The Good People Podcast

Evana De Lune - The power of dance, and self love

Andy Fithall Season 1 Episode 27

Since the day she was born, Evana De Lune was destined for the stage.  

Performance is in her DNA,  having been dancing since a very young age, but a chance trip to a burlesque class, opened her eyes to a whole new world of performance.
She was so hooked by what she saw, she has been performing as a burlesque dancer ever since.

The entertainment industry was shattered when the pandemic set in,  but where there's will, there's a way, and Evana took to online in an attempt to salvage her career, and to keep doing what she loves the most.  

The plan worked, and her social media profile exploded, giving her both platforms to continue performing, but also a fan base who were eager for her live performances  once lockdowns finally ended.


Evana is one of Australia's most sought after burlesque performers, regularly flying interstate to perform,  and also to teach the art form to others.

What she discovered when she started teaching though, is our favourite part. 

The people attending the classes often have a story to tell, themselves. 
They come to find (or re-find) their sensuality and sexuality after often, very traumatic experiences, like long abusive relationships. 

The dance students give themselves permission to move their bodies in new ways and be free of their past, which results in huge improvement in personal worth and self love. 

Evana has taught people as old as 75,  proving that sexuality, confidence, and self worth are not limited by age. 

The podcast explores the history of burleque, and how it has evolved over the years, and how it's dazzling displays of provocative dance, is still as relevant today as it was all those years ago. 
We also talk about how important self love is, follow your dreams, and to never give up. 

Enjoy!

If you would like to find out more about Evana De Lune, or book into one of her workshops, you can head to her website 
https://www.evanadelune.com

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Evana: My mom would used to tell everyone that I was going to be a dancer for the Moulin Rouge at the age of like Which is so inappropriate because if you think about the Moulin Rouge, if you don't know the Moulin Rouge, it is very, very raunchy dancing. And it is, I mean, it's pretty much what I do now. I ended up dating a stripper and she took me to my very first burlesque class.

And I realized immediately that that's what my life was from that day on. And yeah, I, I've pretty much done it ever since. You don't need to look at your phone, you don't need to do anything, just be here with me for the next 10 minutes, you might love it, you might hate it, but let's go on a ride, let's see what happens.

Personally, when I teach burlesque and I see burlesque I say if it can wiggle, if it can jiggle, I wanna see it, I just wanna see it all. They've come out of very, very traumatic relationships. She was in an abusive relationship for 20 years, and she was finding herself for the very first time. They are so empowered and excited to be able to express themselves in a new way.

A lot of people are going to give up. A lot of people are just going to give up. What are you going to do? That's what I want. I want people to love themselves. I think there's so much power in love and if there's anything I can do in this world, it's... I would love for everyone to love themselves more. Hi, I'm Evanna De Loon and this is The Good People Podcast.

Andy: Welcome to another episode of The Good People Podcast brought to you by In Other Good News. My name is Andy, and if you've got a collar on, I hope you're gonna, you're gonna have to loosen it because things are gonna get hot in the studio. Today I've got one of Australia's most sought after burlesque dancers in coming to have a chat today.

She's making some incredible impact, not only in her work as a performer, but also in helping other people through the medium of dance and exploration. So she's coming today to bring all of the glitz and glamor. And she's going to dramatically increase the sequence count of this podcast.

Welcome to the podcast, Ivana De Loon. 

Evana: Thank you very much. I'm very excited to be here. 

Andy: I'm excited that you're here too, because it's firstly the first burlesque dancer we've had on the show which is great. But also it's great because you're doing something that I think will bring a lot of intrigue.

To people. I hope so. 

Evana: Yeah. 

Andy: I hope so. It's going to bring a lot of intrigue because. I'm going to answer a question for people straight off the top. Why is Ivana DeLune a good person through burlesque dancing? And I can tell you after you hear this story, there are so many reasons. So, so stay tuned.

We're going to talk about first, I mean, you're, I didn't want to call you a veteran because I thought that is that derogatory? 

Evana: I don't take offence to that. I, I like the idea that I'm, you know, knowledgeable, wise. Okay. 

Andy: All right. I wasn't sure if it was going to be offensive to call you a veteran of dance, but you are a veteran of dance.

You've been dancing for 20 something years. Yes. Yes. But to the observer then, those who are watching 20 odd years for you started when you were only like three years old. Yes. So, so you've been, but you've explored lots of. Areas of dance, haven't you, like you're a competent in, 

Evana: I feel like all of them, which probably isn't true because I feel like the more I do dancing and the more I explore dancing, the more I find out that there's more dance that I haven't even heard of, which is crazy because I feel like I've done it all, but I clearly haven't.

Andy: think that's common in a lot of areas, isn't it? A lot of art and performance, the more you know, the more you realize you don't know. Yes. Yeah, that's fantastic. So you and we're going to come, we're going to talk about your history and how you got into that in a minute. And we're also going to talk to talk about some amazing workshops that you run where you teach other people burlesque dancing and the impact that that's having on these people taking these, these classes.

Yes. That was the hook for me. When I heard your story I thought that's fantastic. And that's why I want to talk to you, but in the true essence of burlesque, that was my tease. I'm going to come back to that later. And I want to first talk about actually I just want to talk about burlesque.

Because I think it's, I think for a lot of people it's like, what 

Evana: is burlesque? Yeah, what is it? Yeah, what's it all about? And you have no idea? Well, 

Andy: I feel like I have some idea. And I've tried to explain it, I feel, in the best of my knowledge, but I feel like you're, well, I mean, I've read it's described as slowing down getting naked.

Evana: Well, that's, that's one aspect for sure. Historically speaking, that, that wasn't always the case. Burlesque comes from a very, very rich background, so it's most... back to the 1800s and it came from the Victorian era. So what they used to do was they'd pull an opera from the times and they would basically make a parody of it.

So they would bring in and see an opera that was very popular at the time. And they would just start adding ludity, all sorts of Tantalizing tails, they would change it up to make it vulgar and eventually it added in a little bit of striptease as well. So they used to do these things called leg shows where they would pick up their skirts and flash parts of their bodies.

There was lots of gender bending. There was lots of, yeah, subverting the norms and just creating a mockery pretty much. That's what burlesque is all about. It's a mockery. A lot of comedy. So much comedy. 

Andy: And in fact, I think in those early days, it was a lot because it was aiming for something.

Provocative, but provocative can be in many forms. It doesn't have to be sexually provocative, it can be provocative like satire. 

Evana: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like provocative is such a good word to describe what it is as well. Provocative is correct. That is exactly what it is. It's basically people were trying to be political.

They were trying to be, yeah, over the top, ridiculous, extravagant, just trying to change people's opinions on things, but in a way that they could relate to or a way that would make them. Obscenely upset, honestly. But from there, pretty much, it started in that Victorian era and then a woman named Lydia Thompson, she had an incredible life.

She's an incredible woman. She took her burlesque troupe, which was called the British Blondes and they went over from from England over to America to perform burlesque for the first time on American soil. And the Americans didn't really know how to take it. I'll be honest. She received lots of negative reviews, lots of very, very poor reviews.

