Marie Baronnet

Burlesque is interesting because it's a space where women of all kinds, physically speaking, can actually go onstage, they have to have personality and rhythm, they have to know how to dance, and they have to also be an artist because they have to do all those costumes and create a choreography.

Burlesque is interesting because it's a space where women of all kinds, physically speaking, can actually go onstage, they have to have personality and rhythm, they have to know how to dance, and they have to be also a bit of an artist because they have to do all those costumes and create a choreography.

The '80s were really the era where all the glamour kind of disappeared and what the audience wanted was more flesh always, all of those women always described in the interview how it was difficult to transition between the '70s and the '80s, where the glamour was no longer there and the bosses of the clubs were asking them to get rid of the costumes and actually show more.

We would put on the costumes and makeup, we'd do the hair and the lights, and then suddenly they would just know how to move, and they like that. I think there is a part of them where they are very exhibitionist. They like to show off and just dance and move and seduce men.

I didn't want to do something that was too close (to what) they were used to doing for so many years -- and that men photographers especially ask -- which is to be like a pinup like the typical Bettie Page picture, sometimes they would give that, and I would always kind of like twist it and say, 'Let's try something else, because this has been seen over and over again.'.

Striptease for them was a passport to discover their own country and to travel abroad. ... They would have agents, they would get contracts.

The idea was to go to them and not to do something in a neutral place, because I wanted to feel the atmosphere of where they live.

They witnessed a time that completely disappeared, and they mastered the art of striptease in a very special way, and they never really were recognized for that.