NY Body Art has been away for a minute, but now that we’re back, allow me to orient you to our new platform. In conjunction with VAR Magazine (December 2011 release), NY Body Art will now be the source in up close interviews and reports on the people inside counter-culture. We’re moving beyond editorials about some guy or girl’s killer tattoo and going right to the artists, musicians, hipsters and tastemakers who are guiding what’s hot outside of commercial conventions. We’re deconstructing the scene and giving it to you raw, so that you can experience what it’s like to be a part of it first-hand. To kick it all off, NY Body Art went straight to the hottest innovators who reinvent themselves with every move. We were going to talk to some porn stars.
The only adult entertainment event open to the public to grace to East Coast this year went down in Edison, NJ at EXXXOTICA this past weekend. We hung out with all the hottest porn stars in the biz, and they were all under one roof, for one purpose – to talk back to fans, and people like us. And like they do in the movies, these girls did it all with a smile.
Asa Akira was there with her understated one table booth that she alone was manning. We asked her if she ever walked off a film set because of the way it looked, like that scene in “Blues Brothers” where they walk into a basement covered in chicken wire. She told us that luckily those are the kinds of sets she would normally consent to beforehand, but that she did walk off a porno because the director wanted to shoot her performing in a sumo wrestler suit. Sometimes, a porn star just isn’t into a particular fetish, and you gotta respect that.
Joanna Angel and the Burning Angel booth had their ginormous station at the show, complete with tattooed chicks and tons of free swag. We talked with Joanna and Mel Vendetta about their next tattoos and they both think it’d be fun to get Jewish stars together for obviously ironic reasons (those being Jews are believed to not be allowed to get tattoos. And they both have sex on camera for money). One of the t-shirts Burning Angel had up for sale had a fan’s hate-mail screen on it, which essentially condemned Joanna for being such a dirty girl who will soon be in Satan’s clutches because of her behavior. So it’s no wonder the girls would emboss their t-shirts with the letter. Mel says they get a lot of hate mail, especially because of the sacrilegious stuff she does on the site. When I pointed out that writing a piece of hate mail might be the draw for some of their fans, Mel agreed. They get a lot of Christians who have memberships.
But the highlight of the event was Belladonna’s Cirque de Bella tent. The legend, entrepreneur, artist, goddess, what-have-you, had a fully customized tent set up across from her 18 ft. aerial silk rig. She met her fans with HUGS. She had renewed energy with every fan she met, and it was palpable. She held conversation, and smiled and laughed and lit up the whole convention space. She stood maybe 5’5” in her little aerialist jumpsuit embossed with the Belladonna Entertainment flaming heart logo on the back. Her whole body is more fit than you ever imagined. Of course it was, since she had been training in aerial acrobats much of the year. She talked about her upcoming project, a school for couples, where people can learn to do what Belladonna is queen bee of doing. The girl always has something new up her sleeve.
The next time we saw her, Belladonna was performing her aerial silk act. Even after nearly eight-hours of signing for fans, Bella was caught jumping around and stretching for her next very physical display of her awesomeness. She twirled in the silks, and climbed, flipped and…got her foot caught in a knot. Aiden, her husband, helped get her out without issue, and she kept performing the show, the whole time keeping her composure. Never once did we even see any expression of doubt or frustration on her face, and that’s pretty indicative of who she is. Aside from being a porn star, Belladonna constantly reinvents herself, challenging who even she thinks of herself to be. Maybe the performance wasn’t perfect, but Bella’s getting her foot caught was exactly representative of who she is. She tries her little heart out.
Article and photos by Heather Hansen
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