On Entertaining...

With the new burlesque movement you hear a lot of people throwing around the word "empowerment" with burlesque. This has become so common that it is now a cliche, and it's caused me to do some thinking...

For me, I feel that this is placing too much focus on the entertainer and what he/she is getting from the audience, who likely doled out some cash for the show. As an entertainer, I see myself in the position of providing a service: I hope to entertain, delight and titillate the audience; that's my job. The audience didn't pay the ticket price or cover charge to empower ME, they came to be entertained. I think that lots of people lose sight of this very particular dynamic. On a show day, it's easy to get wrapped up in all the details that one might lose sight of the overall goal: to entertain a crowd.

I think what empowers me more is the adventure of figuring out how to to make a living as an artist, and even nerdy things like paying taxes on the money I make from dancing and teaching. Because that is what revs my engine, I hope that it gives me more capacity to focus on working it for the crowd.


After all, it's Let ME Entertain YOU, am I right?