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“I deserve to be looked at,” says Jezebel Express, and her bold style certainly invites it. Jezebel is a New York-based burlesque dancer and instructor at one of the oldest burlesque schools in North America, and she favors bold colors, lace, sequins, feathers, and other glamorous touches befitting a stage performer.
That said, she isn’t quite the typical burlesque dancer you may be used to seeing. “I don’t have the body that you get to see on stage a lot,” she says. “It’s great for me to be this person who gets to blow people’s minds about what they think is sexy.”
Jezebel’s performances challenge conventional norms of beauty and empower her students to take risks.
“Bringing this body and my sexuality and saying, ‘What I have is enough, it’s more than enough, and it deserves to be dressed and celebrated, and I’m sharing it with you, and aren’t you lucky’ is a thing I’m so happy I get to do with my life.”
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