show and par-tay report

So after growing frustrated with being poor and not having any performing jobs, I declared to the powers that be that I was "tired of being poor and I wanted someone to hire me." Two days later, I had 4 shows booked from now to October, one of which happened on Friday at the awesome venue, the Great Hall on Queen st.

It was with Starlight Burlesque, a troupe I had only heard of but had never seen. They're not a "new" burlesque troupe; they keep it old school with a big show every few months where they bring in a live band and invite international and other guest artists for a big blow-out of a show. It was really quite an ambitious production and I think if we had had more rehearsal time, it would have been an even better show than it was. The performances were great, all the girls put a lot of effort into making or buying authentic-looking costumes and props. I felt a bit lame as my costume was decidedly last minute and therefore not as awesome as I would have liked it to be. I was on silks, of all things, and I was super nervous before hand since I don't really DO silks that much. Luckily all my rope moves, for the most part, translate pretty well to silks, so I was ok. It felt like I was only up there for 30 seconds but it had to have been more like 4 min or so. The response was awesome, the other girls were all happy with what I did and I'll likely be doing their christmas show with them! yay!

You all have to check out the headliner guest artist, Pearle Noir. Here's a link to an act similar to the one she performed on Friday. She brought the house down and I can't possibly see people leaving the show thinking they didn't get their money's worth after her show. AMAZING!

Saturday was a lazy start, but that night there was a big goth/fetish party at the Revival on College. It's weird that I've been to enough of these things that I'm beginning to recognize and be recognized by other people that are involved, but since Torture Garden back in May, and Halloween coming up (and now, valentines day, on which I hope to debut a new double hoop act with Heather) Craig, the event organizer/all-around fetish king of T.O. has labeled me one of "His" in-crowed. Although I had to pay to get in last night because it was a joint party between Craig's Subspace and Northbound Leather. Sad face, cover was expensive and I didn't even have any intention of using the 'err' facilities in the basement which was the cause of the high price. I commented to Mere at the shindig that you could totally tell which people were from the Subspace parties and which were Northbound regulars; Subspacers were younger and trendier, with gear that was cheaper but more "now," while Northbounders were typically older with expensive, often custom leather outfits and, dare I say, really snooty. The two crowds mixed well, though, when we left, the floor was packed. Don't kill me Mere, but just for fun I'll mention that the night had a distinctly Scott Pilgrim-ish feel, as Mere's evil ex's 1-4 showed up in sequence. But no drama ensued.

So that's that. performance-wise my September's a bit dry but I've got my random fire-spinning retreat the last weekend (how did this happen??) for which I have to get something done on the aerial rope/fire spinning act I'm creating with Ian ( the boy mentioned in some previous posts, who is still fun to look at, but, alas, still chasing anything with reproductive organs on the inside) for the Halloween show. We're going to get some feedback on hopefully the first half at the retreat from fellow performers, which should be helpful. For those who read this that actually live in T.O., check me out at the Gladstone on Nuit Blanche. I'll be doing hoop in an all-night variety show! I'm also looking forward to my groovy new hair, which is being installed on Sept. 18th. I'll post pictures asap after it's done. It shall be sunset-colored epicness!

randomocity..

No news yet on the Decker front, I'll keep you posted.

@Oscar- Super yay about the moving back earlier than thought..Would you be back in T.O. in time for my halloween extravaganza? That would be so awesome.

In other news, I stumbled upon this photoshoot done in Italian Vogue whose theme is a model caught in an oil spill. At first I thought "oh, bad form, Vogue, bad form" but then I looked at the pictures and thought that, since they are rather disturbing, they might do some good in jarring people into caring about such things and maybe even getting people to sit up and do something about the whole oil problem. Like, say, protest against the ridiculous notion of more off-shore drilling? I'm just sayin', seems like a v. bad idea at this point. Here's a photo so you can judge for yourselves. Comments?

Douchey bosses suck.

So once again my current douchey boss is making horrible business decisions and alienating his artists yet again. There's a show coming up, and apparently my hoop act can't be in it as it was performed the last time we were in this area. I proposed a few other options including my new rope solo only to be told that not only could my proposed act not be used, as a similar act was performed over 6(!!) years ago in this venue, but that an outside rope artist has been hired for the show. WTF? Why have a company if you don't give them work? I think because I had the audacity to market myself on my own, suddenly I'm a traitor. Also, I responded via e mail upon finding out about this rope person that I was really disappointed that I wasn't thought of if a rope act was wanted and that it should be known that such an act exists if future gigs come up. I have to have a chat with boss-man, but honestly if this level of douche-baggery keeps up, I'm done. I have other options and a business to start up and frankly I don't make enough money teaching class and getting, like, 2 shows a year to have to put up with such disrespectful treatment. I'm getting 2-sentence e mails about how I have to pay for my own work permit but not to do anything yet as he'll let me know if he's "going to use me" in the show.

What a dick.

massive squee!!

Hey all. Remember the handbalancer guy I blogged about in the veeeery first post on this thing? The one I toured with? The nerdy one who was glorious and rippling and super awesome?

He may be coming to visit in September. This is very exciting news!!

I'll keep you posted on details, but if it happens, it's gonna be epic.

awesome cosplays I simply had to share!!

Ok, so these people are awesome, let's all bask in their greatness:

This is NOT Tilda Swinton. It's some chick from T.O. I can't believe it, she looks just like her! And the costume; she recreated accurate scorch marks! Awesome, I give her massive props!

Ok, this guy's cosplay is good, but he's super pretty so that's why he's here.. Sorry.

and finally, for Oscar: SATSUGAIIII!!!

more man issues and circus news

So first, I'm really tired of finding cool guys to fill my current dating void, only to have them end up identifying as poly in their preference or some such crap. I hate how it's trendy to whore around, so much so that now there's a hip new name for it, because I guess "swinger" went out of style in the '70's. I'm talking about fire guy, who I'm still tentatively hanging out with, but he's basically got a girl in every port so to speak yet still identifies as single. Uhh, dude, if you've been screwing the same girl for a year and seeing two others on and off, you're many things, but single is not one of them. Sigh. I guess that's what I get trying to draw from a pool of crunchy, "alternative" people like fellow performers and fire people. Oh well, they're all still fun to hang out with, so at least I've made some new friends. A silver lining of sorts.

As far as circus, I had a meeting today with Lexi, the other aerialist from TG about starting a company of our own that would hit up 2 main markets: the fetish scene and, get this, the anime convention circuit! I was looking at a page that had a list of every con in the world and there were at least 200 links. Even if one out of every 10 cons brings us on board, we'll still have enough gigs to, hopefully, keep the company afloat. Lexi's meeting with a graphic designer of tuesday to get a website up and running, but we need a name for our company, because right now it's just a number. Actually, we need 2 names, one for the overall company, something gender neutral, maybe a word that implies a group but not one that as anything to do explicitly with circus. The site will divide into 2 parts from the main page, with the more fetish-y area labeled as "skybound" but we need something similar for the anime section. Anyone know of a japanese word that might work? Or an english one, I'm not picky. Something implying the air or sky but with a twist that would be recognizable as anime-specific...

Grr! I'm still a bit bummed about fire-guy. Am I being too prudish? Is monogamy out of fashion/an unexceptable expectation? Should I pursue him anyway? Suggestions?

oh, and here's a pic of octopus lady from TG...Some/many of you seemed intrigued..

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!