Aino Emilia: Fire, Softness and Choosing Peace
Introduction
I met Aino many years ago on my first ever contract in the Maldives.
I was new to that whole world then, still figuring out the rhythm of island life, resort shows and the strange little circus & island family that forms when everyone is living and working in the same place.
Aino had already been coming back and forth to the Maldives for a couple of years before me, and you could feel that straight away. She had a presence about her. Fierce, funny, direct, kind, slightly wild, and completely unforgettable.
There are some people you meet who feel like they have already lived a hundred lives, and Aino was one of those people to me.
This conversation felt like catching up with someone who has carried so much fire through her life, but has also learned how to protect the softer parts of herself too.
I’m really happy to share this one.
First Impressions
Jess: I’d love to start with how we first met, because my first memory of you is so vivid.
It was during one of my first contracts in the Maldives. For New Year’s, they brought in extra performers, and you arrived with this incredibly fierce energy. You were direct, confident, and honestly, a little intimidating in the best way. I remember thinking, this is definitely not someone you mess around with.
But you were also kind, funny, sweet, completely mad in the best possible way, and full of energy.
For anyone reading who doesn’t know you yet, how would you introduce yourself? Who is Aino?
Aino:
First of all, thank you Jess for your beautiful and kind words. I’m very surprised and happy to know that I had made this kind of first impression. Your thoughts about me during this interview made my day.
And now to your question: who is Aino? I believe everything is in constant movement, and because of that, everything and everyone is in a constant process of change. We change a tiny bit every day. But there are some core things that stick to us no matter how many years pass and how many things happen, and maybe we can think that those are the things that make us who we are.
So Aino is a proud Karelian (Karelians are an ethnic group in Finland/Russia) woman born in Eastern Finland but who grew to be partly Mexican.
I say I’m not a Latina from blood, but from heart. Singer Chavela Vargas once said: “Los mexicanos nacemos donde nos da la chingada gana” = “We Mexicans are born wherever the fuck we want” - she was from Costa Rica.
Aino is a circus artist, aerial and pole instructor and a coach, and a huge fan of circus in general.
Aino is an island witch, as my family calls me - my grandma was from a tiny rural island on the biggest lake of Finland, and that place and its old forests have become my spiritual home. Nature and my own kind of faith are very important to me.
And most importantly, Aino is a firm believer in magic and that it really exists.
Jess: I’m really curious about your life before circus too. I know you’re originally from Finland, and from the outside it feels like you’ve lived such a wild and unusual life.
What was your childhood like, and what did you imagine you might become when you were growing up? Was performance always somewhere in you, or did circus take you by surprise later on?
Aino:
I loved nature and being in the forest since I was very little. My idols were Esmeralda, Mulan and Pocahontas, and I wanted so badly to be like them that I secretly painted my hair black with watercolours. It had faded to grey by afternoon.
All the Disney Princesses that looked like me were boring, scared and just waiting for someone to come to save them, and I wanted to be a warrior.
I did ballet for four years, but my mom took me out because it was very expensive and also it was too overwhelming and stressful for my very pedant character, and I started getting headaches constantly because of the pressure and expectations.
I remember my first touch with circus was that my dad took me and my sister every year to the Sirkus Finlandia (Finland’s only big travelling circus at that time), and even though the economical situation in Finland was very tight, he always bought us the best places in front of the arena. It was something very special, and I remember watching the artists with such an admiration - they were truly magical creatures to me.
Funny thing is that the first time I thought I wanted to be a performer myself was when we were watching TV at home and they were showing an Irish Riverdance group. The dancers moving their feet at such a fast pace was so cool, and the people were clapping them so much, and I remember it being the first time I got this weird feeling of adrenaline and good nervousness that I want to be like them too, and I want to be on the stage in front of all the people.
I never was good in sports or anything like that - I was that person we all know, who is chosen last for the teams at school’s sport class, because nobody wants them on their team. I didn’t have any background or fitness level when I started with circus.
I always knew I wanted to do something special with my life, something different, but I just didn’t know what it could be. I tried singing, painting, writing… I was good at them, but never really talented or passionate.
Then after high school we went for a six-month backpacking trip to Mexico with my best friend and met a local fire dance group - and the first time seeing their show, in that moment I knew that was it. That was the thing I had been seeking for years; my passion.
And the rest is history!
( My element - FIRE )
Finding Circus
Jess: I know you as someone who does so many things: silks, hula hoop, fire, pole, dance, and probably many other things I don’t even know about.
How did circus first come into your life? Did you train formally, learn from teachers and mentors, or figure things out as you went along?
Aino:
I moved to Mexico to learn fire dance from the Mexicans. I didn’t speak Spanish, didn’t have any background in circus and only knew a few people from the fire group. But I was obsessed. I had, for example, learned all their show music and knew all the little moments to “freeze” or to do slow motion, and details like that, and I think they felt pity for me and purely because of that accepted me to the group, on probation. So I started training all the fire props with this group.
