With live burlesque finally back, well-known artist Ariel Helvetica pulls out the sparkles and high kicks again
Known for her background in everything from ballet to can-can, the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival star still draws most of her inspiration from her intricate costumes
Ariel Helvetica saw her student base grow online during the pandemic, but says there’s nothing like the return to live festivals.
Vancouver International Burlesque Festival presents the Glamorama Gala on April 8 at the Vancouver Playhouse. The fest runs to April 9
AMID THE FEATHERS, the rhinestones, and the artistry that have led Ariel Helvetica to acquire near legendary status on the local burlesque scene, two killer moves in her repertoire are impossible to miss. And both have colourful stories behind them that go decades back in her career.
The first is the splits—front splits, side splits, and just about everything in between. They’re the first sign neophyte audiences usually get that they’re in the presence of a former ballet dancer. In fact, until her teens, when Helvetica was told she wasn’t quite perfect enough (“Ballet: it’s a pretty cut-throat world”), all she ever thought she’d be was a ballet dancer. And one of her earliest teachers had a tried-and-true way of encouraging her students to pull off the difficult move.
“Basically, as young kids—and this is really ridiculous—we got bribes to do the splits,” she says with a laugh. “Every week my dance teacher was, like, ‘If you do a left split you get 50 cents, if you do a right split you get 50 cents, if you do a middle split you get a dollar.’ So of course I was like, ‘Yes, I am into this.’”
It wasn’t until adulthood, years after working as a professional dancer on cruise ships, that Helvetica really honed her other signature skill: high-kicking. She perfected her technique as a can-can performer at a tourist cabaret in France.
“I think the high kick is a pretty cool thing to see, because it is not something most people can do naturally, so I guess I throw a few of those into most of my performances,” she says. “But I also don’t want to make it too repetitive.”
All of these experiences helped shape Helvetica into the unique, in-demand burlesque artist and teacher she is today. A move to Vancouver after the can-can stint led to her discovering burlesque—an art form that brought together a lot of her previous experiences, beyond just dance.
“I grew up on theatre, and my mom owned a costume store, so all my worlds collided and I thought, ‘This is for me,’” says Helvetica, who dove into training. “My first performance was in 2011, and a spark was lit there where I could still be in my 30s and could still dance.”
In the “before times” pre-COVID, she regularly toured internationally, even performing at Vegas’s Burlesque Hall of Fame. She’s also helped launch the careers of a whole new generation of performers via her teaching at the Vancouver Burlesque Company, and started her own production company last year.
Though the pandemic, not to mention the birth of her first child, brought her touring and performing career to a halt for a while, Helvetica has been able to expand the reach of her teaching online via the VBC.
“We managed really well and brought a lot of people a lot of joy during that time, and it also allowed us to go into a global market, with people across Canada and in the States,” she says.
Now Helvetica is preparing for the live return of the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival this weekend, appearing in the Glamorama Gala on Friday night, alongside a diverse array of more than 20 of her colleagues (including headliners Foxy Lexxi Brown and Lola Frost).
The artist is pulling out one of her most prized sparkling outfits for the occasion, a creation by Vancouver costume designer extraordinaire Jessica Bayntun. Think full Vegas showgirl. Helvetica prefers the quality-over-quantity approach to her custom costumes, and as much as she’s known for her serious dance chops, her apparel is always memorable. The outfits integrate a complex system of removable, tear-away parts—the kind of split-second skin-baring magic that, as she puts it, leaves you wondering, “Hey, how’d that just happen?”
“They take burlesque couture up a level, where part of the drama is the reveals of the costume—the ‘quick release’ parts,” she shares, adding: “Most people start with the music, have a theme, figure out a vibe, and then they make their costume. I’m this crazy person where I go for the costume first—I’m inspired by the costume first, the shape, the colours.”
Helvetica, now mom to a two-year-old, seems more inspired than ever these days, and can’t wait to get dancing in a big, live festival, surrounded by a sea of plumage, sequins, and pasties, again.
“It's going to be a treat to have everybody at VIBF and have an audience back again,” she says. “It's what we do and I’m really thrilled.”
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