I think, yeah, if you, if you read into her life. You can really see how burlesque was taken at the time and honestly, sometimes it's still taken to, to this day, but yeah, people were saying, Oh gosh, this is lewd. This is vulgar. This is disgusting. But at the same time, what are you doing at the end of the week?

Cause we all have to go see it. So it was very. Yeah, provocative, as you said. So people were now seeing these performances for the first time where they would wear these, sometimes they would wear men's suits and they would do, you know, a very over the top display or they would wear Victorian gowns with mesh body stockings underneath and they would flash parts of their bodies.

And when the Americans saw that, all of the performers at the time decided, okay. We love that part of this performance. We want to start adding striptease and we want to start adding a little bit more raunchy factors into what we're doing. So they saw that and they decided, yes, we're doing a little bit more striptease.

So it wasn't always striptease. In fact, burlesque wasn't synonymous with striptease. at all back in the day, it was more about the parody and it was more about the extravaganza. But when it hit American soil, they, they wanted to get naked, which I completely understand. I can really relate to that message.

Around the same time, late 1800s, there was a performer called little Egypt who came over from the streets of Cairo and did a performance at the Chicago world fair where she did what we know as belly dancing.

Yeah, I'm trying not to say this in the most vulgar way, which is, I don't know what limits of the kind of language I can use now that I think about it, but I'm just gonna, you know, I'll leave some to the imagination. Let's go here. But basically, they had never seen a woman move like this before. They've never seen someone ripple their body or undulate or shake or gyrate in a way.

That little Egypt did. And so all of the performers at the time watched this and they could see how the audience was reacting. And so they decided that they were going to take little tiny bits from each of the little performance styles and they started to add their own flair onto it. And they created a new style of dancing, which is called the hoochie coochie dance.

And if you don't know the translation to that. I'm going to let you Google it, because, yeah, that's another it's, 

Andy: is it something you wouldn't Google at work? 

Evana: Yeah, maybe not. But I mean, it depends on where you work. If it's my workplace, that's a regularly Googled term, but yes the hoochie coochie dance, which is.

A very funny style of dance, but basically it, it was, it turned into the bump and grind. So it was very low. It was very oozy. It was very shaky, very much within the hips and the chest and all of those wonderful movements. And then we moved through the 1920s. We have the great depression. We have people wanting to take dance and put it underground because we've got prohibition as well.

We've got. All of these speakeasies opening up. We've got people trying to stay sane. We've got people trying to basically stay liberated trying to find joy. So it was actually cheaper for a lot of men to buy a ticket to go see a theater show than it was for them to go home and take a train to go see their wife and family.

And so you ask yourself, What would you do? And I know I'd be a terrible husband. I'd be in the theaters every night. So men often fell asleep at the back of the theater and then would just get up and go right to work again. That would be like a common thing, especially in the Great Depression. If you're thinking about money, if you're thinking about trying to make a living, you want to cut costs wherever you can.

And if you can see a naked woman in the meantime, sounds pretty good to me. And accommodation. Yeah. Yeah. It's lush. 

Andy: Very good. And so I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of cultural history in the dance. I can definitely see where belly dancing like integrates because yes, that the movement and the stuff from belly dancing is obviously has translated and I didn't realize, but now I completely get it.

Yeah. I know that the, the burlesque. scene took a bit of a hit through the liberation period, like in the sixties and things, didn't it? Because, because we're like, and I've read somewhere that we're somewhere provocative could have been just flicking a glove. Yes. Once the sexually sort of liberated period started, they had 

Evana: to up the game.

Absolutely. That was pretty much when. Strip clubs started to open up because if you think about past the 60s You've got as you said the liberation period you've got the free love movement You've got people wanting to get naked for no reason at all Nobody wants anyone to tell them what they can do with their bodies or what they can't do with their bodies anymore and so pushing the boundaries became Just the norm.

So it gets to a point where why would you go and see a burlesque show? Yeah, why would you why would you go see a burlesque show when people are covering up all their little bits when you can just Turn around and look down the street and someone's naked running, you know, it's it just didn't really make a lot of sense so then it meant that also with censorship laws changing and Often censorship in venues is often related to liquor licensing.

So with liquor licensing changing and people being able to push the boundaries of that, they were able to open up strip club, which meant they were getting naked in all of the places and providing a more intimate style of entertainment. So a lot of those performers transitioned into those places and the men that.

Watched those kinds of shows also followed along. So that's when the club style started to open up and burlesque started to die around that time as well. But that didn't mean that it was the end. Burlesque still, I suppose, pitted along. There wasn't very much of it. But once we hit about the 90s, which is a huge gap of time, if you think about it.

We see the women who wanted to express themselves and wanted to Basically, yeah, liberate themselves and make money off themselves and just express themselves really at the, at the core of it actually opened up this space again and started flooding into this space to perform burlesque and do burlesque and express themselves.

And so around the 90s as well, if you think about how sexuality has become a lot more acceptable, it was very unacceptable for a woman to go and see a burlesque show. Previously like 50s and before it that was not okay, or you would definitely I mean it wasn't really okay for men to go watch those shows either, but I mean men seem to get away with a whole lot more these days, but that's socially yes socially for a woman.

It would be yeah quite bad. So if you look at the 90s. Now we see a lot more women taking up these spaces, in fact, most of the burlesque audiences that I have are mainly women these days, which is awesome. 

Andy: Yeah, and what would you say the persuasion of the audience is? Are they are these heterosexual women?

Are these queer women? What are the... I don't know 

Evana: many heterosexual women anymore. 

Andy: So the audience is filled with, with queer ladies? 

Evana: Yeah, often, often. I mean, there definitely is. There definitely is. It's a mix. It's going to be a mix no matter where you go. There are a lot of dedicated queer spaces.

So yeah, I get pretty much anything under the sun these days, which is awesome. Well, 

Andy: I think too, at the moment, like we've sort of going through a, another wave of sexual terms because now it's okay to have. Like, the, the binary scenario is, is becoming, you know, less, having less of a grip on our way of seeing sexuality, like, the more we become okay with.

People have various levels of whatever fluid whatever it means that you know Like what you might have been seen as a straight woman before but actually you still enjoyed a little bit of you know Yeah, whatever whatever your kink is if I can use the term, I believe that's appropriate Yeah, so yeah I think that's it's a really great period for that that people being more Open to being able to express totally that sort of thing.

Why do you reckon people here's a good one Why do you reckon people? Do you feel ashamed or embarrassed about being like aroused by a sexually charged show? You know, what, what is the thing? What's the thing? Yeah, 

Evana: that's a heated question. I think it all, I mean, everything is interpersonal when it comes down to it.

I think when you see something that is provocative or you see something that Can potentially arouse you it is often quite a reflection on the self And if you haven't come to terms with how you feel about this stuff, it's going to feel uncomfortable And I think yeah, I think I read something about triggering Behaviors and being in a triggering situation.

If you haven't had the time to work out how you cope with a situation like that, you can often shut down. So a lot of people don't like what I do and that's okay. That's fine. I'm okay with that. It doesn't change my job. I'm still working. It's fine. But yeah, a lot of people, if they haven't had an opportunity to really reflect and become comfortable with sexuality, because that is quite a new thing and I, I have come leaps and bounds in the past.

