The Killer Dillers

Burlesque is a feminine and sensual kind of performance, reserved for the lady Killer Dillers! It brings together a sizzling dance style with elaborate vintage costumes, cool retro tunes, and a whole lot of sex appeal. Today, burlesque (or neo-burlesque) is one of the hottest trends in town, but just like jazz and swing dancing, it’s original heyday was in the first half of the 20th century.

Burlesque as an entertainment artform evolved from the late 1800’s through to the “bump and grind” era of the 1940s and 50s. In burlesque’s heyday (those golden days before television, when people had to go out to be entertained) burlesque was a grand affair! A burlesque show combined live music, comedians, variety acts, a chorus line and of course, glamorous burlesque headliners, in an elegant theatre with a full orchestra, grand sets and elaborate costumes.  A burlesque queen in this golden era would enchant with her beauty, delight with her dance, and captivate her audience with the art of the tease!

As a dance form, burlesque brings together the glamorous and sensual elements of a myriad of dance styles: vintage jazz dances, showgirls and chorus line dancing, European cabaret, sensual blues dance, and even exotic Middle Eastern, Oriental, African and Latin styles. Add to this the fine art of the Tease, as these burlesque glamazons slither out of their satin gloves and silk gowns, with grace and finesse. But don’t worry, there’s plenty of tease, but definitely no sleaze!

The Killer Diller brand of burlesque brings you a glittering spectacle of vintage glamour, sophistication and fantasy. Don’t miss their graceful feather fan dances and sparkling showgirl numbers, all a whirlwind of ostrich feathers, Swarovski crystals, tightlaced corsetry, silk stockings and high heels.

Vaudeville was the heart of American show business from the late 1800s through to the 1930s. A vaudevillian show was essentially a variety show, with any number of different types of entertainment, including musicians and dancers, but also a chorusline, comedians, magicians, acrobats, short plays or skits, minstrels and other specialty acts. By 1900 there were chains or “circuits” of vaudeville theatres around the country, such as Martin Beck’s Orpheum Circuit, of which New York’s Palace Theatre was the most famous (1913 – 32).

Vaudeville flourished as America’s variety theater from the 1880s to the late 1930s, when it finally succumbed to competing forms of popular entertainment, particularly “talking” pictures.
When vaudeville’s popularity began to fade, many of its stars carried vaudeville forms into the new media of radio, nightclub entertainment, films, and later, television. Entertainers you may know of, who began in vaudeville, include Mae West, W.C. Fields, Will Rogers, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Milton Berle, Bob Hope, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Jack Benny, Sarah Bernhardt, Eubie Blake, Sammy Davis Jr., W. C. Fields, Cary Grant, Phil Silvers, Ethel Waters and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.

The Killer Dillers will entertain you, not only with their dance steps, but with specialty and flash acts, amusing characters and theatrical antics, in the true spirit of authentic vaudeville!