me, in my mind

Monday, May 31, 2010

Finally..Torture Garden in review!

Ok, so it's taken a while for pictures to be approved and posted, but I found some good ones so here we go:
Friday: was at the swingers club Wicked, on queen, and was slightly awkward because the venue let their members/anyone who wanted to use the upstairs facilities for actual swinging..which would have been fine had our changing area not been the locker room where all the soon-to-be- swingers changed as well. Stretching is much harder when trying not to make eye contact with the dis-robing man beside you as he prepares to go have sex with a random stranger. Got a decent picture out of it, tough, note the man groping the girl in the background. Classy.
Saturday went well, Heather's neck was better by this point and I think we had a rather inspired wardrobe idea. We used elastic to make shibari knots so that as we moved and bent, so would the elastic. It worked really well and looked, from what I've seen, really awesome. The outfits that night were out of this world. My fave was the guy in the custom latex Anubis costume, full body-suit complete with Jackal head piece with raised hieroglyphic applique. Awesome! Also made friends with some fire spinners, one of whom had commissioned through Northbound a latex corset in red and black leopard print. It was nice..and reeeally expensive. I also hit it off with one of the guys, Ian, who has super mad staff spinning skills and has agreed to teach me in exchange for aerial lessons. Needless to say I will do my best to remain in the company of this rather attractive individual. Here are some pics from saturday.
Heather and I after silks. Silks plus very little clothing =massive burns.
Ian in ninja mode.

Saturday had, by far, the most extreme performances, from the fire guys' fire swords act to the suspension guys (for those blissfully unaware, suspension is where grown people hang themselves from hooks implanted in their own skin. It was gross and disturbing in a compelling kind of way. )
Another performance was a girl who did blindfolded self-shibari, which I found impressive, but then finished her act by bringing out a giant dead octopus and doing inappropriate things to it, including having it ink all down her front as the finale..It was rather shocking, even to Heather' who has seen more of this stuff than me, but it had the audience talking and I guess that was the point.
Sunday was my big day, my hoop act went well, I made some good connections, including with the owner of Northbound Leather, who said he wanted me for his Halloween party, the Holy Grail of fetish nights and an event I have wanted to perform at for a long time! Yay! No pictures of hoop yet, but I'll keep you all posted. I really enjoyed the whole process, and for the first time really felt like I could make a go at this whole full time performer thing. Hopefully, if my place sells for enough I can start a business for real and get a website going and sell sell sell to the various events like this one around the planet. Lots of the other performers follow the TG dj's around from city to city. They don't make a ton, but they're living an awesome life and get treated pretty well as they go..I think Heather and I make a good team, here's hoping she agrees and all goes well. I need to have a meeting with her about where she would like to go from here, if anywhere, but hopefully she realizes that this market, the fetish scene, is starved for quality circus. I say we fill a void!








Friday, May 21, 2010

yay a new post and...showtime!

K, so don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to this weekend, Torture Garden Toronto, I really am, but can the circus gods please let me catch a break, for once? Please? My stuff is fine, but the other aerialist, the girl who got me the gig in the first place, just f-ed up her neck and can't perform tonight and may be sitting tomorrow out as well. This is v. not good since I'm not really in my element until Sunday, when I debut my hoop solo. (Go me!) Massive sigh. Now I have to do all the last min. running around because Heather's laid up, unable to look up or down. I hope she can perform tomorrow, I really do, because as you all know (or ought to) I really don't like silks, and that's the apparatus of choice for Saturday. On the up side, my make up should be, as the french say, le awesome. I'll try to take some pics of my own and post them here. I'm thinking they should be relatively nudity free, we'll see.
Hey, and I just re-read some of my older posts, the ones concerning the dress of doom and fabric copification..problem solved! When life hands you a creepy stalker copy-cat who keifs your fabric and makes a eerily similar historical re-creation dress; send them to Germany. Yes, Mike and the stupid-face girlfriend have gone to Germany and will be there until after the Casa Loma ren. fair! Yay! Just thought you all would like to know how that worked out. quite nicely, actually...Now if only the circus gods would be so accommodating.