BITTYCAVE!

The Itty-Bitty Tease Cabaret (that's us you know) rent rehearsal and work space in a basement of a building in the outskirts of the city centre, our Bitty Cave. Kitsch is the main theme when it comes to decorating there!


We have Modesty Blaize watching us from the wall.


And lots of girls in the bathroom, of course.

Today, during a madly heavy snowfall, we started our first - or well, Finland's first actually - burlesque beginners' class there. (It is fully booked but we might do another one next fall again :)

50 DEGREES C AGO

We're up in the north of Finland about to perform at a nightclub. It's close to minus twenty degrees (Celsius) outside. Made me think of a gig and road trip we did last July to the middle of the country. It was hot, sunny, humid; more than +30.
That's a fifty degree difference between four months.
But, that's the way it is up here.

Off we go.

Coffee break.

The yellow fields of summer.

Lots of props.

The "retro-glamourous" backstage.

My trustworthy reds are dying.

Lola before.

Coffee.

The warmth makes me sleepy.

Lola afterwards.

Maria Lund & Sweet Jeena.

THE EERIE GIRLS IN THE DRAWING ROOM - A GHOST STORY

The ghosts of Jackie O'Lantern, Vera De Vil and Tinker Bell by Marko Saari.
Make up and hair by Liina Junna.

You can see more pictures from the shoot over at the Itty-Bitty Tease blog!

LA CEREZA NEGRA

I have a new burlesque act in which I am a real desperado bad ass.

Bang bang! This is just me trying out the costume at home. It's a good thing there are no neighbours opposite to us I think. (Although they'd be entertained for sure if there were any.)

BITTY STUFF

The Itty-Bitty Tease Cabaret merchandise! All in a limited edition.

And now I'm off to Koko Theatre to prepare for Bittyfest, which is nearly sold out, only two tickets left!

BITTYFEST!!!

The following post is written purely with promotional intentions but hey, who'd wanna miss this high-class cultural event? :

We are bringing burlesque back to the theatre stages with an all-evening long event about The World history of Burlesque (as Told By The Itty-Bitties). We will start at the rocking stone age go all the way to the sputnik-tastic future!

The evening takes place at Koko Teaatteri on Saturday October 16th. Get your tickets from Tiketti and get them in time; there are only 80 available. One euro of each sold ticket will be donated to Tyttöjen Talo.

Otto Talvio will play records and you can view Laura Kansanen-Stavale's and Rik Stavale's burlesque themed photo exhibition during the break.

The evening will be hosted by Hula Pirate's Hellsinki Hellcat, The Big Bad Bettie Blackheart and we will have three handsome young men doing the pick up for us!

The event is realized and funded by us Itty-Bitties and produced by Fullsteam Agency. Punanaamio have sponsored us with some props.

'Nuf said, book your tickets now :)

50FT. WOMAN

Dum du dum dum, it's all nice and calm but then uh-oh it happens: the attack of the 50ft woman!



The inspiration was of course this film, or more accurately; film poster:
You can catch the same number tonight at Helsinki Vintage opening club! And later at LeBonk October 1st and at Blues Trash Cabaret (at On The Rocks) on October 9th.

Photos from Psychorama by:
Rik Stavale (1,2,5), Marko Hämäläinen (3), Laura Kansanen-Stavale (4)


(Google tells me the 50ft woman also has an attacking baby! I can't tell if it's disturbing or sweet :)

TOURNEE

Today before burlesque rehearsal I'll go see this movie:

PSYCHORAMA 2010

This weekend it's time for this year's Psychorama! Which will be great, but I've been the whole week ill and had a lot on my hands and on my mind so to be honest I'm stressed to death. We even have a photo shoot in between the evenings, on Saturday morning. Which I have to fix the outfit for still. And I'm sitting at work as I write (I wanted to say 'as we speak' but I'm not really talking to anyone here now am I :) when I'd rather be at home finishing my costume and rolling my hair.

