Tassles Without Borders

Luscious strip teases, full figured mamas, tits and tassles, sequins and boas, boys willing to flash some skin with the ladies, and much, much more is what you’ll find at Toronto’s upcoming Burlesque Festival.

Risque performances from a sexy entourage of international and Canadian performers will grace various stages in the city from July 23 to 26th. The festival committee is spearheaded by members of Toronto’s own Skin Tight Outta Sight, one of North America’s first burlesque troupes.
Sexy Mark Brown will host the kick-off Meet and Greet Teaser at The Gladstone Hotel on Thursday the 23rd, which includes an art show, performances and a bra auction with proceeds going to the Boobalicious Weekend to End Breast Cancer.
You will also be able to learn the tricks of the trade at Canada’s only Burlesque University, where the seasoned veterans of erotic undressing will teach workshops on everything from fan dancing and persona development to the art of shimmying.

You’ll learn from star-studded pros like headmistress of the academy, Cocoa Framboise, featured below stripping away her shiny wrappings atop a candy apple. She started BOOM Chika BOOM burlesque classes in Toronto which blend Broadway jazz, burlesque and go go.

Other headline acts include international burlesque superstar Kitten De Ville, “Tools of the Tease” director and instructor Michelle L’Amour, the drag queen with a PhD in drama, Dr. Lucky, Canada’s own international pinup model, Roxi DLite, and Hot Toddy, co-creator of “Chicago Takes Off,” a burlesque charity benefit for aids.

On top of all these sizzling shows this year marks the debut of the Burlesque Marketplace, where artists can sell their crafts and sexy goods.

So if you want to experience this year’s internationally themed “Tassels Without Borders” you can pick up tickets at The Gladstone Hotel, Rotate This, Nearly Naked, Doll Factory by Damzels and online at T.O. Tix.
With so many hot little numbers coming to the city you better believe that lots of delicious candy will be unwrapped on stage. Because there's nothing sexier than a woman in control of her own fierce, voluptious, natural beauty, and she knows it too.

How To Get a Con Girlfriend: A lesson in overcoming B.O. and desperation

Step one: Come prepared for the heat.

Make sure to bring an assortment of heavy duty, extra strength deodorants in bar or spray form. Keep them at hand in case of increased heat or physical activity, like group hugs, spontaneous pokemon tournaments or intense glomping. Remember, posing for photos can be strenuous, especially when your prop is as tall as you are.
You are bound to sweat so wearing another layer underneath your costume will conveniently soak up excess moisture. Donning a thin undershirt will prevent drenching your homemade duds as you compete in LARP tournaments, battle fellow fans to reach a rare anime series on sale in the Dealers Room, or flail your limbs wildly at the outdoor rave.

Step two: Become one with the costume.

You didn’t spend countless late nights stitching by the glow of your Wii console to look like a schmuck at the convention, so make sure you can rock your threads. Details are everything. Take the time to double check your costume for any missing elements because you’re only as valuable as the authenticity of your footwear, gear and make-up. Bring extra supplies along in the devastating event that a face smearing mishap occurs or your key sword is damaged in an overenthusiastic run in with the heartless.

Getting hot in that mask? Removing it will spell your failure. If one con girl spies you looking more like you than your character then you can wave goodbye to epic, fantasy themed sex. No girl will bestow those memorized lines of undying love from your favourite series if you aren’t 100% legit.
Step three: Try to have some class. This time.

If you see a sexy Kairi or Riku walk by with their tits popping out of their tops, avoid openly staring and stalking them for the remainder of the weekend. If you get excited, try to hide it and momentarily distract yourself by looking at the guy in the skin tight team rocket costume. If you do happen to get in close proximity with a hottie aim your sights on her face instead of her rack and prevent a nasty reaction.
In reality a woman can still go Love Hina on your ass and slug you into the parking lot if she thinks you’re a jerk. There is still time to seduce her into your hotel room and play out scenes from your cherished final episodes, but you’re never going to get there if you’re too obvious. You may look like a sex-starved Otaku, but try not to act like one.

Back to Reality.

If these tips seem likely to guarantee nabbing a con girlfriend then there is something seriously wrong with today’s anime obsessed youth. At my first Anime North convention on May 23rd I sat in on the latter half of a panel discussion literally called “How To Get a Con Girlfriend.” With the exception of step three (which I had to throw in) this was a sample of the types of suggestions doled out by a panel to a group of guys. It was a very strange and enlightening lesson in male cosplaying culture.

A guy dressed as Master Roshi from Dragon Ball Z actually enquired about how to avoid odours offensive to the opposite sex while travelling around with a giant turtle shell strapped to his back. Despite the fact that B.O. was as thick as smog in high traffic areas of the convention body odour should be the least of a guy’s worries. How about….oh I don’t know….just act naturally and talk to women?