10, 15 years with my sexuality, you know, growing up in quite a, a liberated community was, I'm so grateful for that. But a lot of people haven't had that opportunity. And if you think about, you know, the span of life, we have people who are living up to a hundred. A hundred years of difference in experience can be so huge if you've experienced the 50s or if you've experienced the 80s or if you've experienced, you know, whatever time era it was, it was a very different time and it was, you could, you would see people get, you know, assaulted for, you know, their sexuality and that's still the case in a lot of different places.

I think 

Andy: assaulted is kind, isn't it? Like being assaulted is kind, like severely. And 

Evana: yeah, I see what you mean. I thought you meant it was a nice thing to do. I was like, okay, is this really the good people book? 

Andy: This is see, the thing is, once you listen for a little bit, then we get into the dark stuff. Yeah.

Oh 

Evana: my gosh. 

Andy: No, I think like a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. I read some really great books that the trauma cleaner, Sam Sandra, what's the name? I can't think of a name off the top of my head, but like she talks about the eighties and yeah. Oh my God. 

Evana: Yeah. So it's horrific. I think if you look at the burlesque scene, it's quite often synonymous or.

In conjunction, in conjunction with the drag scene and they went through so much in the 80s as well. So if you look at the sexuality movement within the past 40 years, like even when I was in high school, it wasn't okay to be gay. Like I know that because of my specific experiences through going through high school.

So seeing how far we've come, we still have so far to go. Yeah, agreed. It's such a beautiful thing to be able to know that we are now kind of the majority, which is exciting because I think realistically we've probably been the majority this whole time. It's just not something that's been openly talked about.

And I think when it comes to sexuality, it's something that's so interpersonal and so attached to the soul that when people are confronted with it, they often don't know how to react because it, it is so. I suppose exposing and I think if you're put in a position where you're not ready to have that conversation with yourself It's gonna be hard.

And so I understand why people shut down or want to detach themselves from that. That's fine And to that, you know, I say well when you're ready, I'll be here. I'll always be here ready to take my clothes off Don't worry 

Andy: well, no, thank you for saying for saying that though because I think That will actually resonate with a lot of people.

And I, it's very much exploration of self, isn't it? And I have to say too, like, there's a lot of When you see someone who's good at their job, like yourself, and the way they can move, there's a lot of power in that movement, isn't there? Like, because it's movement that isn't... Standard. Yes. People don't walk around doing these sort of things.

Even going out dancing, I mean a lot of it, it is filtering actually down into some of these dances. Yeah. Dance moves in the clubs, whatever. Because I'm always at the clubs. But, but there is so much power. Do you find that it's a very powerful thing for you, the moving like that in front of people?

Because sometimes you're quite intimate as well. Oh 

Evana: gosh, yeah. Yeah, so intimate. I love it. Yeah, it's definitely super powerful. Super duper powerful. I think being able to have intuitive and I suppose very what's the word I'm looking for? It's, it's having the intention and moving with intention.

That is powerful. I think knowing all of the ways that I move and why I'm moving the way that I move. Is so powerful. And I think there's something really powerful as well with being able to hold someone's attention for that long in this day and age. I know I get distracted very easily. So it's nice to have a moment where we have, you know, 3 to 10 minutes of someone's pure attention and being able to say, Hey, just stop for a moment and just experience this.

I think live entertainment can be so powerful for Yes. Saying you don't need to look at your phone. You don't need to do anything. Just be here with me for the next 10 minutes. You might love it. You might hate it, but let's go on a ride. Let's see what happens. 

Andy: Yeah. And just, yeah, be in the moment. Be in the moment with it.

And it's, and it's going to be provocative. And it's maybe going to you know, put you on the edge of your seat. Or maybe it puts you squarely in the middle of your seat. I don't know. There's a lot of people who are very comfortable with it. So that's fantastic. Now, what I want to do is I want to rewind and I want to talk about how you got into dancing in the first place.

You were telling me, you know, you've been, you've always been a mover and groover. Absolutely. Since you had 

Evana: popped out. Pretty much. I think I actually, the first move I ever did was a back bend, which I, within, I think, an hour of being born, I lifted my head and looked around. So I was ready. I was like, where's my first.

You know, audience, I need to find them. But I started with gymnastics. Nurses, gather round. Yes, I'm ready to dance. I started with gymnastics. So, my parents, I am so grateful for what they did with my life. Setting all of us up for as much success as possible. They were very committed to making sure that not only did we get a good education but we had good physical movement.

Because I think those two things, I mean, you've got a body. You need to move it. So we started with gymnastics and I started that, I think probably. I would have been around three and very quickly my coach pulled my mother aside and said, you need to put this girl in dancing. She cannot stop moving. You need to do something with her because I, yeah, I had too much energy.

And I think when I look back, it's very much the undiagnosed ADHD that went very, very strong with me. Yeah. But yeah, so they took me to dancing. So I started ballet. I started jazz. I started tap around that time. I also did 50 other sports at the same time. I was like one of those kids that juggled a million things at once, which was very good for me.

I was very, very active, but yeah, I started dancing and I did dancing all the way through all the way through school. So I did jazz tap ballet, hip hop, contemporary commercial, anything and everything you can think of, I did it. And when I, once I hit around. Eight or nine, my mom would go to the grocery store.

I remember this so clearly. My mom would, used to tell everyone that I was going to be a dancer for the Moulin Rouge at the age of like eight, which is so inappropriate because if you think about the Moulin Rouge, if you don't know the Moulin Rouge, it is very, very raunchy dancing. And it is, I mean, it's pretty much what I do now.

So go figure. She had a very, very good eye, but, but yeah, I, I grew up like a bean pole. So I was very, very. Skinny. I was very tall. So I had really, really long gangly legs. And so everyone knew like, Oh, that's going to be a show girl one day. Yes. And my gymnastics coach and my dance teachers hated each other.

They never met, but they hated each other because it was two opposing postures. So one of them is very hyper extended over the top. That's. That's gymnastics and then ballet is very tucked, neat and tight. And so those two things didn't work out very well together, but it actually made for a really good showgirl posture because everything is just long and elongated.

exaggerated. So I, I managed to put those to good use. I hit about 18 and then school ended. And I think like a lot of dancers, if any dancers are listening to this, they might relate. You hit about 18 and you kind of have to make a really big choice for yourself in that your dance career is either over, you either become a dance teacher or you become a.

Competitive performer. And when I say competitive performer, it means if you go into the professional dance industry, it's going to be competitive because you have to audition for every role. You have to prove yourself and work out how you're going to fit in within the industry, which is very difficult.

And I am not a competitive person at the core. 

Andy: And when you say competitive, are you talking about like dance competitions or are you talking like backup 

Evana: dancers? And I'm just talking, going to an audition and being up against. Every other girl for this for the one role. Yes, and I could never do that. I couldn't do it I can't do it.

Even when I did athletics as a little kid five years old I would slow down at the finish line and my mom would say why did you slow down and I would say because Mia said she wanted to win, and I would just do that, and I think that's also just a little queer me trying to make friends. Just always, I always wanted girls to win, that's just bottom line, so I, I, I hate the idea of a competition, because I just can't, I can't be up against anyone.