But you know, no matter how much fuzz before it, no matter how tired, when I get to the venue and get my hair and face done I'm always able to relax just before performing and have a great time afterwards. And I know this will be the case tomorrow too. I have the night "off" on Saturday so I'll be able to enjoy the bands (there will be great such, on both evenings) and the other burlesque numbers in peace.

Here's sort of what I'll be doing tomorrow night:


For more info about Psychorama check out the event page and read our burlesque-blog's Psychorama post for line up's and such!

BURLESQUE AHOY!

A few great pictures from last weekend's terribly magnificent horror show! Which also was the hottest show of all summer, literally, it was like a lethal sauna (well, not that bad) backstage, on stage, in front of it.

Ghost trio by Itty Bitties' Jackie O'Lantern, Tinker Bell and Vera de Vil. Photo by Rik Stavale.

Bent Van Der Bleu goes Rocky Horror. By Laura Kansanen-Stavale.

Zombie Itty-Bitties! And a little different beach-boy than normally in the background. By Laura Kansanen-Stavale.

I thought I'd let you in on some upcoming gigs and events while I'm on it:
First we have Paljetti Puduaari, this week's Friday to Sunday. A huge package of workshops, panel discussions and shows, including a marathon of different versions of the Stripper. I'd love to do a very neo-thing on that but I might not make it.

If you're not feeling Helsinki you might want to pop by Tampere for the second edition of Burlesque Coctail, on Friday night.

Furthermore, we will once more be performing during the Art Goes Kapakka City bar -festival, this time together with drag artist Pola Ivanka, on Thursday Aug 26th at Manala.

Aaaaand, not to forget, Psychorama Psychobilly& Burlesque Festival Sept 10 & 11th and Helsinki Vintage party with Sweeet Jeena and her Sweethearts at Belly Saturday Sept. 18th. And our very own Bitty-fest in october. And a little trip to perform for a couple of minutes in Stockholm. And our bi-weekly burlesque course! And our t-shirts! And our book!

But more on those later. Phew!

FRIDAY 13th

Huuu huu huu shake and shiver it's Friday 13th!
...and shake and shimmy and shimmer too as tonight Sally's Chest of Mysteries Horror Edition takes place :)

We'll do our zombie-bikini routine ( a travesty on this classic number of ours) and also solo's and a spooky trio! I did not finish my 50ft woman number in time so I'll have to premiere that some other time. Quite nice actually so I can catch all other dances of the living dead instead, there will be plenty of performers tonight!

The event is at Semifinal and with good luck there are still a few tickets left t the door!

Photo above by Atelieri O.Haapala

(INSERT HEADLINE HERE)

Wooh! Now I'm off to throw a burlesque workshop and it's hot in this wig I tell you! And tomorrow morning we are off to Berlin!
Ta-ta ♥

CHUPA CHUPA SHAKE SHAKE

Now Lola Manchego, my Sailor Eddi and I are off to Turku to perform with Messer Chups! I love Messer Chups!

ELOVENA

I turned my red patent heels into daisy-shoes for my Elovena number.

And now I'm packing them as we Itty-Bitties head over to a festival in the countryside to perform. Mini road trip, yey!

AT THE COPA, COPACABANA...

In the back of my closet, still in the old flat, there is a bag of fabric waiting since last summer to be transformed into vintage styled swimsuits. Now, as in Now-now would be about the time to get it done, heat waves never last that long over here, but today when visiting Punavuoren Putiikki I realized I could save myself the effort and just grab one of Tyra's the lovely Miss Maxwell / Miranda Lingerie pieces to go instead! (Sorry Ina, I will get your suit done though!)

You may remember the collection made out of vintage fabrics from last year?

Here are the swimsuits of this season - don't they just scream piña coladas, bossa nova and that perfect spot in the chair, under the parasol? -I think I need (as in really need, you know, for real :) the green dotted bikini:

Photos by Alejandro Lorenzo, modelled by fellow Itty Bitties Jackie O' and Lola.


