CONEY ISLAND USA: THE BURLESQUE MANIFESTO

Theater historians may disagree, but Brooklyn's tiny, feisty nonprofit organization, Coney Island USA, is taking a bow for having re-birthed that popular, borderline outrageous performance style — call it minimalist — that most folks think of as "burlesque."

Actually, today's version is known among aficionados as neo-burlesque. It is characterized — in brief — as involving less strip tease and more winking humor than plain old bawdy burlesque.


After all, burlesque was a Victorian-era confection; contemporary culture is ripe for the pickings for jokes about gender roles.

This entertainment form, described by Brooklynite author Amy Sohn as "the world of neo-burlesque, where bump and grind comes with pop-culture jokes and irony is par for the course," in a 2005 New York Magazine piece, is entrenched in today's New York entertainment firmament.
Coney Island USA — located an hour's subway ride from Times Square on Brooklyn's Atlantic coastline, and whose middle name is honky-tonk — was founded some thirty years ago. Its commitment to entertainment that features the naughty and taboo easily predates the opening of Manhattan's mainstream burlesque night spots.

Coney Island USA Claims Role in Renaissance of Burlesque

And, Coney Island USA's founder, Executive Artistic Director and overall brain-trust, a graying Yale School of Drama graduate named Dick Zigun, is taking credit for the neo-burlesque revival, harking back to his cheekily-titled article 1980's article, The Burlesque Manifesto.
 

Zigun's publication "is widely considered the beginning of the massive burlesque renaissance," according to, well, Coney Island USA.

The organization has been hawking its history and bragging about its burlesque bona fides to draw attention to its spring 2013 fundraiser — a Time Out New York Critics' Pick! — the Coney Island USA Spring Gala, scheduled in early March 2013 at Manhattan's Webster Hall.

"Why did old burlesque close? Who in Frisco brought nudity back to the stage?" These are the kinds of teasers that Coney Island impresario Zigun has been tweeting of late.

Coney Island USA, A Force in Revival of World's Most Famous Playground

Coney Island USA has been a cultural force in the revival of the nation's, or anyway Brooklyn's, most famous playground. The organization is devoted to populist entertainment.

 

They are the inventors of the best of what's wild, funny, and bizarre in an increasingly, disconcertingly cleaned-up Coney today. Their credits include the enormously popular Mermaid Parade and the less well known Coney Island Circus Sideshow. Their list of productions includes the offbeat Coney Island Tattoo and Motorcycle Festival, the highly stylized Creepshow at the Freakshow and of course, Burlesque at the Beach.

Coney Island USA's small building near Luna Park amusement park, off the Atlantic Ocean boardwalk, was, like much of Coney Island, damaged by flooding and high winds during 2012's Hurricane Sandy.

ABOUT CONEY ISLAND USA SPRING GALA 2013: THE BURLESQUE MANIFESTO
But it takes more than an act of nature to keep Coney's spirit down. And, at the grand gala on March 9, at a Manhattan venue, Coney Island USA will revel in it's own self-proclaimed role in the revival of one of America's bawdiest, silliest, and famously individualistic entertainment forms, burlesque. Um, make that "neo."
 

What's written in the "Burlesque Manifesto" exactly? In true style of the slow strip, nobody's saying, at least not until the March 9 show. But if you buy a ticket to the gala, you'll learn, and no doubt see, all.

The annual gala, devoted to burlesque and the role that Coney Island USA has played in it, promises to feature "some of New York's most talented and titillating burlesque performers, a glorious gamut of go-go gals and guys," including actors playing Marilyn Monroe and the Devil and burlesque characters doing take offs on Bambi The Mermaid, Marni Halasa, Kat Mon Dieu, Little Stormy, Creamy Stevens,The Schlep Sisters, Gal Friday, and others.

• Sat. March 9, 2013.
• 7PM - 11pm. 21 and older only
• WEBSTER HALL, at 125 East 11 St. Manhattan; 212-353-1600

Check out photos from prior galas here.

Click for tickets.