anita Ekberg cavorting in the Trevi fountain. From there I obsessed over characters that had me spellbound over the years; Jayne Mansfield’s bombshell, Raquel Welch’s irreverent and aggressive transsexual, Kim Novak’s ice queen, and Ava Gardner’s definitive poisonous femme fatale. It wasn’t just their physicality and beauty that resonated, but the attitude. There was something otherworldly and untouchable about their characters on screen, and in a similar vein, the role of the showgirl is to be that very thing up there on stage; a fantasy - alluring, enigmatic, and out of the reach of mere mortals.