Yeah, I don't like it. No, it doesn't, it doesn't make sense to me. Yeah. I decided at that point that my dance career was over, which is crazy. But it happens. It happens so frequently and I didn't want to get into teaching. I just said, okay, no worries. I'm going to go focus on my studies. So I went and studied a bachelor of speech pathology.

And I always have to enunciate that because if you don't, someone's going to pull you up and say, are you sure you get that right? Yeah, I know. Bachelor of speech pathology. And so I did three years of that. In that time, unfortunately, my mom passed away. And that was a big reason as to why I was doing speech pathology because my mom was a teacher and she was specifically in the reading recovery.

sector. So she was big on language and she was big on teaching and guiding people through their, their reading and all of that. So it was You were inspired by your mum. I was trying to please my mum, I think. So I think I was trying to. Connect with her on, on a more intimate level, I suppose. And it was a nice thing that we could talk about at the end of the day.

So when she passed away and I was doing that work, I quickly realized I didn't know why I was doing it. So I ended up dropping out of that, which I'm really good at doing. I'm really good at studying and then dropping out. You gotta be good at something. Yeah. And I once I learned the coursework, so three years, the last year was just placement and I didn't want to go to work.

I think the, the placement. Sort of thing around university and school is a bit, a bit messed up because you're working for nothing and you have to be able to support yourself. I couldn't do it at the time. It's very difficult. So I dropped out and I ended up just working in retail to, you know, get by.

And then eventually I ended up dating a stripper. Right. And she took me to my very first burlesque class and I realized immediately that that's what my life was from that day on. And yeah, I, I've pretty much done it ever since. 

Andy: Wow. Yeah. So they took you, your, your partner at the time was a stripper, so at like a.

King Street strip club. Yeah, quite literally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then why were they going to 

Evana: burlesque? So they're quite similar in terms of what the art form basically is. Burlesque is basically historical stripping if you look at it like that. Yeah, stripping wouldn't exist without burlesque.

So once you Think about why someone would want to get into that. If anyone's sort of into anything vintage or if they're into, you know, old Hollywood, they would. Yeah, probably be interested in burlesque as well. 

Andy: Yeah, I visit did people ever turn up to burlesque for the cultural like Because you wear a lot of costumes.

Mm hmm. Some of those costumes are periodic. Mm hmm. Is that the right a period a periodical pair? Yeah. Yeah from a period. Yes, they are from do people come for that 

Evana: Yeah, absolutely. There's so many reasons why people do burlesque. I love the reason of historical costuming. I have a friend who actually just makes the most intricate corsets and the most intricate historically correct clothing.

And I think she doesn't necessarily perform that much. She just loves that aspect of it. Loves the costumes? Yeah, there's so many different reasons. 

Andy: Yeah, and you sew a lot of your 

Evana: own costumes, don't you? I sure do. I'm running out of time for it these days, but I do love creating costumes and things like that.

So it's, yeah, there's so many reasons. You probably have to though, wouldn't you? If you want to make money in the industry, it's A good idea to do everything yourself. Yeah. Which 

Andy: is hard. It'd be very expensive to buy. I imagine period, period 

Evana: costume. Yeah. Even if you don't want something that's period accurate, cause you don't need to do that.

A lot of people prefer new age burlesque, which is just basically you can do anything you want for any reason. I love classic burlesque. So I love looking at the history and finding different eras and different. And what they did and putting my own spin on it. So I love being able to look back and find something and recreate it in my own way.

Andy: Yeah, that's great. And this is helping for people, I think listening to distinguish the difference between, I guess like a classic. King Street Strip Club. Yeah. Versus a burlesque show. 

Evana: Yeah. Well, there's, there's a few things that are different about it. I think specifically it's going to be the environment.

The environment is usually quite different. A burlesque show, you probably won't get the opportunity to have someone be your intimate dancer. Whereas at a strip club, you can pay a girl and take her aside and have your, yeah, have your own moment. You're probably not going to have the opportunity to do that at a burlesque show.

You will also probably be in. An audience. So rather than it being quite scattered, there also probably won't be a poll. I mean, you, you might be lucky sometimes there are, which is great. I think that there are so many talented pole dancers out there, but yeah, that it's quite a different, 

Andy: you might not have.

Oh, they're in there. It's there for the, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it seems to be part of, sort of, I guess, most of the acts, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you, like, you kind of use the floor a bit more in the space, right? 

Evana: Yeah, I, I love working with what I've got. Every performance space is so different, so you actually never know what you're really walking into.

Even if they tell you the dimensions and everything, you might walk in on the day and they've decided that they've ripped up the whole stage and you have to dance on this tiny little podium and you say, all right, sure, no worries. That sounds like fun. I think you're really 

Andy: resonating with the musicians out there as well.

Yeah, I know. That's a classic musician story, you're turning up and the stage is not. Even doesn't exist. 

Evana: Yes. Yes. And honestly, we're in a lot of band rooms. So we, we do the same spaces. So I, yes, I, we are very much like musicians, but we play the music with our bodies. Yeah, well, there 

Andy: you go. That's so the thing is a lot of, cause it is a creative art is very much.

It's a something you have to really work on to get good at because you can't some people are very lucky, they're great at dancing, but but you know, you can't just roll up and, and expect to be able to dance like this. Like this is a proper art form as is being a musician or any other, any of the creative arts.

So and I love how there's the costume element because it's sort of just. It's, I mean, I'm going to come back to this a little bit later, the difference between online sexuality online and different things that are happening there versus a live performance in a burlesque. But I think it's a really intriguing area and I think also coming back to what you said before about people being comfortable in themselves, then I think if once you can get to that spot, You can really appreciate the art itself and the effort that goes into, do you have to keep fit?

Evana: Well, you don't have to. Absolutely. That's, I feel like that's a myth. There, every body is a good body for burlesque. I think being able to move helps with. Obviously the dancing portion of it. I keep very fit just because I work so, so much, and it's a very physical job for me, especially with my teachings and my workshops.

I teach basically six, over six hours of dancing during the day. And then I run off to a gig and do X amount of performances a night. So it's kind of not even a choice for me to keep fit. It just kind of happens, but. You don't need to keep fit. I think that's a really big myth in terms of what burlesque is.

I personally have seen absolutely every body shape on stage and they are celebrated equally and with so much love. I personally, when I teach burlesque and I see burlesque I say, if it can wiggle, if it can jiggle, I want to see it. I just want to see it all. So. Playing to your strengths. Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. And there's strength in every person. I think you need to just look within and find what makes you special. And that's all that matters. It's not about trying to be someone else. That is, throw that in the bin. That doesn't matter. None of that matters. Burlesque is all about your, your persona and your individual pizazz and being able to own that and appreciate that and love that about yourself.

So yeah, there's the fitness thing. I mean, it'll help, but no. 

Andy: So where do where do burlesque dancers throw their rubbish? 

Evana: In the bin, like everyone else. In the can can in,

ah, you would, you would set me up for that one. Yeah, I did walk into that one. That's an original joke. That's an 

Andy: original joke. Have you heard that before? Cause I just made that up. 

Evana: That was beautiful. Thank you. That was beautiful. I don't know if it's original, but I'll take it. 

Andy: You heard it first here on the good people podcast.

