Thursday, January 1, 2015

A premiere in November

Scarlet and I are nerds at heart. In our lives off the stage, we met and became friends playing live-action role-playing games. It is a fantastic hobby, enabling one to take on a whole another life for a few hours or days at a time. Over the past almost 20 years, LARPing has taught me to sew, act, dance, express myself, find my limits and sometimes exceed them - made me into who I am today. My very first solo act was inspired by and performed at a LARP. And as fate would have it, so was my second one!

Tonnin Stiflat was a fantastic campaign set in the 1920's Helsinki, and I, wanting to be take small part in it, offered to perform at one of the games. Originally I had a completely different idea for my act, but circumstances intervened and I set off into a whole another direction. And I'm glad I did! 

I wanted to do something reflective of the time in history and found my inspiration in the orientalist exploitation of the 20's. I took the classic trope of Salome's dance of the seven veils and made it my own while staying true to the look and feel of the roaring 20's. 

Being able to perform it for the first time in a beautiful 1890's-built basement cabinet among friends all dressed in their finest 1920's garb was an unique experience! The stage was lit only by candles, which made for an amazing atmosphere, but was not ideal for pictures. Fortunately the event had an insanely talented photographer, Tuomas Puikkonen. You can see pictures of the entire game here, but I especially love this shot of my act.