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! :-)
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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 ;-)
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Algae headpiece by Tiisin' Design
picture by Hanna Erkinjuntti |
