Pastied breasts behind ropes

Striptease

A Striptease or exotic dance is a form of erotic entertainment, usually a dance, in which the performer, known as a "stripper", gradually undresses to music. Stripteases are now performed mostly in strip clubs and (especially in the UK) pubs, though theatres and music halls have also been used as venues. The "teasing" part involves the slowness of undressing, while the audience is eager to see more nudity. Delay tactics include additional clothes being removed or putting clothes or hands in front of just undressed body parts. Emphasis is on the act of undressing along with sexually suggestive movement, not on the state of being undressed: in some cases the performance is finished as soon as the undressing is finished.

Though today, the stripper often ends the performance "fully nude", in historic and contemporary circumstances not every item of clothing has always been removed: due to legal and cultural prohibitions and other aesthetic considerations. Such restrictions have been embodied in venue licensing constraints and local laws. Also certain jurisdictions (chiefly in the USA), have forbidden postures considered "indecent" (such as spreading the legs). Shoes (often high heeled) are usually kept on, for practical and aesthetic reasons. The costume the stripper wears before disrobing can be an important part of the act. These are often fantasy themed: such as a schoolgirl uniform, maid's dress, policewoman's outfit etc.

Along with physical attractiveness and appropriate clothing, the main asset and tool used by the exotic dancer in recent years is the stripper pole which aids both as a tool and is also rumoured to have originated as something for the performer to hang on to with a too-eager audience

In addition to night club entertainment, stripping can be a form of sexual play at home between partners. This can be done as an impromptu event or, perhaps for a special occasion, with elaborate planning involving fantasywear, music, special lighting, practised dance moves, and even dance moves that have been previously unpractised.

Off stage

A variation on striptease is private dancing, which often involves lap dancing or contact dancing. Here the performers, in addition to stripping for tips, also offer "private dances" which involve more attention for individual audience members. Variations include private dances like table dancing where the performer dances on or by customer's table rather than the customer being seated in a couch. For certain events, including bachelor/bachorette parties, the stripper's job often involves holding games or contests with sexual themes.

The contact between a performer and a customer is regulated in ways that vary in response to local laws and club rules, ranging from "air dances" with minimal or no contact to "friction" lap dances at the dancer's discretion.

History: World origins

The origins of striptease as a performance art are disputed and various dates and occasions have been given from ancient Babylonia to twentieth century America. In terms of myth the first recorded striptease is related in the ancient Sumerian story of the descent of the goddess Inanna into the Underworld (or Kur). At each of the seven gates, she removed an article of clothing or a piece of jewelry. As long as she remained in hell, the earth was barren. When she returned, fecundity abounded. Some believe this myth was embodied in the dance of the seven veils of Salome, who danced for King Herod, as mentioned in the New Testament. However, although the Bible records Salome's dance, the first mention of her removing seven veils occurs in Oscar Wilde's play of Salome, in 1893: which some have claimed as the origin of modern striptease.[2]. After Wilde's play and Strauss's operatic version of the same, the erotic "dance of the seven veils", became a standard routine for dancers in opera, vaudeville, film and burlesque. A famous early practitioner was Maud Allan who in 1907 gave a private performance of the dance to King Edward VII.

Other possible influences on modern striptease were the dances of the Ghawazee "discovered" and seized upon by French colonists in nineteenth century North Africa and Egypt. The erotic dance of the bee, performed by a woman known as Kuchuk Hanem, was witnessed and described by the French novelist Gustave Flaubert. In this dance the performer disrobes as she searches for an imaginary bee trapped within her garments. It is likely that the women performing these dances did not do so in an indigenous context, but rather, responded to the commercial climate for this type of entertainment. Middle Eastern belly dance, also known as Oriental Dancing, was popularized in the US after its introduction on the Midway at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago by a dancer known as Little Egypt.