I want to touch on the workshops. Please do. This is my favorite part. Yeah. The workshops you do, which I'll let you explain, but you're using dance and performance to help people get through things. Absolutely. Yeah. Do you want to tell us a bit about the workshops? What do you do in them?

Who turns up? And then I guess, what do they get out of it? 

Evana: Yeah. Okay. So my workshops run pretty much every weekend at the moment. I travel to a different state or city or country every weekend. And I teach. both on a Saturday and a Sunday and I do three back to back workshops. I usually do Burlesque 101, will pretty much always be there because I want an entry level.

Thing that people can learn specifically about what burlesque is because a lot of people don't necessarily know yeah, and the history is so long vast and incredible that I want to share it with everyone and Then I have two workshops after that which will I've been running classic burlesque, which is basically very very historical We get to play with props and we get to learn about all of the different characters of burlesque from different time periods, depending on who I feel like dancing around for that weekend.

And then we have kind of a random burlesque workshop at the end, which can be anything and everything. I've done so many different topics. I'm moving into Yeah, I think I like to try and just keep it interesting, it's sort of whatever I feel like teaching at the time. So I've done things like Medalesque, which is dancing to metal music, I've done Filthy and Fierce, which is just, I think it says what it is, yes, I've taught Fetish, which also...

sort of explains what it is. I've done femme fatale, which was very dramatic and very film noir inspired. I've done a number of different things and yeah, neo burlesque as well, which is new age burlesque. So I basically teach anything and everything because I love it all. And I want to share it with everyone.

The main focus of my workshops isn't necessarily about creating the most perfect performer or getting someone performance ready. It's about having fun and it's about. learning something new and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. So I always want everything to be very, very accessible. I will, I like teaching workshops that people can do.

And I know that dance is really hard. I have taken a lot of dance classes in my time and I have learned all of the things that I didn't like about them. And I found that people would move through things very quickly. I found people would. Make things, the movements just so hard to even put your head around and they would go over it so quickly that you didn't even have a chance to practice it.

So I like to basically set the expectations for success for the burlesque workshop quite low. And I know that's hilarious, but we learn a lot of choreography in a really short period of time. So, and I want people to learn a lot in a short period of time as well. I want to jam pack them with as much as they can possibly handle and just say, If it goes wrong, it was never designed to succeed.

You were never designed to get all of this choreography in this period of time. That's impossible. That's not going to happen. We're just trying to have fun. We're trying to get through it. Once you get to the end of it, you will have an opportunity to film it so you can go home and practice it. Yeah. And then you can start to develop those skills.

You can start to really start to solidify your performance style, solidify, actually getting the steps. All of those things will happen later. What you need to do when we come into the space is learn the basics. Learn the movement. I'll give you tips and tricks for using different props, different stances, learning about balance, learning about posture.

Posture is one of the really, really big things that I think everyone who comes into a dance space needs to learn about. And that's how we learn how to appear confident, how we learn to appreciate how we hold ourselves and how we can breathe properly through dance and movement. I also love to go around the circle at the very beginning of the class to get to know why everyone's there.

And that's when I start to find really, really interesting stories and start to find out the background of what brings us all together and what we have in common and also what sets us apart. So. 

Andy: So what sort of people? What are the people that are 

Evana: coming along to this? Everyone under the sun, honestly.

Mostly women, I'll say that. It's not all women. I have a very, very diverse group of people that come. So all genders are welcome to my workshops and all genders do come to my workshops. In saying that, it is mostly women and it's mostly people that identify as women as well. So the women that come along, I've heard people say that they've come out of very, very traumatic relationships.

So I've had a specific woman quite recently tell me that she was in an abusive relationship for 20 years and she was finding herself for the very first time. So she had just started doing pole dancing and She wasn't sort of sure where she wanted to go with it, and she signed up to all three workshops with me.

And by the end of the class, she was smiling, beaming from ear to ear. I could see her moving throughout the class, and I could see that she was feeling herself, and I get the messages later. I send out. feedback form where I want to know obviously how I can do better and also what they thought of it, what were their favorite parts, what do they think I could improve on, and most of the time, or I would say 99% of the time, people are thrilled.

They are so empowered and excited to be able to express themselves in a new way and also just be really proud of what they've done and how they should feel about themselves because we should love ourselves. I think that's, that's, we should, we should, there's, I don't think there's a debate around that.

I think it's. I think a lot of us suffer from the idea that we should be quite humble and that we need to take a step back and really be quite critical of ourselves, to which I like to throw that in the can can. Really think about how we can love ourselves a little bit more because that's, that's what I want.

I want people to love themselves. I think there's so much power in love. And if there's anything I can do in this world, it's, I would love for everyone to love themselves more. 

Andy: Oh, absolutely. And I can just imagine someone like that specific example, like someone who's been in a relationship that was. The opposite of empowering and the opposite of love.

Yeah. And then being able to move in a new way and just express themselves and be okay to be sexual and okay to be sensual and like, and, and, and it just being, Hey, 

Evana: this is fine. And it's a safe space as well. I love to really, really create a community for my community and create a place where they can feel open to express themselves.

And. Make new friends and find things in common with people. I've had people after the class Make a little group of friends and start catching up together and seeing burlesque shows together. I That kills me. It's so cute Yeah But it's so nice and it's so nice to think that these people who came into a room Ready to be so vulnerable because it is so vulnerable.

Yep Accepting to yourself that you're trying something new, which is so hard for so many different reasons, and I always say this at the start, if anyone's a new dancer or has never done a dance class before, they are my favorite student. Okay. And I'm not allowed to have favorites, but they are my favorite students.

They are. Because there is something so brave. Yes. About stepping into. a situation and being okay with being bad at something for the first 

Andy: time. Yeah. And you're not, but you're not just being bad at like the nut bush. Oh, no. Like you're moving in a way that is probably you've thought is 

Evana: not acceptable.

Yeah. And I think as well, it's, it's a very loose way of moving. Yeah. And a lot of us, if we haven't moved in that way before, we're going to be stiff. We're going to be uptight. We're going to be rigid. So finding that way to. ooze down and become soft and melty and mellow. It's, it's not an accessible thing for a lot of people to do.

So to make someone feel comfortable in doing that is a gift, but to see someone who has never moved before in that way, give it a go. Oh, and then I see them come back and I have a lot of return students. People love coming back. I've had students that have come four times. to my workshops, time after time after time, and they get better every time.

Yep. And their confidence gets better every time. I see people start wearing more risque clothing. I see them start doing their makeup and their hair, and they're walking with a little flare in their step, and they're a little bit more unapologetic. It's awesome. 

Andy: It's nice. So when they turn up for their classes, are they told, like, do they wear...

Burlesque appropriate clothes or do they just come in 

Evana: trackies? Some, it's a, it's a mix. It depends on the confidence of the person, I guess. And also just the sheer audacity of the person. I usually just wear a little fun vintage leotard and fishnets and heels and that's me done. But some people go full lingerie.

But it is totally acceptable to wear active wear. That's probably the normal thing that everyone wears. Yeah, right. And I, I, I'm so fine with that. Yeah. That's acceptable. 

Andy: And they're sort of treating it kind of in the dance. Form, I guess more so than the performance at that point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm here to do some active stuff.