Another guy wanted to know how to not appear desperate when meeting women at the convention and relayed that con women he meets tend to be more desperate than he is, proven by the fact that he was able to “miraculously” have sex with one. This line of thought just made me sorry for the entire room…especially when this story was met with wild applause, cheering and one excited male who rushed over and high-fived the guy for his apparent achievement. He wasn’t even bad looking, but obviously thought that he wasn’t worth much, if a girl fucking a guy who writes fan fiction is miraculous.
What I got out of this discussion was a glimpse into the insecurities men may feel because their interests don’t adhere to mainstream male gender constructed pastimes of competitive sports, per se.

Men who enjoy anime culture are not hideous mutants that repel every woman they see. The fact that some guys who are so absorbed in anime can feel that way indicates to me that they struggle with their self esteem. The panel resembled a grade three classroom where boys assumed girls were foreign creatures and unattainable due to their strange taste for cartoons.

A hobby is a hobby. Essentially the guy underneath all the gear and props is what a woman will be getting to know. Finding a girl who is interesting to talk to at a cosplay event is the same as meeting a girl at a party or a bar. He may not be wearing a pokemon trainer outfit and she may not be dressed as bulbasaur but that's obviously beside the point. And wearing deodorant may help, but it definitely won't guarantee capture.

Happy IWD! Being the door

“Feminism 101: Instead of being the doormat get up and be the door,” says Lillian Allen, looking up at row upon row of cheering women during the International Women’s Day (IWD) Rally.

Her poetry articulates our struggles. “Laugh when they try to bend your back down low.”

We’re in the OISE building at 252 Bloor St. and its starting to rain outside. It’s about 11:30 a.m. on March 7th and inside there are mothers, students, grandmothers, immigrant workers, activists, children, husbands, boyfriends, friends, sons, and daughters. They may not be here for the same reasons by there is a common thread running throughout this auditorium. They are here to support the women that they know, the women that they are, and those they might never meet.

As one speaker bluntly puts it, “We all came off different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”

The Toronto theme of IWD is “Good Jobs, Dignity for All.”

A good job is something that many women are forced to do without. Minimum wage is $8.00 in Canada. Think about a mother working full time shifts that receives a mere eight dollars for her labour. Think about raising children on that kind of salary. Think about being in debt, paying off loans, and making that kind of money. That’s the reality for many and that’s why IWD is fighting to raise minimum wage to $10.00.

“We will not be quiet and we will not be ignored,” says Judy Vashti Persad, an organizer of the event and our first speaker of the morning. “We must continue to be a movement for all women.”

Now it is time for our morning history lesson. Introduce Rosie the riveter. You know that feminist icon that you see on poster, t-shirts, etc? That woman in the red bandana, flexing her bicep in her blue factory uniform, well she was a real person.
Long before she became an icon of the American feminist movement she was the propaganda poster girl for WWII, urging women to get out into the workforce. This morning two women in bandanas converse on stage in an insightful dialogue about the woman behind the poster, the “Real Rosie.” Rose Will Monroe worked in an aircraft factory in Michigan in 1920 and was featured in a promotional home war effort film, as well as a poster campaign. She even had a theme song, “Rosie the Riveter,” which was performed acoustically by Ryerson Free Press editor Nora Loreto.

“But if war made men out of boys it made feminists out of women,” says a “Rosie” on the stage. As women entered the workforce at the time, some factories started offering services such as daycare. “I wonder what it would take for them to do that today?” enquires one Rosie, igniting audience laughter. This led women’s movements towards unionization for better conditions in the workplace. Today, “Rosie became what all women made her, a symbol of women’s power in the workplace.”

But there is a lack of power over our education. Liana Salvador, the Vice President of Education at Ryerson University’s Student Union, takes the stage to articulate her realizations about facing academic obstacles. “High tuition fees disproportionately affect women,” she says. She recounts her experience as a woman of color, working in low paying jobs, in debt, to finance her education. “My government is giving me a really shoddy deal.”

Currently earning her second University degree, Liana is over $50,000 in debt. “Hey Dalton, I didn’t make as much this summer, can I pay half? That’s not going to happen,” she says.

Instead of channeling money into the military, the Canadian government should be funding our education system, because debt is crippling female students. “We need to stop being underpaid, undervalued and under funded,” says Salvador.

Next to take the stage is a woman who discusses the value of IWD, and asks women to consider contributing an hour’s worth of their pay, or any amount within their ability, towards funding this event. She explains the meaning behind each Canadian bill. For example, the fifty dollar bill features the Famous Five-Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Irene Parlby, Henrietta Muir Edwards, and Louise McKinney- who fought for the “Persons” Case, giving women civil rights and the status of person under British Privy Council.
She says that because the government hardly wants women thinking of feminism every time they purchase a coffee, they imprint a monumental achievement in women’s right on a bill that some of us rarely see.

The twenty dollar bill, featuring Elizabeth II, Queen of England, is one woman that will never have to worry about her pension or replacing a hip, says our speaker, to swells of laughter from the audience. “I hope there are a few bills floating around now,” she says, with a wide smile, as jingling buckets pass from hand to hand.

