22 AMERICAN BLUES THEATER In Beauty’s Daughter, Beauty—Diane’s mother—is a former dancer who speaks about the segregation in burlesque and exotic dancing that she experienced as a young woman. She also compares her career to her contemporaries, Gypsy Rose Lee and Ann Corio. During the Victorian era, burlesque appeared in the third act of a musical variety performance, featured alongside minstrel shows and vaudeville comedy routines. Performers would usually use farce to satirize common political beliefs or literary works. The term burlesque comes from the Italian word burla, referring in theater to a practical joke or comedic interlude in commedia dell’arte performances. It was a highly profitable form of highbrow theatrical entertainment. Since the mid 19th century, African-American performers have been part of the vaudeville, minstrel, and burlesque traditions in America. Yet these forms of entertainment often parodied and trivialized the African-American experience for cheap laughs. In the 1920s, “Black and White” burlesque revues became popular, with one act featuring white performers and the other act black performers. Performances were as segregated as America was at the time. As audiences integrated, white troupes began to hire one or two performers of color that they could bill as “featured attractions.” However, these burlesque dancers were publicized as “exotics” with producers using descriptors like “jungle fever” or “voodoo mistress” on posters and playbills. Frequently, women of color were only booked if they performed acts which reinforced racist stereotypes. Jean Idelle was one of the first African-American women to perform in an all-white burlesque troupe Idelle studied dance at the Katherine Dunham School of Dance in New York City. After a brief stint in Dunham's experimental troupe, Idelle was discovered and made a headliner for Minsky's Burlesque Shows between 1950 to 1964. “BEAUTY’S DANCE CAREER” SEGREGATION IN BURLESQUE Jean Idelle Black and White Revue Poster (edited from PBS.org)