Evana: Yeah Totally and it's recommended. I think as long as it's somewhat skin tight so you can see yourself It's very important that you can see the movement So they wear yeah leggings or shorts or a crop top or a singlet or a t shirt t shirt, whatever is fine. And, and again, I'm not going to kick you out if you go and you want to wear a full snowsuit.

I don't mind. As long as you don't overheat, that's fine. You can do whatever you want. It's more 

Andy: H& S. Yeah. I'm just imagining you creating a new style of burlesque with full snowsuit. 

Evana: It's not going to work in Australia, but by the end 

Andy: of my show, I'll take off my goggles. 

Evana: You'll see my eyes. I'm sure it's been done.

Yeah. Someone will 

Andy: have tried it. Absolutely. That's good. And so are they all, I mean, When I say, oh, you've, you've mentioned that you've got lots of different types that come to these things. I really love the idea about people re find, re finding themselves, or finding themselves, in a later stage. But do you have younger people 

Evana: as well?

Like... Yeah, I've got young people. I've got pretty much the whole age range. I think I've taught anywhere from 18 to about 75. Yeah, right. 

Andy: Yeah. Seventy 

Evana: five year olds, and I love it. Legends. Yeah, yeah. They are my legends. I love them so much. Yes. They are incredible. They're incredible. Yeah. The fact that, and I've seen them do all three classes back to back.

I'm thinking about one specific woman. She's amazing. Yeah, the fact that age isn't a factor when it comes to burlesque. It really isn't. We have. So much diversity in this industry and it's celebrated, that is the most celebrated part of the industry is being different or just pushing the boundaries and overcoming any sort of adversity.

That's what is celebrated about this 

Andy: industry. I love that you can celebrate. Because that's, you know, this is the problem I think with media in general is that because you have so much exposure to, let's loosely term them perfect bodies, which always are imperfect in their own ways. And you, when you learn how to, well, you as a dancer, you would know this, when you learn how to stand or pose or whatever.

It can hide things, you know, people, people who know what they're doing, know how to present 

Evana: themselves. I put that in quotation marks of flattering, which is. Again, a quotation mark thing, because what is that? Who knows? But it is basically being able to hold yourself in a way that makes you feel good. I think that's going to be what flattering is.

And I always use it in quotation marks because that doesn't matter either, because when you're on stage and it's live performance, you're not going to be able to control every angle that you do. In fact, show me that lovely little pouch in your tummy as you do all sorts of dirty grinds on the floor. I want to see everything.

It's just, I think that's such a myth that Audiences and people are designed to want to see one thing. It is such a myth, because when I see every body on stage, and I mean body on stage, it's empowering. It's exciting. I hear audience members because I pay attention to that stuff. I listen to what people are saying.

And If you look at the vast demographic of today's society, we aren't all size 6. I'm not size 6. A lot of us are all different sizes, and we want to see that on stage. We want to see that reflected in the art that we consume. So, it's so empowering to see someone who looks like you on stage, feeling amazing, looking amazing, and doing amazing things.

Well, 

Andy: when they, that's right, when you see someone who looks like you, but then they move in a way, and we talk about that sort of, Sultry dancing, which is, you know, your belly dancing, all those sort of things. The way that some people can move, then it, it's a, it's a shock. Yeah. It's like, wow, how do they, like, I, you sit there and you go, that's a, how do they move like that, for starters, but also it's sort of captivating, like the snake charm.

Evana: Yeah, 

Andy: hypnosis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's really great. And again, like I say, I know you've got a thousand stories about people. Who have benefited from this, but loosely, I guess we can say that it's a really great adventure in refinding or finding yourself and getting comfortable with being a sexual being because we, we all are a sexual being.

Absolutely. Everyone's a sexual being and I'm not really sure why we've... Our society is going down a path where we have to try and pretend like we're 

Evana: not. Well, there's a lot in history around that and I think there's a many, many different reasons for why that's happened. And I'm not going to get into them because, you know, politics and all of that jazz.

But yeah, I think basically we're at a stage now where things are becoming okay again, which is. The goal, I suppose. 

Andy: Why do you think it is that, so for females, the female gender being the most persecuted, you know, like, why is it that we Celebrate the female form so much more and yet it's the form that has copped the most, you know, like, isn't it quite a strange position that...

Evana: It's taboo. I think when things are taboo they're exciting, but they're also oppressive. It's the two, it's the two things. It's, you can make something and put it on a pinnacle of it being the most sacred thing that should be protected, hidden and... Oh, no, I don't want to see that which adds to the element of but maybe if I could 

Andy: yeah, I would yeah Yeah, it's just fun.

It's the tease. 

Evana: Yeah, it all comes down to 

Andy: the tease down to the comes down to the tease COVID for you. Tell me about that. That was an interesting period 

Evana: in your life. Oh, juicy as hell. Oh, that's awesome. Let's do that 

Andy: again. So you're a, you're a, you're a performer. Yes. Entertainment industry. Yes. And we all know what happened to the entertainment industry as a whole.

Evana: Yeah. Oh, we really thrived. That's for sure. You got, you got slammed like a lot of people. Annihilated our industry. Yeah. I, yeah, that, yeah, that was a time. Let's just put it to that. That was an absolute time. So COVID started, we all know, March in 2020 and things went from relatively awful. It actually kind of started before that for me.

If you think about the entertainment industry in Australia, specifically we had the bushfires right before that. So So what the people in our industry were doing was fundraising. We were working for free. We were, we were raising money so that people who were in very, very dire situations could possibly have a benefit.

So a lot of us were donating our time, our performances in order to raise money for the bushfires. And then within a month or two. We were completely out of work, which we weren't even making money for quite a decent period of time before that. So It was like a double whammy 

Andy: dry patch into well, you've gone from a from a charity patch.

Yes into a 

Evana: dry patch Yes. Yes, and just like dry patches they set him ablaze. That's what happens. So we Yeah, we pretty much closed down all of our venues and we had no idea how long that was gonna go for and to the benefit of my community specifically. We were so on board with the Covid restrictions in terms of keeping people safe, being in a perform performance space, we often get quite sick because we see so many people.

Oh, exposure. So frequently. Exposure to illness. Yeah. We are exposed all the time. I'm almost always recovering from something, but. It was a time that we all locked down and said, okay, this is a good thing for us. We're doing this and we're going to do this properly. And we really care about this being taken seriously.

But in saying that we didn't really expect that it was going to go for two years. I think that was very, very alarming. And in terms of everything that I did for work. It was gone. I was, I was completely dried up. So I had to really kind of make some choices around this time. I was studying nursing again, cause I'm really good at doing things that I don't follow through on.

I studied nursing for about a year and a half, which isn't the full completion of an enrolled nursing course, but the Victorian government had a funding situation where you could study nursing. Cause it was one of those really in demand jobs as it still is. You could. Study it for free, but you could also be eligible for Centrelink, which was one thing that really saved my life 

Andy: around this time.

If you studied nursing, you could get access to Centrelink. 

Evana: Yes. Right. So I had started that before COVID, thankfully. So I was already in, which meant that my studies were very drastically changed and ended up online and all sorts of weird things for that. But That was fine. That definitely kept me alive and gave me something to do, but I was feeling very, very disgruntled because my career was sort of just taking off around this time.

