Jesse Belle Jones
“The Modern Sexual Intellectual”
Navigating a female body through academia and the world at large, Jesse Belle-Jones is a bluestocking bettie whose sultry, scholarly, scintillating acts are chock full of wit, humor, and dexterous dancing. After years of performing and competing in Scottish Highland dance, Jesse worked as an instructor for Northwest Highland Dance Studios, training a new generation of competitors. Throughout college and grad school she continued technique training and performance in ballet and modern dance. She also studied vocal performance, earning a minor while she worked on her degrees in English Literature and Linguistics at Western Washington University. Then, one day, she wandered into a burlesque show and her life was changed forever…
Her involvement in the Seattle burlesque community has exploded since her debut in 2007 as she enters her second year on the steering committee for BurlyCon and continues to be involved with Miss Indigo Blue’s Academy of Burlesque. As a member of Sinner Saint Burlesque, Jesse performs weekly at the Noc Noc, but has also been spotted dancing at Columbia City Theatre, The Triple Door, Can Can Kitchen & Cabaret, The Pink Door, and Everett’s Blue Caboose Revue among other local venues as well as up and down the West coast. Having graduated with her Master of Arts in Linguistics from the University of Washington in March 2009, Jesse now devotes all of her time to performance, study, and celebration of radical feminist sex-positive art.
Photos by Catherine Bassetti.
