Support The New York School of Burlesque!
We have published hundreds of thousands of words of practical business advice and performing technique over the past ten years, on our blogs and in articles for burlesque news websites. If you'd like to support the resources we offer free of cost, you can always buy us a coffee! Or even two!
If you would like to donate a larger amount, you can do so here.
Any funds you donate here will go toward replacing supplies we use in class as they wear out, which is one of our most significant material expenses.
We are very grateful if you can, when you register for a class, let your friends know, whether one on one or on social media, and suggest to other that they join you in the class. Our hashtags are #schoolofburlesque and #nyschoolofburlesque. Our instructors each have their own instagram accounts, and you can tag @ the school in general via instagram.com/headmistressjo
You can also support us by recommending us, buying your friends gift certificates from us, using our hashtags #schoolofburlesque and #nyschoolofburlesque whenever you take a picture at one of our events or classes or use a skill you learned with us or spend time with a friend you met in our classes, giving us a glowing review on Yelp, or giving The Burlesque Handbook a positive review on amazon.com.
From the summer of 2016
During a very rough August and September we received enough donations to replace some desperately-needed items! Click here to see the items and our list of supporters! Scroll down to see the campaign details.
Your support and appreciation gives us life!
Hello Burlesquers, Friends, and Fans!This is a special message, just for our nearest & dearest New York School of Burlesque supporters who are on our email list and visit our website - we’re not posting this on social media yet because it’s for insiders only.
Any time you want to support the New York School of Burlesque, the number one thing you an do is tell people how awesome we are and send them right to schoolofburlesque.com to check out the classes we offer. Mention The New York School of Burlesque every chance you get! We will even give you flyers to hand out if you want to give us an extra boost. Word of mouth is our number one support system. If you do that, especially if you keep doing it, we will be forever grateful! Every time you use a skill you learned from us and do a social media post, hashtag #schoolofburlesque and #nyschoolofburlesque. We really aren't anything without your appreciation and endorsement.
Also, we are always looking for sponsor partners. If you have a business or service, particularly a LGBTQ or woman-owned business, we want to help you help us! If you offer a discount or reward to our students, we will promote you to them. Email us to ask how.
However, every now and then we need a little more!
It's August, the month of my birthday, and during August I have a special request. People have been asking me what I want for my birthday, and more than anything I want the School of Burlesque moving forward at its usual speed. What does that mean? Well, we’ve found ourselves running in place this summer — more about that below — and because you’ve been such an amazing advocate of the School of Burlesque in the past, we’re reaching out to ask for your support.The quickest way you can help is to buy classes in advance by purchasing a gift certificate for yourself (or a friend). If you’re thinking of studying with us this fall or winter, get a gift certificate now! If that’s not on your agenda, we’ve listed 7 additional ways to support below.
So what’s going on? Every few years, we have a summer that is painfully slow for classes. This is one of those years. We know it’s going to pick up, it always does eventually. We were prepared for that, but we were not prepared for everything else.
Unexpectedly, we suddenly need EVERYTHING at the same time. We usually address these maintenance issues as they arise, and could easily manage any one of them even during one of these rare slow summers, but this year it happened all at once. Check this out:
• All of our in-class props (gloves, boas, fans, pasties) decided to fall apart… at the same time,
• We’re completely out of stock of our revenue-generating merchandise *and* marketing & promo materials…at the same time,
• Licensing is due,
• Get this: at the very same time, our computer crashed, our printer died, and our boombox went missing,
• AND we just found out as we were writing this that our studio rates are going up for the third time in three years.
…Even our props suitcase broke!
IT’S RIDICULOUS.
And this is on top of the usual day-in day-out business of keeping the school going. Did I mention that it’s ridiculous?
We planned to spend this year developing online classes and tutorials, doing photoshoots for promo, redesigning our outdated website so it’s easier to find upcoming classes and resources (including our new offerings), and creating new class choreography. But with everything that went down, we find ourselves running in place instead.
We’re a successful business, but this woman-owned, small-arts collective needs a little jolt of adrenaline to get us out of this summer lull and barreling forward to more new and exciting projects. You can be a part of it! Below, we’ve listed 8 ways your support (financial or otherwise) can get us back up to speed… and get you in on the action at the same time.
We’ll continue this drive throughout the month of August.
Thank you in advance, and I hope to see you in class or at a show soon!
Yours in glitter,
Jo Weldon
8 WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THE NEW YORK SCHOOL OF BURLESQUE
1. Buy yourself a present… or get one for a friend.
Give the gift of a burlesque class -- or prepay for classes for yourself with a gift certificate! If you expect to take classes in the future, or you’d like to give a friend that option, you can purchase gift certificates in the amounts of $25, $50, $100, $150, $200, $250, or $300. http://www.schoolofburlesque.com/giftcertificate.shtml (While there, you can see how badly we need that website revamp!)
2. Help us replace our props and equipment.
Your contribution gets us moving FAST! Every dollar helps. If you don’t want a gift certificate right now, this is what to do! Donations over $10 will receive a thank-you including a card and a signed bookmark. Donations over $20 get a little more in their thank you… you can see other rewards below this list.