This is when I had just had my first fully booked month, just a couple of months beforehand due to Melbourne Fringe. I was doing really well. I was up and coming. I was feeling really good about myself and then I was hit with COVID. So I had to sort of really reflect and I. I think when anyone is faced with any sort of adversity, it can be quite personal, and for me it was very personal to lose that amount of work and to lose something that I had just gone and sunk my entire life into, because I don't do anything half paced, I'm a hundred or nothing.

So, I... Fell into quite a deep depression. I think a lot of us did, but my partner and I had a conversation around this time and he pulled me aside and said, okay, around this time and around this whole thing, we have no idea how long it's going to take. We have no idea how it's going to look. A lot of people are going to give up.

A lot of people are just going to give up because there's nothing to do. What are you going to do? And I'm someone who loves a challenge and if someone tells me I can't do something I have to do it three times over. There's no more satisfaction in doing something that someone tells you you can't do. So I got up every day and I would put on a face So I would do my makeup and I would do my hair and I would make a look and I would get out my phone And I would shoot my own pictures and I would do a little dance to a song and I would create content.

And so I was really lucky that a month before COVID started, I had actually started up my OnlyFans page. So it meant that I had an opportunity to Also find another stream of income because I was desperate for money at this time because All of my work had dried up so I needed money like that and I think it's so classic As well that a lot of people in those Industries.

Back in the day, you think back to the 1920s, lots of people that are in a situation of adversity tend to subvert to, dare I say, sex work during this time. And burlesque has always been synonymous with... Essential work. Yeah, that's it. It's an essential work. I needed something. And so I pretty much turned my burlesque into an online thing.

thing that people could view as well. So, I started doing Burlesque on OnlyFans. Because I needed something. And it was a great way to keep connected. And around this time, because yes, it went for two years. Yes, we were locked down for a really, really, really, really long period of time. Record length. Yes, yes, we nailed it.

We did it really good. I also, around this time, started teaching online as well, so I had done some burlesque teaching at that point, but I wanted to take it further, so I started doing Zoom classes, and I was doing that through Maison Burlesque, which is in Richmond, which is a burlesque school, and so I was doing it through them, and it was keeping me connected to my community, so around this time, I was just Kind of working as much as I could given the restrictions that I had, and it was mind numbing.

It was painful. I never wanted to take a photo of myself again, but here we are on the other side. I think that. Every little bit that I did during COVID actually made me the success that I am today. And if I'd have given up and if I'd have just, you know, sat around and played video games all day, every day, I wouldn't be here today.

I wouldn't be the success or the. At least the internet fame that I have because I built a huge, huge following around that time because I was creating something every day. I was making something every day and I had so many people message me around that time saying, Oh my gosh, I'm looking forward to your posts every day because we were locked in.

We were, we were so bored. So it was an opportunity for an outlet to express and it was an opportunity for people to stay entertained as well. So. We kind of worked together on that one. 

Andy: Yeah, well it gave you something to do. Oh my gosh, yes. It enabled you to continue doing what you wanted to do. Yes. And you could get paid at the same time.

Amen. Which is unreal. And for those whose ears pricked up, you said, you mentioned, so it's OnlyFans. Yes. OnlyFans has a reputation for being a platform where you can get. Personalized pornography. Yes, that's right. But it's a platform where you can do lots of things, isn't it? Like, you could be a...

You were saying, like, there's chefs on there. Yeah. 

Evana: It's not, it's not compulsory to make pornography, which is nice. Which is great for chefs. Yeah, great for chefs. Although, I have seen some really naughty chefs on Instagram these days. But, yes, I... I don't necessarily create any pornography. I do have some art nude content and things like that on there because I do make that kind of art and it's just basically a place where I can share what I actually do.

Yeah. Because being on Instagram and being on social media, there's a lot of restrictions around what's okay and what's not. A full length burlesque Instagram. What do they do? They'll take it down. Yeah, you'll get. The infamous word is shadow band. So basically they'll hide your content, content for people being able to find it because you're too naughty to be online.

Andy: Right. And I guess when you think about burlesque content versus some other content that's out there it's an interesting, I always find it interesting what gets disallowed and what doesn't. It's very frustrating. Yes. I, I was, I was telling you the other day that. I constantly get people connecting with me, liking my stuff, trying to get me to go to them, which are quite obviously fake, fake accounts.

Yes. They've got zero followers. They've got a sexy picture of a person, single, you know, is the description. Lucky you. Yeah, I know. Like I must be so popular. But they're trying to get me to go off the platform and go somewhere else and a lot of it is a scam and a lot of it and it's, but I report these things every time and not one of them has come back from Instagram saying, Hey, thank you for letting us know.

It turns out they were a scammer. Like who would have known? Who would have known? Who would have known? Every one of them comes back saying. We found that they weren't operating outside of our community standards. And I just go, ugh. 

Evana: Thanks for keeping us safe. Yeah. 

Andy: Thank you. Yeah. Instagram for, for that.

So you could, you would have a bit of a love hate relationship with Online with, with social media, I 

Evana: mean. Why? Yes. I think that's a very vast understatement for how I feel about social media in general, but I've come to a point I think in my life where I'm very, very sick of. Complaining about it, you know, I think, I think, you know, they don't have our best interests in mind.

They definitely have a very, very large population of users. I understand that they've got people from every country and if you think about every country's laws. They're very different to ours. They have a lot of laws around what is allowed in terms of sexuality and sensuality. I think Instagram users can be under the, up to the age of 13 as well.

So if you think about it like that, they're trying to protect the kids and they're trying to protect themselves, which I understand. Okay. From a business perspective as a business woman, I get it. You want a certain level of liability for yourself. That's where they're coming from. So I'm not going to take it personally.

And. It's exhausting taking it personally and I have a lot of friends that get really tired and get really heated over what they can post and what they can't post and to which I say I'd rather have an account on these platforms than be removed for posting what I do. I have another avenue where if people want to see that stuff, they can.

They have to pay to get in the door of the club pretty much. And then you can see what you'd like to see. As. Far as it goes for Instagram and TikTok and Facebook and all of that, there are rules and there are regulations. And if you're gonna get on those platforms, you've got to be a good girl. So, yeah, so do you get much, do you get much 

Andy: trouble on there?

Like, I feel like you would be... Target for some yucky 

Evana: people. Yeah, I don't know, to be honest, because I feel like I have created a really nice community for myself. I think if you were to publicly be very mean to me, you probably wouldn't have a very good time. I'd probably instantly block you because I don't have time for that.

I don't care either. If you. If you don't like me, that's none of my business. And I just don't have time for negativity. If you want to come on to my platform and bring me down, the door is elsewhere. Go on then. And it's just, it's just not a nice thing to do. And I wouldn't do that to someone. So I'm not going to support it on my platform.

And thankfully I don't really see much of it at all. Everyone's pretty nice to me. So that's quite nice. I feel like you're 

Andy: an anomaly. Because the amount of hatred and things that people say, I posted a video on YouTube, which was just a short clip from one of these interviews. And it was a woman who was powerful.

