Amsterdam Burlesque Awards in November!

And I can finally announce this! I'm so excited and honoured to be performing at the 3rd Amsterdam Burlesque Award this autumn! I had a great time two years ago when we performed there with Thee Dizzy Daisies, and to make things even better I will be to see a few dear friends again! <3 <3 <3
Aaaand I'll be bringing my "Algae" seaweed fandance to a festival abroad for the very first time, planning to pimp up the fans to celebrate! :-)

Blazing Burlesque Stage at South Park Festival

And fifth belated post! I might even end up catching up? :-D

Some burlesque history has been made this year in Finland! (and more on this as soon as I manage to actually catch up). Finland is a country in which in summer music festivals happen literally every weekend during the summer. But this year, for the very first time, a festival had a BURLESQUE STAGE! <3

The festival was South Park in Tampere, and the masterminds behind this were our fellow burlesque collegues Olivia Rouge and Albine A. Dorable, and Petra-Miisa Juusenaho. We had our own tiny cute stage, cozy backstage with views to the lake, and even a Sailor Jerry rum counter nearby! 

I was asked to do my absynth fairy act on Friday, and both my brand new act "Algae" and the kitties duo with Gigi Praline on Saturday. 

Upper left: La Fée Verte, Upper right: kitties duo with Gigi 
Praline, Down: Algae
Pictures by Milla Kouhia Photography

We had such a kick-ass team! Petra-Miisa acted as the MC, and the rest of the line up was composed by Miss Acrolicious, Chrissy Kiss from Estonia, Olivia and Albine, and the headliner: mindblowing aerial, fire and burlesque performer Natsumi Scarlet <3

Besides these amazing ladies, we could enjoy gorgeous Elisa Day as our pick up, Tiina Nevametsä as our DJ and Vappu a.k.a. Stella Polaire, who run from a place to another and made sure that everybody had everything they might need at all times <3

And last but not least, we had our very own lovely photographer Milla Kouhia, who has unfortunately since passed away. Unluckily enough I didn't have the chance to get to know her properly, but she was sweet and definitely had a talent for photography, and I can only imagine the pain her family must still be going through.

Curtain call shot! <3
Picture by Milla Kouhia

The weather wasn't all the best for the first set on Friday, but even in the pouring rain we had some audience, which seemed to be getting bigger with each set and as word spread. So by Saturday it was a full house and big success! And if we certainly had tons of fun on stage, let me tell you that was nothing compared to the fun we had behind the scenes! I absolutely adore these ladies, and it's always such a great party with them. Looking forward to the next one! <3

Backstage fun! ;-D
Picture by Milla Kouhia

Sinsational Spring Awakening 2014! And premiere of my new act "Algae"

Second belated post! This time about the Sinsational Spring Awakening, which usually happens around half-way through May, and is one of the major burlesque events in Helsinki. The theme this year was the animal kingdom, and the weather joined up by providing us real jungle weather! It was insanely hot and humid, and the room that was our backstage had been in the sun the whole day! Result: I have never seen so many pasties and tassels fly away on stage before :-D

We performed our Crazy Kitties act with Gigi Praline (unluckily enough a sudden pneumonia stole Sandy from us for the weekend), and besides that we both had the chance to premiere our latest solo acts. 

My new solo act "Algae" was born when I was aiming for a bit of an "unusual" feather fan act, and got inspired by the beauty of the mysterious coral reefs and algae. I made my costume from scratch (except the headpiece), and the main inspiration for it were some gorgeous wild silk and beaded Indian textiles I found in ebay. I was also happy to experiment with an unusual colour combination! :-)

Some pictures of my Algae act
picture by Jari B. Miettinen

As I said, I wasn't the one to make the headpiece. I'm actually so lucky when it comes to headpieces, that I have several friends who are professional costumers and hatmakers! And the decision is always a pretty tough one, let me tell you :-)

This time I decided to pay for the expertise of my friend Tiitta Räsänen, who has several years of experience working at Helsinki's Opera House. She's specially talented when it comes to beading, and that's exactly what I wanted for this costume! So as I usually do with my talented friends, I showed her a couple of pictures that inspired me (in this case mostly Art Noveau style), and let her do the rest. I'm in love with the outcome! By the way, she does of course takes orders and I absolutely recommend you check her website Tiisin' Design ;-)

Algae headpiece by Tiisin' Design
picture by Hanna Erkinjuntti

New solo act in the making: sneak peek

I've been wanting to create a feather fan act for a few years now, but they are one of the biggest clichés in burlesque and I wanted something with a bit of a twist. I'm still not sure if I will succeed in making it a bit less of a cliche, but at least I think the idea is unusual! I decided to make a seaweed act, so that the fans themselves would also be seaweed. I came up with this idea over a year ago, but I wasn't even finished with my Mata Hari act then, and before I could start working on this one I came up with the idea for The Chap and an irresistible urge of it being my next :-)

Nevertheless, now it's finally time for my Algae act! I have barely started to work on the costume yet, but I'm showing you a few sneak peek pictures of some of the materials. Why? Well, to tease you of course! ;-D

And because I'm absolutely in love wih the indian textiles I'm using for this one, sewing is a pleasure with them! 

left top: gorgeous indian textiles, left bottom: unusual
coloured feather fans, right: some trim and fringe