You can buy these and other creations of Tyra Therman's by visiting Punavuoren Putiikki, or if you're far away, by contacting her.
You can also check out Made By, not for the swimsuits though, but more on that later!

(These pics really put me in the mood for Jenny Woo's Glitter Grill, the The Tiki-Tiki-Tropical party tonight. I will however spend the evening and early night here in the warm and sweaty harbour (not complaining though, that much at least, few work days beat these warm evenings by the sea). But if you're not too far away you will still be able to make it for the tropical cocktails and tiki-inspired burlesque acts, first set starts about now!)

A LIL' SOMETHING 2

Next Friday, July 2nd (is it going to be July already? Oh my.) Tampere will go all exotic due to the Burlesque Coctail-party, held att YO-talo, organized by Tampere Burlesque.:


I will be elsewhere as the Helsinki Cruising Club is on the same night, but you can catch for example Sally Vanilla and the Finnish Blonde Burlesque troupe on stage. There will also be a Mucha-inspired Dr.Sketchy's held before the event starts!

Now the following one mostly goes out to the Finns, but of course to everyone else too who happens to be around: Vaudeville Boutique is offering one of you the chance to win two tickets to the event!

Enter by leaving a comment below and make sure to leave me your email if you do not have a blog or such trough which I can reach you. The contest is up until Wednesday, June 30th at around 15:00(EET).

CARS AND CHICKS AND CRUISING

"Oh, tires!"

Tomorrow, on Friday night, it's time for the first Helsinki Cruising Club at Nosturi.

It will really be a great happening but I mostly just feel like sleeping backstage until my turn is up; I've been going to work at 6:AM, then renovating after that, coming home late after which I've worked on a commission until midnight. Every day, the whole week. Needless to say, I am so very tired. I'm going to have to pin curl my hair and glue some sequins that've fallen off back on my outfit in between the ships at work tomorrow. Oh oh oh.

But then again I really want to try and stay awake before my show too as I want to catch the bands; Rob Coffinshaker (from the coffinshakers), The Barnshakers and Kim Lenz & Nick Curran.
Damn work, it calls at Saturday morning too.

But back to the cars, here are some of our car inspired pictures from the Cruising shoot to get you in the mood. (Set up-and behind the scenes pictures were to be seen here as you may remember).
The pictures are taken by Marko Saari.

Lola.

Vera.

Tinker Bell.

Jackie.

We should make some "The Itty-Bitty Tease Cabaret-cards: Collect Them All!" don't you think?

MUSIC VIDEO FOR A BAND

The Firsts : Chihuahua

Tinker Bell and I, along with Pepper Sparkles, were filmed for a music video. We are not actually performing for the video, or dancing to the song, but the clips were filmed at real gigs of ours. That's why it's not totally syncing with the music, but in general I think it works.

Tinker Bell is doing her Human Fly show in the video. You can't catch the giant bug scene though. And they filmed this number of mine, which is mostly a parody on fancy burlesque. And I go crazy in the end.

Where I work (harbour, and at home) there is no such thing as nsfw, but I don't know about your work - the video does contain some burlesque.

A GREAT COMBINATION

-Cars and girls!

Last weekend, just before the rain came and the week-long heat ended, we drove out to a car club to shoot some poster pics for Helsinki Cruising Club.

HCC happens the first Friday of every month from June to September. Radio Helsinki plays great rockabilly and rautalanka (♥) all evening long while the cars cruise. I always tune in. The club itself afterwards is at Nosturi, with acts like Kim Lenz, Rob Coffinshaker, The Barnshakers (at the first club) and us - at every club! But more on that some other time.

Here are some behind the scenes pics, taken by Itty-Bitty Lola M.:
Itty-Bitties in Trashy Diva trixie dresses.

Vera De Vil.

Jackie O'Lantern has a mini Diana!

Oh, tires!

Pickaboo from behind my Taunus (which, although a great car, was not part of the shooting :)

Marko, the photographer. He's really good. He took these (<- click) for example.

Final results to be seen later.