Several pieces from BHoF’s collection will be on display in the exhibition Every(Body) Wants to Be a Showgirl at Washington, DC’s, Dupont Underground, opening February 6 and running through February 28. Featuring over 100 Black burlesque performers across the world, the exhibition honors the legacy of showgirls of the past, today, and beyond!
The exhibition is curated by Aquarius Moon in partnership with BHoF, Dupont Underground, Brown Skin Showgirls, and Metro Cabaret Club, and includes costumes, exclusive show footage, and personal archives representing Black burlesque excellence from performers past and present.
BHoF has contributed items representing the careers of legendary burlesque performers Jean Idelle, Dewey “Pigmeat” Markham, Toni Elling, and Lottie “The Body” Graves. These performers made contributions to burlesque from the 1920s all the way into the 2020s, and their legacy lives on today in the style, humor, and life lessons they’ve passed on to current generations of burlesque performers.
Dewey “Pigmeat” Markham
Dewey “Pigmeat” Markham began his career with traveling burlesque and music shows in the 1920s, including a sting with Bessie Smith’s revue. Like many Black comics and emcees of his day, he created many dance trends, most famously the “Truckin’” dance craze of the early 1930s. As his popularity grew, he became a regular at the Apollo Theater in New York, where he performed in blackface into the 1940s. As a Black comic, he said, blackface made him feel safe onstage, because audiences assumed he was white. In the early 1940s, Black activists convinced him that the vicious stereotypes associated with blackface were harming the Black population and he finally gave it up. Pigmeat was moderately popular throughout the 1950s but his career was skyrocketed in the late 1960s when, at the suggestion of Sammy Davis, Jr., he was invited to join the cast of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, where his “Here Comes The Judge” routine gave rise to a national catchphrase. An album of his routines set to rhythmic backing music came out in 1968, produced a Top 20 hit and is recognized by music historians as a crucial precursor to hiphop music.
Jean Idelle
Jean Idelle trained at the Katherine Dunham School of Dance before being contracted to tour with the Minsky company. Her most popular solo act included ostrich feather fans, for which she was often billed as, “The Sepia Sally Rand.” Quickly becoming a high-demand feature act throughout the 1950s, Idelle was one of the first Black performers to perform on integrated stages, leading a chorus line of white dancers. Because of this, she was often harassed and had to be protected by bodyguards and secretly taken from her hotel to the theaters she performed in. She retired from burlesque in the early 1960s to raise her family, only returning to the stage almost half a century later as a featured performer in the 2012 Titans of Tease Showcase for the Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender.
Learn more about Jean Idelle on our site.
We posted a video about preparing Idelle’s costume for transport to Dupont Underground. Watch it on our Instagram.
Miss Toni Elling
Toni Elling was a burlesque icon who broke down many barriers as an African-American woman performing in the 60s and 70s. As a teenager, she got a job assisting integrationist DJ Jack the Bellboy, securing Black performers like Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole for his show and launching a lifetime of friendships with great performers. After years of working as a Bell Telppehone operator, Elling became a burlesque dancer at age 32. She started dancing as the opening act at the Flame Show Bar in Detroit before moving to Los Angeles in 1962, and performed well into the 70s. Elling derived her stage name from her famed friendship with jazz great, Duke Ellington, and is affectionately called “the Satin Doll” and “The Duke’s Delight”. Her contributions to burlesque’s development and her unending generosity in passing her knowledge on to later generations of performers were recognized when she was awarded the Burlesque Hall of Fame Living Legend of Burlesque Award in 2014.
Learn more about Miss Elling on our site.
Lottie “The Body” Graves
Born in New York, Lottie the Body began her professional dancing career in Brooklyn in her late teens. Trained in Afro-Caribbean dance styles, she traveled extensively before falling in love with Detroit, and in 1960 started her illustrious career at the famed Twenty Grand nightclub. She mingled with a social circle that included Aretha Franklin, Louis Armstrong, Dinah Washington, and Billie Holiday. Her polyrhythmic dance styles and close relation with the music scene made her an important conduit for complex rhythms to the growing Motown music scene, a contribution acknowledged with an appearance in the 2002 documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown. For her contributions to the art and culture of burlesque, she was awarded the Living Legend of Burlesque at the 2017 Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender.
Their Legacy Lives On
Each of these performers made a mark on society and on burlesque that is still felt today. Every(Body Wants to Be a Showgirl explores that influence through their stories and the stories of contemporary performers including current Miss Exotic World, Jessabelle Thunder. Learn more about the exhibition on the Cabaret and plan your visit on the exhibition website.
Support BHoF’s efforts to preserve and share burlesque history and to contribute to exhibitions like Every(Body) Wants to Be a Showgirl by donating at BHoF.link/dupont. The Burlesque Hall of Fame is a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit and your support helps us to maintain our collection, research burlesque history, and share it through social media, the Internet, and exhibitions like this one.