Later I started taking aerial and flexibility classes. In Mexico, where I lived, there was a quite big and united community of circus artists, and a lot of classes and good teachers and coaches for a very affordable price. My training at that time was all very informal and without structure, but I was very excited to learn as much as possible.
At the age of 27/28, I started taking the training much more seriously, and made myself my own kind of circus school, planning a weekly schedule with ballet, different aerial trainings, and flexibility and conditioning classes.
I would say I’m kind of self-taught, but most of my skills are thanks to all the different, very talented teachers I was lucky to have.
Jess: One thing I’ve always admired about you is your ability to throw yourself into something fully.
I remember visiting you when you were working in Finolhu in the Maldives, and you had started learning pole. You brought your pole to the island, worked on the act, and then debuted this whole new side of your performance world there. That really stayed with me because it felt so typical of you: see something, commit to it, work hard, and just go for it.
When something pulls you in creatively, do you tend to go all in? And what do you think helps you learn new skills or disciplines?
Aino:
Yes, I think I tend to go all in. Even though I don’t see myself as a super disciplined person (I have met many very disciplined people in the circus industry and admire them a lot), I’m definitely very determined. If I like something, I’m ready to climb huge mountains for it.
I think it is a mix of having a very big ego and having a very strong vision. Even though it would be much more sophisticated to say that it is all because of my pure passion for the art, I have to be honest and admit that I also live for the applause and have never gotten that same feeling anywhere else in life, that feeling when you have finished a well-executed act and the audience is admiring and clapping to you like crazy.
But I also have very strong visions, and I can see a whole act with all the atmosphere, music, costume and movement before I can even make one basic trick with the prop. I have a lot of ideas all the time, and I can create choreographies and scripts for shows quite fast. So I just get, for example, a strong vision of me doing a pole act, and can imagine all the little details of it, and then I get such a big “craving”, that I can’t stop thinking about it and have to start the painful but fun process of making it and training for it.
I would say I’m very good at creating moments, in life and also in circus.
Mexico, Travel and Becoming Brave
Jess: You moved from Finland to Mexico and built a whole life there, which already feels like such a brave and interesting leap.
What first took you to Mexico, what made you stay for so long, and what did that chapter teach you?
Aino:
We had always planned with my best friend to travel somewhere very far away and exotic once we would graduate from high school. We were choosing between India and Mexico, but finally decided to travel to Mexico as my friend was having a thing with a Mexican guy and he had invited us to come to his town.
So we did. We were nineteen and truly didn’t know anything about anything, but our whole world opened 360 degrees during that six-month trip. I came back to Finland just to save as much money as possible in minimum-wage jobs and then moved to Mexico to learn to dance with fire.
I adapted very quickly, and learned the language, I dare to say close to perfection, not only the words and grammar, but also the sayings and the cultural references in the language. I also tried to learn as much as possible from the history, the Mexican folklore, social problems and challenges, the traditions… I was like a little sponge learning everything and I wanted so badly to be one of the Mexicans. I truly felt it was my new home country, and I was sure I would live there for the rest of my life. Mexico and my “la banda” felt like home.
Those 8 years in Mexico taught me so much, also I think because they were the critical years when you grow up to be an adult. Mexico made me extremely independent, but also taught me solidarity, a lot of social skills, and a sense of community. It made me learn to do things even when I’m scared, to believe in myself, and that there are opportunities everywhere all the time. It taught me to be strong and that no one is coming to save us, and we must keep moving forward and try to find joy in the little things while we do it. It taught me a lot about how I want to live this life.
Jess: I remember you telling me stories from circus gigs in Mexico that sounded genuinely frightening and intense, the kind of stories where I would probably be afraid to keep showing up.
But you just seemed to keep going, keep working, keep travelling, keep learning.
Where do you think that ability to keep going comes from? Is it something you learned from your family, from life, from circus, or has it always been part of who you are?
Aino:
I think it is a mix of all those things. I think I have quite a strong character and the personality type that is quite harsh on herself. I expect a lot from myself.
My family also plays a role in that resilience for sure, as they have taught me to always work hard, and that things don’t come easy. I started working when I was 12 years old and have never stopped. My parents have set me an example of brave people. They were travellers before having us kids, and travelled with their motorcycle all over Europe and all the way to Africa, sleeping in a camping tent and navigating with a paper map. They have built a house and a cottage all by themselves, just watching instructions from a VHS video, without real previous experience in construction. Also, I think Finnish people, especially the Karelian heritage, carry a strong genetic resilience and survival. Finland was not an easy country to cultivate and live in two hundred years ago, and we have a dark, heavy history of wars that happened not so long ago. My dad’s side of the family had to leave their home and everything they owned on the other side of the border when we lost the war. My great-grandmom and grandma from my mother’s side were warrior ladies living on an island without electricity and running water, and my grandma had to row with the boat every day to the city for work, and in winter ski over the frozen lake. In Finland we have this special word “SISU” that can’t really be translated into any other language: it means that characteristic of not giving up even when things get very difficult. It is bravery, determination, resilience and tenacity of purpose all in one word.
