I heard this story once, that when you started your life as an artist, you ran away with the circus. Is this true, or is it just a legend?
No, it is very true. I kind of ran away from the life that I had in Sweden. It was the best decision of my life. At the time, I was performing as a cabaret and burlesque artist at a club called Tip The Velvet. I was in a really bad place at the time, but that’s a different story. However, I was lucky enough to meet a circus sideshow from Texas called Hellzapoppin – A Circus Sideshow Revue. They rolled into town to perform at this festival called Metaltown, and they asked me to perform for them because one of their star acts had jumped the ship just before they came to Europe. So they needed another performer and asked me. I performed for them once and they thought, “Wow, this act is shit!”, and I was like, ‘’Fuck, oh no!‘’
That night I went back home and rewrote my show. I put three acts together, my repertoire that I had back then, and made a completely new act. I was like, ‘’Hell, they are gonna love this or I’ll die and quit.” The next day I performed that new act for the first time, and they liked it and asked me to join them for the rest of the festival as well.
Also, they asked me to do more shows with them, so I went touring Europe with the guys, and it was fucking cool. It was Chewie the Wolf Boy, and The Torture King, and Frank Simon, who unfortunately passed away a few years ago. The guy is in the Guiness Book of World Records for balancing the most weight on top of his teeth. He would bring a washing machine with him and balance that on his teeth. Also, he took kids and sat them on a chair, and then balanced one chair leg on his teeth, standing on one foot – to the horror of the parents. Also Bryce ‘’The Govna’’ Graves, the founder of the circus, and Maegan Machine, a really cool chick based in Arizona, who also does suspension and works as a model. This was us. We were a bus full of freaks – lots of farts, lots of pizza, and lots of weed.

 
After the summer was gone, Bryce stayed and suggested doing some street shows with me. I hadn’t done this before, but he offered to teach me about sideshow. And I said, “Sure, I can’t wait to learn glass eating.“ It’s actually true. I used to eat five light bulbs a day in the streets of Gothenburg.

Really?
Yeah, my teeth are fine; I went to my dentist a few years ago.
And the stomach?
The stomach is fine. There is a rule: if it doesn’t hurt up here, it doesn’t hurt down there, and probably doesn’t hurt anywhere in between. You just have to chew it with caution. A little bit of salt and pepper, and that’s it – a nice little light snack. So we did the street shows, and then I was asked if I wanted to come to the States with them. Of course I wanted to come, but they would take me only under the condition that I would learn everything that has to do with sideshow. I was like, “Fuck yeah!“ – and that was it. So I packed the things that I had in my apartment in Gothenburg and also threw a lot of things away because I didn’t want to be tied by materialistic things. And then I left. So yes, running away with the circus was the best thing that I have done in my life. I haven’t looked back since.
I have been doing this work for nine years now, and I have to say that this is the longest that I have ever worked with anything in my life. Also, I get bored very easily, and I need change. The stage is also a good place to let go of a lot of anger and frustration and to discover new parts of yourself. It’s a good medium to inspire other people to be more true to themselves by being true to yourself, whatever that is – so it’s always a journey. That might sound very cliché, but it really is about the journey and not the goal. That’s the fantastic thing with sideshow. I can always do more. I can always excel and pull bigger stunts. Now we have this stunt coming up where someone is going to drive over me with a mini-motorcycle while I am laying on a bed of nails, and we’re going to set the ramp on fire.

 
Were there ever moments when you regretted that you did this? I also work in a job where I travel a lot, and after a while I get tired of this, and I am happy to come home and stay here for a while.
Home is where the heart is. I am so lucky like that because I have so many different friend groups around the world, so I feel like I don’t have just one place in the world that I call home. Also, when you work in the sideshow circles, you will meet your friends who are doing the same thing down the road. Then you always have your extended family who is always with you, and you are always connected somehow. But sure, being on the road all the time means that you don’t have the chance to have a steady relationship for example, but for me that is kind of ok as well. I am fine, but the only thing that I am sad about is that I don’t have a dog. I would love to have a dog.

As a burlesque performer you are also an ambassador for sex-positivity. What are your experiences in that business? I guess it isn’t always easy.
Actually I started as a stripper, and I love stripping. For me burlesque is stripping. Ok, it is different in the sense that a stripper is working for the money, and she is doing the lap dances and everything, and she is a fucking hard worker, who literally grinds her way through the night. Stripping is usually catered to the male gaze, whereas in burlesque you have all kinds of bodies, and you tell a story with your show. In the end you get naked, because that’s a liberation. So it’s like you are coming out of your shell; you are doing your scene, and you hang your tits out in the end as a sign of victory and/or overcoming.
For me, as an exhibitionist, I’ve always felt like that was something that I really wanted to do. Just because I felt that, by owning it on stage, I can also get over my own insecurities, and I have to accept myself for who I am. Also to inspire other people to do whatever they want in their life and feel more comfortable with themselves. That was what I was doing with burlesque for many years.
I used to do this horror burlesque. Actually the very first show that I did was a skeleton dance as a tribute to this hostess on a Swedish children’s program, Ika i rutan. The second one was to the song “I Walked With A Zombie“ by Roky Erickson, where I was in a coffin that I built together with a friend of mine. I was dancing out of this coffin to the music, and I was tearing my bandages off, biting people in the audience, and eating brain and stuff like that. So that’s always been a part of my jam. Also classic things like the musical Cabaret, and stuff like that. I was always singing.

