We’re kicking off a whole month dedicated to our new program: Legends Archive. What’s the Legends Archive? So glad you asked! Imagine a mini-documentary where one burlesque legend talks about their time as a burlesque performer. The Legends Archive is exactly like that! BurlyCon is working with different interviewers (Lola Martinet, Jett Adore, to name a few) who meet up with the burlesque legend they’re interviewing. The interviewer will help with the technical side of things like setting up lights, video, and microphone. Then the magic happens where they assist the burlesque legend in documenting their story. The mini-documentary will live at our burlypod.com website and will be available as an on-demand purchase so that you can watch the burlesque legend tell their story first hand.
According to our friends at BurlyCares, there are 91 known burlesque legends in the world. 91! And BurlyCon wants to interview as many of those burlesque legends who want to tell their story. The catch is that each interview costs $1,000. While $1,000 to make a mini-documentary is considered a micro-budget it adds up when we’re talking about upwards of 91 burlesque legends.
What does the money go towards?
- Payment to burlesque Legend for their interview time
- Professional hair and makeup for the Legend’s interview
- Payment to interviewer for their time
- Recording equipment maintenance
- Equipment shipping
- Interview editing
- Program and platform management
Plus, every time you rent one of the mini-documentaries, the featured burlesque legend of that documentary will receive a residuals check. Putting money directly into burlesque legends pockets is an important goal for this project.
Any risks to this project? In 2021, BurlyCon fully funded and tested the Legends Archive program. We’ve worked out the logistics and are ready to hit the ground running. In 2022, BurlyCon is able to fully fund 6 interviews. But if BurlyCon can only budget to interview 6 burlesque legends a year it will take BurlyCon over 15 years to interview 91 burlesque legends. Instead of taking 15 years here’s where you come in. We’re turning to the burlesque community to raise funds for this project. As mentioned, each interview costs $1,000.
Anyone may sponsor an interview including individuals, troupes, fundraiser shows, or a group of people. When you sponsor an interview, you may choose a specific Legend to have interviewed* or let BurlyCon decide whose story is important to capture next. If you want to donate but $1,000 is not in your reach, we can add your donation to a sponsorship pool that will eventually total $1,000 and let you know when we achieve the $1,000.
Our plan for 2022 is to document as many interviews as possible. We want to capture as many stories as possible before we shift to editing and making available on the website. The plan is to start rolling out the mini-documentaries in 2023 for on-demand rentals.
If you want to assist BurlyCon in preserving each burlesque legends story to watch now and in the future help us fund the Legends Archive at https://burlycon.org/donate/
*If a certain Legend is not able to be interviewed, we will contact you to discuss other Legends on our list to interview