Striptease is anentertainment, by females usually, before anaudience. It is often included in the theatre form calledburlesque. With music and dance, the stripper gradually removes her clothing. It is a very ancient dance form, and occurs in many societies.
Stripping is done in a teasing manner, but without being obscene (for example, by delaying to take an item off). While hiding certain parts of the body with hands or pieces of clothing, stripper dances around. Sometimes, plays are arranged, the strippers are disguised as Arabic dancers,Salome,Lolita or other well-known people. The spectator sometimes identifies with the stripper. Eroticdreams andexhibitionistfantasies may be projected into the striptease.
TheSumerians had amyth of the goddess Inanna descending into the Underworld. At each of the seven gates, she removed an article of clothing or a piece of jewelry. As long as she remained in hell, the earth was barren. When she returned,fecundity abounded.
Salome's dance forKing Herod is referred to in theNew Testament (Matthew 14:6 andMark 6:21–22). However, the first mention of her removing seven veils is inOscar Wilde's play ofSalome in 1893. Some have claimed as the origin of modern striptease.[1] After Wilde's play andRichard Strauss'soperaSalome, first performed in 1905 theerotic 'dance of the seven veils', became a standard routine in opera, vaudeville, film and burlesque. A famous early practitioner wasMaud Allan who in 1907 gave a private performance of the dance toEdward VII.
In ancient Greece, the lawgiverSolon established several classes ofprostitutes in the late 6th century BC. Among these were theauletrides: female dancers, acrobats, and musicians, noted for dancing naked in an alluring fashion in front of audiences of men.[2][3][4] Inancient Rome, dance featuring stripping was part of the Floralia, an April festival.[5]
Empress Theodora, wife of 6th-century Byzantine emperorJustinian is reported by several ancient sources to have started in life as acourtesan and actress who performed in acts inspired from mythological themes and in which she disrobed "as far as the laws of the day allowed". She was famous for her striptease performance of "Leda and the Swan".[6] From these accounts, it appears that the practice was not exceptional or new. It was, however, actively opposed by theChristian Church, which got statutes banning it in the following century. The degree to which these statutes were enforced is open to question. No practice of the sort is reported in texts of the EuropeanMiddle Ages.
Mata Hari. The most celebrated segment of her stage act was the progressive shedding of clothing until she wore just a jewelledbra and some ornaments over her arms and head
In the 1880s and 1890s,Parisian shows such as theMoulin Rouge andFolies Bergère had attractive scantily-clad women dancing andtableaux vivants (static poses). Acts in the 1890s had a woman slowly removed clothes in a vain search for aflea crawling on her body. ThePeople's Almanac credits this as the origin of modern striptease.
Starting in 1905,Mata Hari entered the scene. On the invitation of Emile Guimet, she danced before a carefully chosen audience. The scene at the end of the show, where she wasnaked was a sensation. Similar performances, at the requests of Baron von Rothschild, Cécile Sorel, Gaston Menier and Natalie Clifford Barney followed. Mata Hari had never learned how to dance, and had never studied Indian and oriental dancing. Her dances were a product of her imagination. In 1917, Mata Hari was charged withespionage and sentenced to death. She was shot, on 15 October 1917, inVincennes, near Paris.
Another landmark performance was the appearance at the Moulin Rouge in 1907 of an actress calledGermaine Aymos who entered dressed only in three very small shells. In the 1930s the famousJosephine Baker danced semi-nude in thedanse sauvage at the Folies and other such performances were provided at theTabarin. These shows were notable for their sophisticated choreography and often dressing the girls in glitzy sequins and feathers. By the 1960s "fully nude" shows were provided at such places asLe Crazy Horse Saloon.[7]
After the war, in the 1950s striptease became the motor of an emerging sex industry (mainly focused on publications, likePlayboy). Paris saw the opening of the high-societystrip clubs, like theAlcazar or the Crazy Horse.
In modern times, the art of striptease gets lost more and more. In the 1990s, a German private TV channel (calledRTL) made a strip show calledTutti Frutti. Since then, during the night, many TV stations have women, who try to get rid of their clothes (without even dancing), while they advertise somephone sex numbers (or other prime-rate numbers).
There is also a film calledStriptease. It plays inUS strip clubs, without giving much background information.
Originally, striptease was only done by women. Today, a very small number of male strippers are there. Among the most notable of them are theChippendales.
The use of calling a person a "stripper" is unofficial and unpropitious in theUnited States,Mexico,Colombia, andBrazil. The use of most quotes associated with striptease is also unsuitable for people ages 1–28. InGermany, it is a criminal law only if used for propagating the exotic ideology. In theUnited Kingdom and commonwealth countries (such asCanada,Australia, andNew Zealand), the use of calling a person a "stripper" is not intrinsically a criminal law, but composesintolerance if used for promotingExhibitionism. Publicly calling a person a "stripper" is not suitable for children inFrance under a civil law unless for a religious, academic, educational, artistic, literary or scientific purpose.[source?]
↑As described byOvid,Fasti 4.133ff.; Juvenal,Satire 6.250–251; Lactantius,Divine Institutes 20.6; Phyllis Culham 2004. Women in the Roman Republic, inThe Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 144; Christopher H. Hallett,The Roman Nude: Heroic Portrait Statuary 200 B.C.–A.D. 300 (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 84.
