It's pretty late but here are my answers to the first AMA. Comment below with your questions for next month's and hopefully I'll get it answered faster this time.
Where do you get your inspiration? It depends on the act. Sometimes I'm inspired by a costume I want to make, like my zipper dress. Sometimes I'm inspired by a character I want to play, like Katniss in the Hunger Games. Usually, though, it's the song. I have a little bit of synesthesia and songs will always have a color to me. Also, as long as I can remember, listening to songs has always brought up music videos in my head. Sometimes those videos are burlesque acts, sometimes they become stories or scenes in in a book. I can't really make an act until I find the right song and I can't write a scene (or even copy for a FB event) without the right song. I currently have 7654 songs on my itunes.
How long does it usually take you to bring a piece from idea to act? That often depends on the deadline and how much of the costume I already have. When I started OC I was doing a new act every week. My costumes were pulled from my closet and supplemented with weekly trips to Michaels and National wholesale liquidators. There's been a couple of times when I've gotten to a venue and realized that I was missing crucial parts of my costume and had to make up a new act on the spot. But there are also acts that I've been working on, bit by bit, for 10 years that still don't feel quite finished. Spreader bar, I'm looking at you. Usually though? I'd say about a month.
What dream project have you always wanted to do but haven't yet, and what's stopping you? There is a piece that I began working on in 2001, about a girl who finds herself in a dreamworld where classic fairy tale heroines help her work through her break up by telling stories that are allegories for what went wrong in the relationship. It's based on the original stories so it's very dark, filled with violence and blood. I originally wrote it as a play/dance performance hybrid, then I turned it into a novella, and it's currently becoming a book trilogy. Ideally, I'd like to publish the books and then create an immersive theatre experience based on it. Like Sleep No More, but with fairy tales, and Tori Amos music, and way more blood.
There's a few things stopping me. The first book of the trilogy is still at novella length and I'm not totally sure how to make it book length. And the other two books are still unwritten and only roughly outlined. The theatre piece would require a shit ton of money and logistics I can only begin to fathom. I am slowly working on producing a smaller scale immersive piece so I can get a better handle on the whole thing.
What's your hands down favorite act? The one I haven't done yet.
What's the hardest thing you've had to deal with as a performer? I've performed through all manner of difficulties: terrible dressing rooms, shady producers, performing at a wake, vomiting right before going onstage, audiences that were apathetic or downright hostile. The hardest thing is really a toss up between a tough audience and a hostile working environment.
When you're only performing for 5-10 minutes out of the night, it's hard to enjoy yourself if you're not performing with friendly people. Most of the people I work with are people that I had a deep love or admiration for. That's not an accident. I've soldiered through working with people I hate but it's never worth it. You don't have to love everyone you work with but actual hostility poisons everything.
A tough audience is similar in some ways. When you're performing alone, the audience *is* your partner. And if they're not giving you back the love you give them, it can really deflate you. I always want my performances to create a connection with the art I do, so it's hard when you don't fell like that's happening. I've learned to deal with it, though. Even if it's not what I hoped for, I'm ok with patrons enjoying themselves in whatever way they wish to. If that means watching everything through the screen of their phone, or just reveling in how *fabulous* they are for being at a burlesque show, then so be it. You never know when there's someone in the audience that's *loving* your act. There's no real way to know whose life you might touch.
What benefits have you seen/felt from the Patreon so far? Being a part of Patreon has made me feel so much more confident and a little less afraid of "wasting time" on projects that I don't know will make me money. The money I make on Patreon isn't enough to cover my rent or anything, but it makes me worry about it a little bit less. It gave me the confidence to try to make and sell a t-shirt (vagenda of manocide) which actually did make a bit of money. It's given me the confidence to put time into my writing and actually make forays into making money from it. It made me feel like I was responsible to someone, so I started taking photoshop classes and I started taking better care of myself.
As someone who has depicted both on stage, how do you think a meeting between Deadpool and Poison Ivy would go? Sexy or otherwise. I think she would seduce him easily and then get very frustrated with his antics and not be able to get rid of him.
Also, what do you recommend to a person who wants to be naked more but is shy about her body? I guess it depends on when/how/why they want to be naked. In a
performance? With their lover? Art modeling?
If you're nervous about being naked with a lover, more than anything you need to remember that your lover finds you hot. People do all sorts of mental gymnastics to
convince themselves that their lover isn't turned on by them. It's not true. They're having sex with you because they want to have sex with you, and the faster you own that, the sooner your sex will get better. It really doesn't matter how you compare to a "mainstream" definition of sexy, your lover finds you sexy. For every ass there is a seat.
If you're asking this question with more public nudity in mind, well, let's start with art modeling. When you're modeling for a drawing class, no one cares what your body looks like. All they care about is drawing it. It is literally their goal to forget that you are a person and to only see the various lines, curves, and angles of your body. If you want to, you can start with clothed modeling and, once you get used to
having a room full of people stare at you without judgement, you can move on to nude modeling. To me, being completely naked in a room full of clothed people is a bit like getting into a cold pool; it's a bit of a shock at first, maybe a little uncomfortable, but if you can ride out that discomfort for a few minutes, you adjust and it just feels normal.
In the case of burlesque (or other nude performing) just put the naked part out of your mind and focus on making the best act you can make. If it's good, no one will care what you look like. I've never seen a great act and thought "That would have been so much better if the performer lost ten pounds." That has literally never occurred to me. The great thing about burlesque is that you are showcasing your *self* not just your body.
How did you get into doing burlesque and dominatrix work?
Burlesque was something I really wanted to do since I first heard about it when I was 17. But I didn't know how to find it so I spent 5 years thinking it had happened for a while and then died out. But after I graduated college, and was already doing dance pieces about sex, my oldest friend saw a burlesque show in Seattle and said "Why aren't you doing this already?" By that time the web 2.0 was in full swing and burlesque was a lot easier to find in New York. I found a troupe that had a class package that couldn't be beat; two classes, two show passes, and a student showcase, all for a very reasonable sum. I saw them perform and immediately fell in love with the art form.
Domming was pretty much an accident. I was at a kink event and ran into a girl I knew from college. She was working for a dungeon that was a bit understaffed. Since she was dating the owner, she kept picking up all the unfilled shifts so she was pretty desperate to recruit new dommes. She was basically like "You're hot and kinky, do you need money?" And I really did. So that's how I became a domme.
In both cases I really enjoyed myself and just dug in until no one could kick me out.
Did you have any friends or family who weren't accepting of your career?
I don't really talk to most of my family so I mostly don't know what they think about it. My parents love my burlesque though, and they support the domming even though they don't really understand the appeal. The only real static I got was when a friend from high school found my myspace page and was SHOCKED that I'd "become a stripper" the sent me a long email about how I was "too pretty and smart to throw my life away like that" and she offered to get me real work, being in a reality tv show. I politely explained that I was perfectly happy, that I wasn't doing what she thought I was doing, and I had absolutely no interest in being on a reality tv show. I don't think I ever heard back from her again. But that was the first time I'd heard from her in, like, five years so I don't really think we had much in common any more. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