3. Hire us for birthday parties, bachelorette parties, or an evening of group fun.
Our private classes, available for groups of any size, offer an unforgettable experience for the birthday gal, bride-to-be, or weekend warriors. These classes can be fully dressed for shy types, or nakeder for rowdy types — it’s up to you. We offer burlesque seduction techniques, sexy clothing removal, fan dancing, chair dancing, glove peels, tassel twirling, and more—anything we teach, you can include in your exclusive class (note: it’s best to stick to one or two topics per class). Take as many pictures as you want! You can also hire us to bring demonstrations or performances to your event. We’ve done this everywhere, from wild sex parties to conservative morning talk TV. You CAN take us anywhere!
4. Sponsor a scholarship.
New program! Your $500 sponsorship will enable a deserving student to take our full range of beginner courses: the 4-week Flirting with Burlesque class, 4-week Essential Burlesque Series, and our 5-week Act Development series. The sponsorship also includes a copy of The Burlesque Handbook and an hour of private consultation. As soon as this is funded, we will put out a call for applicants, to be selected by the NYSB faculty. You can also buy this package as a gift for a friend. The recipient will write you a thank you card, and you’ll get a ticket to their debut performance!
5. Sponsor a community class.
The School periodically offers free classes in a variety of subjects, from a series designed for cancer survivors to self-defense classes for nightlife folks, to tax advice, to professional advancement — we’ve done it since we started, and folks need it. If you can pay for the space and the instructor, we’ll make all the arrangements, promote the class, and praise your name! (Prices vary.)
6. Promote us.
No financial commitment necessary! Just give us a boost on social media and beyond, and hashtag #schoolofburlesque and #nyschoolofburlesque. Show your enthusiasm for your experiences with us. Amplify and repost our posts about classes, shows, and articles we’ve written about burlesque. Post pictures of yourself doing things you learned in our classes. Talk about how awesome your teachers are. Promote The Burlesque Handbook. If you’d prefer to show your support in the physical world, we always need volunteers to distribute flyers and hang posters.
7. Collaborate with us.
Donate a service. We need web design, marketing and promotional assistance, help creating merch, and more. Donate something fabulous for a raffle or other funding drive. If you know of a small independent business that might want to share promotion and resources (particularly run by/of interest to women and LGBTQ), let us know!
8. Suggest a way you can help!
What didn’t we think of? What rewards do you want us to offer? Let us know. All questions and suggestions can be sent to schoolofburlesqueatgmaildotcom.
In case you’ve ever wondered, here’s our Mission Statement. http://www.schoolofburlesque.com/missionstatement.shtml
Below is the option for donations. You can also send us suggestions at schoolofburlesqueatgmaildotcom with the subject line "suggestion."
You can also find Jo's wish list on amazon.com, which lists some of the items the school needs. Use Amazon's wish list search function and search for Jo Weldon. However, many of our props are handmade or purchased wholesale., so not all items are on there.All rewards will be sent during September. If you donate:
$10 -- Receive a thank-you packet with card, sticker, and bookmark
$25 -- Receive a thank-you packet with card, sticker, bookmark, and pen
$50 -- Receive a thank-you packet with card, sticker, bookmark, pen, and signed 8x10 of Headmistress Jo
$100 -- Receive a thank-you packet with card, sticker, bookmark, pen, signed 8 x 10, and a link to a special how-to video short dedicated to you, plus a photo in our Tumblr of the purchase.
$200 - $500 -- All the rewards of $100 plus a glove peel, boa, or fan move in one of our routines in class named after you
$1000 -- All of the above plus Headmistress Jo will write a short song about the subject of your choice (with a veto option on subject, but one that you choose)
You can also pay $50 per student showcase to have your fliers distributed at our show. Fliers should be for a product or other items or events which in no way compete with our own. To inquire email schoolofburlesqueatgmaildotcom.
We purchase supplies from EBay, Etsy, Amazon, Best Buy, and Ricky's, so gift certificates to any of those stores help us as well!
In case you’ve ever wondered, Our Mission Statement has been and still is:
The New York School of Burlesque is and intends to remain a woman-founded, -owned and -operated business.
The New York School of Burlesque has worked with Burlycon, Coney Island USA, Tease-O-Rama, and The Burlesque Hall of Fame. These associations inform our aesthetic, our educational approach, and our values. It is not just a school in the sense of a teaching organization, but a school in the sense of a school of thought, an approach to understanding the potential of burlesque.
The essential mission of NYSB is to provide both unique and fundamental classes taught by experienced performers. We believe in glamour that is bursting with intelligence. We strive to promote diversity in performance styles and so present instructors with different interpretations of burlesque. We want to promote instructors who teach both locally and worldwide. We want to provide classes for a variety of student interests: for fun, for fitness, or for preparing to perform. We believe in celebrating bodies of all ages, shapes, levels of ability, colors, and genders, and seek to have the composition of our faculty and our student body express this. We believe in both seasoned and emerging performers. We believe in the originality that can come from both experience and inexperience. We believe that studying the history of burlesque is an essential component in creating burlesque with depth and character. We respect those performers who came before us, those with whom we now work, and those who will come after us. We respect and promote performers, producers, and audiences who see burlesque as we do as well as those with different goals and approaches. We believe in asking challenging questions of ourselves and others. We believe in being open to processes and history beyond our own easily accessible realm. We believe in self-expression and audience appreciation. We believe in the excellence that develops from study and repetition as well as the excitement that comes from experimentation without guarantee of success. We believe in entertainment for its own sake, as well as for its ability to change the world.