History: The French tradition

The People's Almanac credited the origin of striptease as we know it to an act in 1890s Paris in which a woman slowly removed her clothes in a vain search for a flea crawling on her body. At this time Parisian shows such as the Moulin Rouge and Folies Bergere pioneered semi-nude dancing and tableaux vivants. One landmark was the appearance at the Moulin Rouge in 1907 of an actress called Germaine Aymos who entered dressed only in three very small shells. In the 1930s the famous Josephine Baker danced semi-nude at the Folies and other such performances were provided at the Tabarin. These shows were notable for their sophisticated choreography and dressing the girls in glitzy sequins and feathers. By the 1960s fully nude shows were provided at such places as Le Crazy Horse Saloon.

History: The American tradition

American striptease nurtured its roots in carnivals and Burlesque theatres featuring famous strippers such as Gypsy Rose Lee and Sally Rand. The vaudeville trapeze artist Charmion performed a "disrobing" act onstage as early as 1896 , which was captured in an Edison film, "Trapeze Disrobing Act" in 1901 . Another milestone for modern American striptease is the (possibly legendary) show at Minsky's Burlesque in April of 1925: The Night They Raided Minsky's. The art and business enjoyed prosperity as the United States economy grew out of the depression of the 1930s through the 1950s. In the sixties and seventies, with changing cultural expressions of sexuality, it declined in profitability and status. In the eighties and technology boom of the nineties, those in the profession enjoyed increased acceptance and better working conditions.

History: The British tradition

In England the Windmill Theatre, London, pioneered the art of striptease, from 1932 onwards (closing in 1964), though, in accordance with British law the nude girls were not allowed to move: appearing in stationary tableaux vivants. The Windmill girls also toured other London and provincial theatres, sometimes using ingenious devices such as rotating ropes to move their bodies round, though strictly speaking, staying within the letter of the law by not moving of their own volition. According to the film Mrs Henderson Presents, mice were also employed to get the nudes to move. Another way the law was bent was the fan dance, in which a naked dancer's body was concealed by her fans and those of her attendants, until the end of her act in when she posed naked for a brief interval whilst standing stock still. The Windmill girls were a major morale booster during wartime London as was the cartoon-strip stripper Jane, modelled on one of the Windmill girls, who appeared in the Daily Mirror.

By the 1950s touring striptease acts were used to attract audiences to the dying music halls. Changes in the law in the 1960s brought about a boom of strip clubs in Soho with fully nude dancing and audience participation. Pubs were also used as a venue, most particularly in the East End with a concentration of such venues in the district of Shoreditch. Though often a target of local authority harassment, a remnant of these pubs survives to the present day. An interesting custom in these pubs is that the strippers walk round and collect money from the customers in a beer jug before each individual performance. Private dances of a more raunchy nature are sometimes available in a separate area of the pub.

History: Striptease in Japan

Striptease became popular in Japan after the end of World War II. When entrepreneur Shigeo Ozaki saw Gypsy Rose Lee perform, he started his own striptease review in Tokyo's Shinjuku neighborhood. During the 1950s, Japanese "strip shows" became more sexually explicit and less dance-oriented, until they were eventually simply live sex shows.

Recent history

Recently pole dancing has come to dominate the world of striptease. Apparently this form of dancing can trace its origin to a performance by one Miss Belle Jangles at Mugwumps Strip Club in Oregon in 1968. From here it spread to Canada where, in the late 20th century, the exotic dance club grew up to become a thriving sector of the economy. Canadian style pole dancing, table dancing and lap dancing, organised by multi-national corporations such as Spearmint Rhino, was exported from North America to the United Kingdom, Central Europe, Russia, and Australia etc. In London, England a raft of such so"called -lap dancing clubs" grew up in the 1990s, featuring pole dancing on stage and private table dancing, though, despite media misrepresentation, lap-dancing in the sense of bodily contact was forbidden by law

In America a notable contemporary practitioner of striptease is the rock singer Courtney Love. In one notorious incident in March 2004, she disrobed on prime-time American TV in front of host David Letterman while standing on his desk

In December 2006, a Norwegian court ruled that striptease is an art form and made strip clubs exempt from value added tax.

Copyright: This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on Striptease.