Happy Easter!

A bunny-lishious and chocolate-filles Easter-time to ya´ll!!!

Rehearsals!

Usually, meeting my girls make me feel so good. Today was no exception :)
Also, here´s the review of HBF´13 "Burlescopolis" Night 1 from Burlesque Finland, nice reviews on us gals!!!

Atelieri O.Haapala

My friends Saara and Marco are some of the most talented photographers that I have the honor of knowing. At the Helsinki Burlesque Festival they usually shoot people and make these old fashioned photos as Atelieri O.Haapala. Very fun, inspiring and unusual, I love it!

Spring Awakening!

I know, I know...
I can´t remember when March was this cold, either. But Spring is coming I promise!!! And just as last year, this May will celebrate the awakening of nature with some awesome burlesque in Hellsinki! The Speing Awakening is here again, starring Minnie Tonka and Erochica Bamboo as well as some Finnish talent. If you have been wondering about that Tourettes-project of Thee Dizzy Daisies and The Itty Bitty Tease Cabaret...well, here´s your chance because that, among other shenanigans, will happen!!! Tickets as usual from Tiketti and more info will follow ....

Da-da-da-da...

Four times weekend.

This weekend has been all about friends, family, culture and food. As in:

Leopard lady going to a concert.

We got two roosters from friends, this is James Potkukelkka that my husband plucked. I like to know what I´m eating.

Paavo the Strange.

I was hit by Spring madness.

Ricky-Tick!

Friday.
Always so loaded with expectations and hope :) You might remember my love for lindy hop and that me and hubby took classes in both that and rockabilly? Now this is out. It melts my heart. It wants me to get out there and do lindy again, to learn it good and proper! Friggin´ AWESOME!

Have a great evening folks! <3

Ricky-Tick Big Band & Julkinen sana

Photo: Jirina Alanko

Circus!

Life is a circus sometimes. And now I mean in the best possible way. I hope you all know people who are clowns, trapeze-artists, lions and bearded ladies. Or at least people who could work as them in a circus :) If you don´t, I suggest you broaden your circle of friends!
The circus is an endless world of inspiration for me even if it has been a while since I got to go to a show. That will change tonight when me and hubster are attending Cirque du Soleils show "Alegría" in Hellsinki!!! I´m SO excited about it! I have, of course, seen the shows on tv and youtube but as with most performance art it is always best when live. I´m going with open senses and an open mind and I´m sure I will be blown away! Thought I would treat you with some wonderful vintage circus pictures that I found on the interwebs and a little teaser from Alegría. Have a great Wednesday!

In Flames

I have gotten some amazingly beautiful photos of my new number from the Helsinki Burlesque Festival. I want to thank all of the photographers - really good job! It´s great how the pictures have very different feeling and ambience even if it is of the same number. Here are some so you can see what I mean.
Have a great Saturday!

Photo: Emiliano Melandri

Photo: Lamppu Laamanen

Photo: Jari B. Miettinen

Photo: Tuomas Lairila

Photo: Lamppu Laamanen

Photo: Tuomas Lairila

Women´s Day!

Happy International Women´s Day to all you ladies  and those who identify yourselves as women out there!!! 

Today has been a really good day! I just graduated from Sexpo-säätiö as a sexual advisor (seksuaalineuvoja) and after one year of studying it was a great, although quite emotional, day. Our class of 20 people have shared a lot and it felt sad to leave it all behind. Also somewhat scary to realize that I now am "ready" and can start building up my own clientele if I have the chance! Yikes and hurrah! 

Also, in today´s Hufvudstadsbladet, which is the biggest Swedish print paper in Finland, was a cover + three pages long article about burlesque in Finland and especially boylesque. We had Frank Doggenstein on the cover and Tigger! inside with the text "In the Emperor´s clothes for bigger equality". Pretty fitting for this day,eh? The quote from Angie Pontani here below has to do with Tiggers! point that in burlesque people are equal, that gender, sexual orientation, skin color, marital status etc. really isn´t important. "Burlesque is that place on the earth where it really doesn´t matter" says wonderful Angie. And on this day of Women it´s a really important thing to remember. Equal rights and equal opportunity is NOT a given to all women in the world, not even for us Finnish ladies all the time, so let´s work together to make this a better place, ok? Prejudice, violence and ignorance are all issues we, both men and women, meet often and we can ALL work against that with our own attitudes and deeds. We can only change ourselves, right? Or at least that´s the first one we should start with! Tigger! also makes a good point that even if some people might see burlesque as vulgar  his point is not to chock but to challenge set views and opinions with the help of humor. And I have to agree with him (again). Even if you don´t think burlesque is art think about this: it does raise questions about important issues like body image (and the strangeness of our body ideal in 2012) and gender roles. And unless we yearn back to the 1950´s we need to talk about that.

If you read Swedish you should read the whole article here. Now I bid you goodbye and am off to empty my bags and enjoy those gorgeous tulips my hubby got me! Have a great Friday ya´ll!

Words of wisdom.

"Burlesque for men flourish in Finland" with Frank D.

Tigger! taking a pose for equality.

P.S I just found this. VERY IMPORTANT about norms (= society´s unwritten rules of e.g how to be) and it is very important to remember that not all girls grow up to be women and not all boys want to become men. This is in Finnish, but if you can read it. There´s also some pretty harsh facts about our schools and the very rigid norms and unwritten "rules" that apply for teenagers. High school is not always an easy place to be, and teenage life for sure ain´t no picnic.
www.normit.fi

On popular demand?

Do you know why I really love my job? You can never tell how a day will go! Today I found out that my students have found out about this burlesque life of mine. They have been very nice about it, a few cat-calls but mostly surpricingly "adult-like" conversations and questions.I really think a lot of people don´t give teenagers enough credit for capacity of independent thought and an ability to form opinions ´outside the box´. Yes, there are exceptions -but not all adults can do that, either. I am not saying that this was very surpricing, it was more like a matter of time since this has not been very secret. Last week my interview in Kotivinkki came out so it probably propelled it a bit more.

Kotivinkki 4/13

So, to clear things up I will link here two previous posts that I hope my students checking out this blog would read. Anyone else that finds this interesting, for that matter. The first one is my final thesis for my education for sexual counceling that I did on if burlesque affects the body image of female performers and it includes some information about WHAT burlesque is and a short history bit  (in Finnish only, sorry). You can read it here.

The other post I wrote last Fall after my students from my previous work found Gigi and also to answer a question I got here on the blog about if I don´t find it inappropriate as a teacher to do burlesque. Read it here!!!

So, I hope this will (once again) clear things up and I am more than willing to discuss the matter both face to face or here if the talk can be kept on a civilized level. I can agree to disagree but I will not have any shit thrown around. Some people dive, others dance in samba carnevals - I do burlesque. And I love it!

P.S You can read a very short version of last weekends festival in Finnish here .

P.P.S a marvelous interview with Dirty Martini at approx. 17.50min on the news!

Quick one

HBF is at day 2, I'm tired but happy. Amazing audience, workshops, performers... Wow. I will give you more later but gotto start fixing my face for a photoshoot with Kaylin Idora so for now: just this picture. I am in love with this man. Tigger! - big heart, big persona and just an amazing person.

P.S this photo got me banned from Facebook for a while so don't wonder. I do, though. So... It's ok for girls to post all kind of provoking pics (on boobs etc) but not a FAKE penis- thong?!?!
Gotto just looove the hypocrisy.