George Eastman House showcases hundreds of burlesque publicity photos in exhibition The Tease

Performers played Buffalo's Palace Theatre in the 1950s and '60s; dancers included Stacey "Eyeful" Tower, Ineda Mann, and Irma the Body

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — George Eastman House will showcase more than 600 8-by-10-inch publicity photos of burlesque performers who played BuffaloÕs Palace Theatre in its grand finale years, the 1950s and 1960s. The exhibition The Tease: Burlesque Performers from the 1950s & '60s will be on view Oct. 13 through Nov. 25, 2007. See why burlesque enticed generations of Americans for more than a century, with a style that is part parody, part allure, and a whole lot of scintillation.

The Tease will also feature memorabilia from the Palace, which reigned from 1920 to 1977 and was one of the nation's last burlesque houses. It hosted hosting dancers with names like Shimmy Queen, Stacy "Eyeful" Tower, Irma the Body, and Ineda Mann.

Visitors to the exhibition will experience why burlesque is still provocative today. At its best, burlesque was a rich source of music and comedy that kept American audiences engaged from 1840 through the 1960s. Its influence reaches through the development of popular entertainment into the present. Without a question, burlesqueÕs principal legacy as a cultural form was its establishment of patterns of gender representation that forever changed the role of the woman on the American stage and later influenced her role on the screen.

The photographs and related items, such as advertisements featuring the dancer photos (often touched-up by newspaper art departments to mask nudity), are on loan from the collection of Robert and Nina Freudenheim of Buffalo. The Freudenheims said the pictures served as the dancerÕs resume to get gigs and then were used in theater windows and advertising to attract theater patrons. "These were everyday girls who danced and acted and took some clothes off to entertain audiences," said Robet Freudenheim. "These pictures record their profession as stage personalities. Today the pictures seem campy, tantalizing, and a little nuts. ThatÕs what makes them entertaining."

The Tease is part of the three-exhibition series titled Lucha Libre y más, on view at Eastman House this fall. The other exhibitions in the series, which focuses on extreme gender representation, are Lucha Libre! Masked Mexican Wrestlers and Male & Female: Gender Performed in Photographs from the George Eastman House Collection. For more information about George Eastman House exhibitions, please visit eastmanhouse.org or call (585) 271-3361.

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