Two women who work at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre stand beside each other, telling stories of sexual abuse that span miles. The auditorium is silent, as their voices confront the pain, the numbness and the healing. They speak of abuse at the hands of family and strangers, the depression, the sense of betrayal towards those that should have loved them.

One woman is older, with a long braid of grey and white locks hanging down her back. The other is young, in a t-shirt and jeans with a mass of small curls framing her face. She says, “My heart aches that even my brother didn’t spare me.” The older woman answers, “Neither did mine.”

“I called and called the shelters. ‘Sorry, no bed again. Call again.’”

“I swore I would never let my heart feel again.”

“All I longed for was to be loved.”

“It happened again, it must be my fault.”

“Afraid to trust.”

“Afraid to leave my daughter with anyone.”

“I am proud of the feminist I have become.”

The other answers, “It was never my fault.”

Our last performer before we head out to march, with signs and banners in hand, is Michelle St. Bernard, a.k.a. Belladonna. Her lyrics hinge together, smashing into one another, like cars on a freight train. The links are powerful and the impact is heavy, forcing you to see the tracks her mind has followed. “I’m so low in the barrel that you don’t believe it.”

“I’m so low on the totem pole I’m about to grow roots.”

The tracks end with, “I’m so strong, cuz you’re so strong, and we’re so strong.”

“We got to get up.”

It may be raining, but we get up.

International Women's Day

International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated globally on March 8th to celebrate women’s accomplishments but also to remember the battles we have fought for rights. These days many young women take for granted what the second wave of feminism achieved in improving equality.

They may think that women’s rights have been won. We can vote right? Many of us can get an education, we can work in careers that were formerly reserved for men, we can get divorced and own property. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Think about the fact that in 2009, women still aren’t paid for equal work of equal value in the workplace. Think about the glass ceiling that still exists in jobs where motherhood ultimately devalues women’s contributions on the workplace. If a father goes to pick up their sick child he’s a saint. If a mother does it, it’s commonplace, hardly noteworthy, or even frowned upon as negligence of one’s job. In terms of reproductive control we still face obstacles.

Don’t forget that in Canada there is still conflict over a woman’s right to autonomy over her body. On March 5th, 2008 the “Unborn Victims of Crime Act” passed second reading in Parliament (Bill C-484). This would amend the criminal code and lay separate charges in the death of a fetus when a pregnant woman is attacked. This is a slippery slope towards criminalizing abortion, and giving personhood rights to fetus’, which infringes on women’s rights, as outlined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In this day and age, our bodies are still not our own. And if you think about women’s rights globally, it seems there is a steep hill to climb. If we look outside our own privileges, whether they are based on class, race, ability, sexual orientation or religion, the world isn’t as rosy and equal as we thought it was.

IWD is a time to remember our past, but also to celebrate what we have done, and work towards future growth. There are different Women’s Day themes, marches and gatherings all over the world on Saturday, and in Canada the theme of 2009 is: “Strong Leadership. Strong Women. Strong World: Equality.” Watch this video for our opinions.

In Toronto there will be a Rally at the OISE Auditorium 252 Bloor St. (St. George Subway Station) at 11 a.m. with speakers and performers to hear before the march. The theme of the rally is "The Rising of the Women is the Rising of Us All !"

Thousands of women’s groups and unions will join together, marching to Ryerson University, where the IWD Fair will be held from 3-5 p.m. in the Student Centre (55 Gould St.).

So come out if you want to rally for women’s rights, because justice for all women is something that we can work for, instead of burying our heads in the sand. It’s as simple as believing in equality for all people.

Shake it on the subway

Imagine you're sitting on the subway reading your dose of Metro and you look up to see a guy with a fro dancing. "WTF." But then someone else joins him. And another. And another. There is no music playing in the subway car, but they all have their MP3 players on and are dancing like its nobody's business.

That would be pretty damn wild, right. I dare say it would be fucking awesome.

That's what Improv Toronto is going to be doing this Saturday, from 3-6 p.m.

Its their second annual Subway Dance Party and if you're brave enough to dance in front of a car full of everyday commuters you can meet up with the dance crew at 3 p.m. sharp, at the giant horseman statue in Queen's Park.

From there everyone divides into jivable teams and heads to Musuem station. Teams will board separate subway cars and scatter throughout the train, acting as if no one knows one another.

Then one by one, gradually, the dancing begins, all the way down to Union and up to Wellesley station. The entire team simultaneously evacuates and crosses to the other side of the tracks, following the loop back to Musuem.
If this sounds like the type of body-shaking mission that interests you, email http://improvintoronto.com/contact-us/ to get involved.

Apparently 200 were involved last year and its very feasible that participants will swell in ranks. The goal of Improv Toronto is to "pull pranks" that jolt reality for everyday people in a fun, entertaining, positive way.

They have been the masterminds behind some really amazing stunts around the city, like the infamous no-pants subway ride. So feel free to jump around, get down, and move to your own (outwardly silent) music on Saturday, if you dare.