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PrintMore than a day job: Sara Wilemon
By day: Owner of a propane delivery company • By night: Burlesque dancer
“Burlesque striptease is about everything leading up to the nudity,” burlesque dancer Sara Wilemon says, including the costumes, props and choreography.
Sara, Sara — why’s a nice girl like you doing the shimmy-shake?
Because burlesque dancing is fun, Sara Wilemon says. It is not what people often think it is. It’s not pole dancing at a men’s club. Burlesque dancing is an art form that is campy and playful. It is artistic and entertaining with, granted, the dancer undressing to the beat of the music.
The daily grind for Wilemon is owning and operating a propane delivery company.
Bump and grind is her hobby. As Ilsa the Wolf, she performs in burlesque clubs and various live-performance venues from Tulsa to Kansas City to San Francisco.
Although from age 3 she studied dance — mostly tap and jazz — Wilemon did not set her entertainment sights on pasties and G-strings. Here’s how she got into the bump-it-with-a-trumpet business:
As a University of Tulsa graduate with a degree in marketing communications, she was working in Florida as a marketing coordinator for a beauty supply business. When her father died in 2007, she returned to Tulsa to assume ownership and management of the Wilemon Propane Co., with offices in Henryetta, Bristow and Tulsa.
She had never acted, but on a lark she auditioned for Nightingale Theater’s production of the play “Sex,” written in 1926 by Mae West, who also starred in the original production. To Wilemon’s surprise, she got the lead role. Her research for the part led to an interest in vaudeville and burlesque.
In 2008, she discovered Eye Candy Burlesque, a local troupe. She auditioned and was accepted into the company. Now, she performs solos and group routines locally and as a guest artist. Her signature number, to the song “Mein Herr” from “Cabaret,” was inspired by Liza Minnelli and is performed with a chair.
Like most burlesque dancers, Wilemon has a repertoire of routines and “a closet full of costumes and props,” she says. That’s the part of burlesque she loves — the tassels, ruffles, feathers, sparkle and glitter. She has a home studio with a wall-size mirror for rehearsing.
Wit and humor have always been integral to the art form. In her research, Wilemon learned that in 18th century Europe, burlesque parodied music and theater for a lowbrow audience. Victorian audiences were titillated by the glimpse of stockings — and more — at the Moulin Rouge in Paris. After Little Egypt’s electrifying belly dance at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, hootchy-kootchy was on its way.
Strip tease became the chief attraction at American music halls and vaudeville. The Golden Age of burlesque, about 1930-1960, featured such stars as fan dancer Sally Rand, Tempest Storm, Blaze Starr, Lili St. Cyr and the intellectual, witty Gypsy Rose Lee.
A revival of interest in burlesque dancing can be seen in movies and on TV. It has even spun off into burlesque dancing classes and DVDs for exercise and toning. Burlesque may be the new Jazzercise.
With her love of dance, Wilemon’s routines are reflective of Cyd Charisse and Ann-Margret — more dancing than peeling.
And yet, she adheres to the four principles of burlesque dancing: short sketches or routines, quick-witted humor, sexually suggestive (sometimes with dialogue) material and minimal costuming.
“The difference between burlesque dancers and gentlemen’s club dancers,” she says, “is that we have no contact with the audience. No money changes hands. And we come on stage dressed.”
Burlesque dancing is more about entertainment than nudity.
“Of course, that’s the final product,” she says, “but for me, it is a journey, not a destination.”
Check out this video of Sara performing:
