Immodesty Blaize
Encyclopedia
Immodesty Blaize is a British burlesque
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...

 dancer who performs internationally. She was crowned Reigning Queen of Burlesque in June 2007 at the Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...

 Burlesque Hall of Fame formerly known as Exotic World.

Rise to fame

Her ethnic heritage is Croatian, Russian and Irish. Inspired by films such as Gypsy
Gypsy (1962 film)
Gypsy is a 1962 American musical film produced and directed by Mervyn LeRoy. The screenplay by Leonard Spigelgass is based on the book of the 1959 stage musical Gypsy: A Musical Fable by Arthur Laurents, which was adapted from Gypsy: A Memoir by Gypsy Rose Lee.Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics for...

, and glamorous strong women such as Grace Jones
Grace Jones
Grace Jones is a Jamaican-American singer, model and actress.Jones secured a record deal with Island Records in 1977, which resulted in a string of dance-club hits. In the late 1970s, she adapted the emerging electronic music style and adopted a severe, androgynous look with square-cut hair and...

, she originally worked in TV production, and won an award for directing commercials for the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

s.

Immodesty has been performing burlesque
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...

 in London since the mid 90s. Originally she performed in addition to her film day job. She recalls of burlesque performance, "I really was working in a vacuum. Very few people knew what it was, and I had a hard job to convince people that I wasn’t going to do the classic Stringfellows stripper." Immodesty did her shows on the underground scene in the early years, for example performance art nights on Brick Lane
Brick Lane
Brick Lane is a street in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London. It runs from Swanfield Street in the northern part of Bethnal Green, crosses Bethnal Green Road, passes through Spitalfields and is linked to Whitechapel High Street to the south by the short stretch of...

, and has since been widely credited as one of the instigators of the burlesque renaissance. She left her film production job in order to perform full time for fashion, celebrity and art events. Immodesty brought a mainstream profile to the genre in Britain, garnering extensive press coverage for her elaborate theatrical shows and extravagant costumes as well as consistently bringing the genre to mainstream TV.

Showgirl and writer

In 2009 Immodesty signed to EMI She produced the feature length documentary 'Burlesque Undressed' which screened in cinemas in over 30 countries. She performs her live shows in theatrical venues globally, in Europe, N America and Far East. She has also performed with music artists such as Goldfrapp, Marc Almond, James Brown, Roxy Music, Barry Adamson, and Nick Cave. Historically she first brought burlesque to the British mainstream back in 2002 after working with Goldfrapp as part of their live shows and in pop promo 'Train'. Immodesty then became the first woman to take burlesque back to the historic landmark The Windmill Theatre
Windmill Theatre
The Windmill Theatre, later The Windmill International, was a variety and revue theatre in Great Windmill Street, London. The theatre was famous for its nude tableaux vivants...

, In 2005 she had the headline role in the first ever West End theatrical burlesque show, running for 5 months. Immodesty was crowned 'Reigning Queen of Burlesque' in Las Vegas 2007 at the Burlesque Hall of Fame She then took a special residency at Ascot Racecourse
Ascot Racecourse
Ascot Racecourse is a famous English racecourse, located in the small town of Ascot, Berkshire, used for thoroughbred horse racing. It is one of the leading racecourses in the United Kingdom, hosting 9 of the UK's 32 annual Group 1 races...

 in 2007, and in 2008 was the first showgirl to be invited to debate at "the world's most prestigious debating society" the Oxford Union
Oxford Union
The Oxford Union Society, commonly referred to simply as the Oxford Union, is a debating society in the city of Oxford, Britain, whose membership is drawn primarily but not exclusively from the University of Oxford...

. which she took part in alongside US Congressman Bob Barr and Lord McNally. She spoke extensively on radio and television as a pundit e.g. Woman's Hour and BBC World Service, and various chatshows, and at places such as National Film Theatre, and Hay Literary Festival. She also outsold Archbishop Desmond Tutu's presentation at Hay Literary Festival. She notably beat TV censorship and was allowed to perform a full showgirl striptease on Prime Time TV pre watershed, on ITV1 the Paul O'Grady Show in 2010. She has been unanimously credited with bringing burlesque to the mainstream in Europe.
Immodesty is best known for her signature act with an enormous rocking horse, but has many other shows including with her giant telephone, a crystal bubble bath, and her signature oversized powder puffs, which was her original act that won her the crown at the Las Vegas Burlesque Hall of Fame in 2007. Immodesty also follows in a tradition set by Gypsy Rose Lee (author of The G-String Murders), and has written two novels set in the modern showgirl world, which are published by Ebury, "Ambition" and Tease, published early 2009.
Tease

External links

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