 
As a kid I went to choir practice in church because that was the only place where I could sing. But I did tell the guys at the church that I was not Christian and did not believe in God. They said that they would probably convert me, but I replied that I didn’t believe in that, and if they’d try to make me believe in Jesus I would go home and not come back. They asked if I was ok with singing religious songs, and I said yes – but I would not believe it even though I was singing it. So they thought that this kid was weird, but she is here, so that’s ok. The church doesn’t get much attention these days, except for when we want to burn them. So I was thinking they were probably desperate, and that’s why they had me. Hail Satan!

Did you have problems with guys who didn’t know their limits, who thought that they had some right to harass you?
Actually, I would say that most of the audience is female. And it’s also one of the only businesses that I have ever been in that was led by women. It’s women putting on the shows. It’s women that are doing all the festivals. So it’s women supporting women, and I see this as a big sisterhood, even though there can be some cattiness. I see that this is also changing because you have a much wider scene now, with a lot more representation. Thank Satan for that! POC and LGBTQLIA are much more visible now than ten years ago.

So for me more than anything it’s a safe space. I would get worse harassment in clubs when I worked in big nightclubs in London, and there I found that some of their clientele can be pretty nasty. They think that you’re nothing but an extension to the club, so you are like furniture, and it’s ok for them to do whatever they want. But they usually don’t come that close when I swing a saw-blade in front of my face, so they kind of step back – or when I staple things to myself. Once I actually stapled a guy in the arm because he was pissing me off.

Really [laughs]?
Yeah, I was like, “Dude, back the fuck off. Are you not listening to me? I will show you how this works.” [imitates the sound of a stapler]. “Oh sorry! I was just trying to give you my card.” I said that because I was stapling play cards to myself. “There you have it. Are you bleeding? It’s that time of the month. Now you know how it feels. Fuck off!“.
You can’t take it too much to heart. For sure, when these things happen, you have to stand up for yourself – you have to let them know that this is fucking not right, and also let your managers know. Don’t let anybody treat you like shit in the club – or anywhere else.

When did you decide to come to Berlin?
After I came back from my States tour, I was thinking about where to go. I didn’t think I would be able to get a work visa in the States, and I also didn’t know if I really wanted to. Sure, I love working in the circus, but I thought it might be good if I settled somewhere. I was thinking about moving to London, but I knew that there is already a lot of competition there, and that there are a lot of clubs that do the things that I do.
Then I was thinking about Berlin, and first of all it used to be much cheaper, and also I hadn’t heard of any side show or event in Berlin so far. So I assumed that I could bring in something new to the city. I just had this feeling, and I was right because I had checked out the scene, and there was really a lack of this. Also, this could be a city where I actually could start to produce events, because there weren’t that many events.
There was the legendary Pinky’s Peep Show; there was the Bassy Club, and then there was the Sunday Soirée by Emma Lou and La Viola Vixen, who are big pillars in the community of burlesque in Berlin. Then there was Marlene von Steenvag, who was doing the Berlin Burlesque Festival once a year.
So I thought there was a big market for this, and I would come here and be a bit of a business woman. I started getting my name out there and telling people that I was doing burlesque and that I could also do sideshow. They were curious about the sideshow, so I told them what I could do, like hammering a nail into my face, eating a really long balloon and pulling it out of my ass. Also there is the bed of nails or the fire show – whatever you want.

Mixing this with burlesque was something new back then, so I started getting a lot of bookings and got to know a lot of people. I have to say it was pretty hard the first year. I didn’t even have a bed to sleep on. I had this one mattress from Kaufland that a friend gave to me. Also, I didn’t have curtains in my room – actually I had nothing but my two suitcases of props, and that was it. Three years later I started the first sideshow cabaret in Berlin. It was called The Electric Sideshow, and I did it together with Don Rogall, who was my business partner at the time.
We did it at Ballhaus Berlin at Chausseestrasse, which back then wasn’t a venue for any cabaret events. So they took a risk with us, and it went on from there. Now it has become one of the venues that cabaret people go to. That wasn’t the case before, so I am very happy to say that I could have an influence on that scene, and it feels pretty cool to think about it.
But it is a lot of work. It’s hard and fantastic at the same time. We also started to have a live band, and all the performers were doing their stunts to live music. That was also fantastic because I always wanted to do a rock and roll sideshow. That was my dream.
 

What’s going on with you at the moment?
I am planning something right now. I have some ideas, and I’m doing some collaborations with some female friends of mine. Something in that way might come up next year, actually. But since it’s still so far away, I want to keep it a little bit secret for now.

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