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noizemagazine - Index

noizemagazine - noiZe Magazine Issue 60 May 2009 - Index

er getting a call from Jennifer
Beals, whom she was training for
the movie Flashdance. Her father
worked with Lou Ferrigno (of
Incredible Hulk fame), so Lena’s
bodybuilding career path was set at
an early age. When asked if she lets
the two sides of her life merge at
all, she laughs at the “image of yelling
at my clients to do three more
reps with horns on my head and a
painted white face and fangs.”
Her relationship with her father was
rocky at best, so she poured herself
into dance classes as a child to get
some positive attention from him—
to little avail: “It was something I
could say I was good at it, trying
to say, ’Look, Dad, can you see me
now?’ I knew he didn’t, but in my
mind I knew it made a little part of
me happy anyhow.”
Hard work and perseverance taught
her to accept the things she couldn’t
change about her life while opening
up new worlds of creativity and
freedom. “I breathed it,” says Love,
calling performance “my therapy. I
would rather move than speak verbally
about my emotions. Dancing
was a braver method of explaining
feelings through a song.”
But dancing was something that
cost a lot, both financially and emotionally.
So Lena had to make a difficult
decision: stop taking classes
and started escaping to the big
city—in this case, Toronto–to the
welcoming arms of the burgeoning
rave scene. She avoided the
easy temptation of drug use. “I was
too distracted with the community
it brought and the diversity,” she
recalls. “The music was like an open
book, and when people would
dance, they were the words to the
story.”
She quickly became a fixture on the
go-go boxes of Toronto, which she
sees in retrospect as “more of an art
form” at the time, “very interpretive.
This gave me leeway to dance
and express myself, and at the same
time I was inspired by the music and the
unique people.”
Eventually, the local raves peaked, and
she found herself following her gay
friends to the newly developing Circuit
scene, where she quickly found herself
smack dab in the spotlight. The nonthreatening
sexual vibe she felt from
her gay fans was a new kind of freedom
for her. She loved the way she could
use her body erotically and artistically—
without a bunch of horny straight boys
salivating over her. The over-the-top
colors, lights and sounds of the gay
scene also resonated with her outlandish
nature, and she felt she had found
her “new home.”
13
Happy Am I! Healthy Am I! holy Am I!
Next: Skiing & Sanker
Courtesy of Peter Tamlin
Once established locally, she was courted
by the likes of Sanker and the big
gay ski weeks. She had always thought
of herself as a go-go dancer primarily,
but quickly realized that these huge
events expected a bit of a show; Ms.
Love was happy to oblige. Since she is
not a drag queen, “I couldn’t just put
on a wig and pretend to be J-Lo.”
Maybe that was an advantage. She was
forced to rely on—gasp—her talent.
The resulting production value of her
shows blossomed. Today, she is now