Miss Exotic World Pageant
Exotic World hosts the annual Miss Exotic World pageant on the first Saturday of every June. Each year a Neo-burlesque performer is crowned Miss Exotic World in a contest often referred to as the Miss America of burlesque. Winners receive both the title and a trophy.
Dixie Evans initiated the Miss Exotic World pageant in 1990 as a way to draw people to the museum. She garnered attention by sending out a press release claiming that "Lili St. Cyr, Tempest Storm, Blaze Starr and 30 other alumni of burlesque will all be invited to attend this reunion." While technically true, none of those invitees attended that year. However, the release garnered press attention for the pageant, which was successful enough to become an annual event.
Each contest features burlesque performances by both stars from burlesque's golden age and younger women involved in the New Burlesque scene.
The organization initiated a Hall of Fame whose inductees include:
- Josephine Baker
- Theda Bara
- Candy Barr
- Sheri Champagne
- Ann Corio
- Yvonne De Carlo
- Diana Dors
- Gypsy Rose Lee
- Bettie Page
- Blaze Starr
- Jayne Mansfield
- Chesty Morgan
- Sally Rand
- Lili St. Cyr
- Tempest Storm
- Mamie Van Doren
- Mae West
- Dee Milo
Read more about this topic: Burlesque Hall Of Fame
Famous quotes containing the words exotic, world and/or pageant:
“I did not know the woman I would be
nor that blood would bloom in me
each month like an exotic flower,
nor that children,
two monuments,
would break from between my legs....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Truth has scarce done so much good in the world as the false appearances of it have done hurt.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“The intellectual man requires a fine bait; the sots are easily amused. But everybody is drugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with music and banner and badge.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)