And the way she spoke she's one of my episodes, Sheridan Rose Shaw, she's an inspiring person. I straight away got comments from people who just weren't happy with the fact that she was, you know, confident and. God forbid. I know. Like it, I, it was my sort of baptism of fire into if you're gonna, you know, If you're gonna tell the stories of people who are empowered, there's gonna be some people who are gonna have some problems with that.

Yeah. For some reason or another and they are compelled to be 

Evana: nasty. Yeah, they want to tell you about it. That's okay. That's, that's their prerogative and If you want to get caught up on negative things, I'm sure you will find lots to complain about. There is plenty of stuff in the world to be negative about, but there's also plenty of stuff to be really positive about.

And I have struggled with mental health my entire life, my entire life, and I choose positive. That's it. I can't, I can't do negative. I don't want to do negative. I've done enough of it. And I don't want to do that anymore, so. You 

Andy: are currently one of Australia's most, you know, sought after burlesque dancers.

That's such 

Evana: a kind 

Andy: thing to say. Yeah, well, I mean, it shows. You've got a huge following online and you're doing a lot. You're working flat out, right? Yeah, I am, I am. So, so what's next for you? I mean, you, you know, burlesque, domination, tick. Yeah. Is that something, you know, what's 

Evana: coming up? That's... That's, that requires a lot of forward thinking and I feel like I very much live day to day right now.

I know that I want to keep traveling and I want to keep teaching and I want to keep performing. I have goals to develop my own show one day. I think creating something bigger than me would be lovely. What would that look like? What's that? I think I want to keep that under wraps. I think, I think less is more.

I'm just trying to tease it a little to see how that goes. 

Andy: That's your business. Yeah. Are we talking sort of live though? Yeah, 

Evana: definitely live. Definitely live. As much as I enjoy online, cough, cough, I think live performance is the place. I think getting people out of the house is one of the most important things we need to do these days.

Andy: I think it is. And the connection is going to be so much better in person. There are very strong psychological studied things that they know about. About intimacy with people and distance. Yeah. So, I,

100% it's better in person. Yeah, yeah. Plus you're there, you know, you're just in the moment. 

Evana: Have a night out. Yeah. Have a 

Andy: party. Yeah, why not? Where can people see you? Where should we go if we want to see some of your work? 

Evana: Well, I did, I did plug the OnlyFans just before, so that's, that's an option. Is that all 

Andy: you have to say to, I don't use OnlyFans, but is that all you have to say?

No, no, I have, 

Evana: I have more, so you can see me, I have on my website, so I have a website, which is www. evanadelune. com and you can find all of my upcoming performances on there, which is. It's exciting and I keep that pretty much up to date. Yep. Yep. So my upcoming events page and that will also show all of my burlesque workshops as well.

So if you've ever wanted to learn burlesque, I. If you're in Australia, I'm likely in your town. If you're not from Australia, just keep your eyes peeled. I might come to you very shortly. Who knows? Yeah, you're travelling all over the country. You 

Andy: said over 

Evana: the world before. Yeah, I went to New Zealand. Are you kidding?

Not at all. So people, 

Andy: Will pay you to fly international to do shows? 

Evana: Yeah. That's great. Apparently. Right. Yeah, that's nice. I need to Yeah, go on then. 

Andy: I reckon I'd be pretty good at it. Yeah. I was thinking about what would my show be earlier, and I think if I was capable which I definitely am I feel like it would be a combination of breakdancing and parkour.

Oh my gosh. That's what it looks like in my 

Evana: head. Well, those two are very similar. One of them just has a little beat to go along with it. 

Andy: Just do a flip. Well, the song would probably be It's Like That and That's The Way It Is by Run DMC. Oh my gosh. That would be my song. And from there. And that's the way it is.

Yeah. And I would develop my own style. Yeah, it would be a 

Evana: new thing looking at you today. I was thinking you should you can leave your hat on. Oh, yeah 

Andy: And that would be I would leave the head on Yeah, 

Evana: you 

Andy: should that would be yeah. Okay, 

Evana: that was my thought but I mean two acts just like that Well, you're ready.

We would need to yeah a minimum 

Andy: Because otherwise I can't And when someone falls through for the night, you got to, you 

Evana: got a second act. That's it. Buildable, adaptable, ready to go. 

Andy: I've just opened up your upcoming events page on your workshop, on your website here. So you've got a whole bunch of stuff, Adelaide.

I basically 

Evana: just do laps at this point. 

Andy: Yeah. Okay. That's fantastic. So people can catch you live or they can do your workshops. Yeah. 

Evana: Or social media. Also, I'm on all the social medias. I'm on Instagram. What's your Insta handle? Ivana Dalloon. All one word. Yeah. And then I'm also on Facebook. So you can follow me on Facebook as well.

Yep. And then I'm also on, I was going to say Twitter, but it's called X now, which is crazy. Is it actually called X now? I don't know. I don't want to, I don't like that. Yep. I don't like what he's done, but I am on there, so you can follow me on there. You can follow me pretty much anywhere that there's a place I can make an account, I'll make an account there.

Yes. I'm even on Reddit, so. Oh. Yeah. That's a thing. Yeah, I do it 

Andy: all. Righto. What do you do on Reddit? Yeah. A little 

Evana: chat. Oh, you've got blogs here. Do you do many blogs? I haven't for a while, but yes, I do blogs. I do, I do, I do. I like writing and I like thinking about things 

Andy: and... Well, you strike me as a very creative person.

I mean, it sort of comes with the... Absolutely. The sewing and the dancing and all the parts. Yeah. 

Evana: I'm a split brain kind of human. I love to learn. The can't sit still type It's a struggle. 

Andy: I feel this is a real honour that you've sat still for 

Evana: this long. I don't know that I've sat still. I'm definitely tap dancing under the table.

But, 

Andy: that's fine. Well, hey, I've really enjoyed you coming on the 

Evana: show. Thank you. I've enjoyed talking to you. Yeah, well, I 

Andy: think it's really important because, again, like, I want people to go on a journey and explore who they are, because the world is only how you see it through your own lens. Yeah. And if your lens has a crack in it, I'm looking for lens analogies here, but, but certainly understanding that you have a lens is step one.

Totally. 

Evana: Awareness. 

Andy: Yeah. Because then you know that, well, other people see it differently and then you can ask the question, well, why do they see it differently? And then you're, so many reasons, immediately you're, More accepting of other people and what they do and all those sort of things. And I love that it's a challenging subject like the burlesque dancing is a challenging subject for some people.

And so hopefully today, they can walk away and say, Hey, sure, on the stage. Powerful beast of a human, you know, but again, you're just another normal person out there trying to make a life for yourself. Yeah, totally. Yeah, 100%. Okay. Well, thank you so much for coming on the Good People podcast. Thanks for having me.

Find her everywhere. Yeah. These days. Yep. So just look everywhere. Yeah. And you'll be able to catch some of that there. If that's your thing or even if it's not, check it out. Yeah. There's some intriguing stuff. Absolutely. Thank you so much Ivana De Loon for coming on to the podcast. This has been the Good People podcast brought to you by In Other Good News.

My name is Andy and stay tuned for the next episode where we'll talk about something completely different, I'm sure. 

Evana: Yay. Variety is the spice of life. Certainly 

Andy: is. Thank you so much and we'll see you next time. Thank you. 

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