I’m a global burlesque superstar. Celebrating my Indigenous culture is part of my success. – Macleans.ca

January 18, 2023

“When I told my grandmother about my dancing, she said, ‘If you’re going to do it, be the best at it’”

In 1991, my parents and I moved to Kahnawake, a Mohawk community across the St. Lawrence from Montreal. I was just five, but being a military kid, I had already lived on bases in Schweinfurt, Germany, and Fort Riley, Kansas. All that moving around had made me incredibly hyperactive, so my parents decided to enrol me in an Indigenous community-theatre class that only accepted children aged seven and up. They lied to get me in, and then I told people I was seven for three years straight. I was too young to realize it then, but those classes would shape the rest of my life.

I danced, performed in musicals and learned to sew and make costumes for the next 13 years. When I was 18, I left my community to pursue a health sciences degree at nearby Dawson College. I stopped doing theatre to focus on my studies, but I slowly became depressed without it. In 2005, a friend encouraged me to audition for a burlesque show. It sounded like what I’d been doing, but with a provocative twist. A few days after my 18th birthday, I signed up to audition for the Blue Light burlesque troupe at Café Campus on Rue Prince-Arthur. I wore a pink men’s suit and a black hat and did a chair dance to “Stop This World” by Diana Krall in front of 300 people.

Read More: https://www.macleans.ca/culture/im-a-global-burlesque-superstar-celebrating-my-indigenous-culture-is-part-of-my-success/