I also learned a lot of discipline from circus, that way of life where you are willing to sacrifice comfort and fun times to have something greater and more rewarding in the future. To endure physical pain, and also the pain of embarrassment to be bad at something, and to fail, and still keep going and do it again and again. I have a very impatient personality but circus has for sure taught me a lot about doing things even though it feels like I will never learn the trick or make it where I want to be. Circus gives you a lot of character and ability to just keep going.
Fire, Softness and Change
Jess: One of the words I always associate with you is fire.
Not just because fire was part of your performance world, but because there was something fiery in your energy when we first met. You were bold, direct, funny, intense, full of life, and a little bit wild in the best possible way.
But when I saw you again later, I felt like I saw another layer of you too. There was still that fire, but there was also more softness, more calm, and something that felt very grounded.
Do you recognise that fire in yourself? And has your relationship with that fiery part of you changed as you’ve moved through different chapters of your life?
Aino:
I definitely recognise the fire you saw in me.
Fire is my element, even though I don’t dance with fire anymore. I have always visualized the power of life as a little flame under my chest and I have used the fire I feel inside me in a lot of different situations in life, also on stage.
I like people who have that kind of same fire inside them. I think that you can see it in their eyes.
One of my favourite quotes is also about fire and it always takes me back to myself.
I still like to be fiery, but my relationship has definitely changed with that part of me over the years. I have learned that it is not necessary to be in full flames all the time, and that drive and desire to be strong and fearless can make your heart hard, and it can make you feel very lonely.
That softness that you saw in me later is definitely something that has always been in me besides the fieriness, as I think inside I’m an extremely sensitive person even though it might not seem like it.
Accepting that soft, maybe more feminine, and sensitive part of me has been quite hard and felt too vulnerable.
Before our second time meeting, I had met a special person, a very powerful witch, Dela, and from that meeting started a change in my life and in me, that also has to do with learning to be a woman in all the different ways.
By the time we met, it was still in the very beginning of the process but had already started, and that is why I believe you already felt something different in my energy.
For me the word “witch” is sacred and means a person who is constantly doing her best to be aligned with herself, with other people and all the creatures, with nature, and with the Universe.
( Doing an aeysha in a circus tent entrance. I had just met my boyfriend and I remember I wanted to make a picture with the tent pole but it was too thick and slippery and I was failing. I said ”I can’t do it” which he responded ”Of course you can”, with so much faith in me and inmediately I did it without any problem. The power of mind. )
The Pressure to Be Seen
Jess: I want to touch on social media a little, because this is something I’ve been thinking about a lot in my own life too.
For years, I loved following your Instagram. You shared beautiful images, training, circus, travel, pole, performance, and little windows into such an interesting life. Then at some point, you stepped back from posting.
I’ve noticed something similar in myself. I haven’t shared properly on my Hooping Nomad Instagram in a very long time. Life has been so full with children, business, house projects, training, and all the little moving parts that come with this season.
Over time, I feel more drawn to slower, more personal forms of connection: writing, interviews, community, long conversations, WhatsApp, and real life.
Did you feel a similar shift before you stopped posting so much? And if stepping back has benefited you, what has it given you?
Aino:
To be honest, I was severely addicted to social media, especially Instagram. I think social media is not all bad, it has many good things: for example I got the Maldives contract originally because of posting my training videos on Instagram. I also believe it can be a good platform to make friends (I have made many lovely friendships on Instagram with hula hoop and pole colleagues) and find information and inspiration. But, it also has the bad side and it can be very life-sucking, and create a lot of insecurities and toxic aspects in your life.
Let’s say my priorities and values started having a very strong shift and that was the reason I also started questioning Instagram and all that came with it, in my life. In the end, it is a very false world and I didn’t want to be part of that anymore.
It has given me space and time to get to know my own voice better, without having so many other noises and voices overlapping. I feel like it has helped me, among other things, to walk much more on my own path. Also, it is so nice to be able to live your life without that little, constant anxiety of having to take pictures of everything, and to get that best angle, the best light, the best muscle definition… I also sometimes feel very bad and guilty for being part of that side of Instagram that could have created pressure for other women to look a certain way, or eat or train a certain way or even live a certain way.
And lastly, even if this might sound dramatic, I kind of regret giving so many tiny pieces of myself, my life and, for example my body, away so cheaply to anyone on the internet.
I think as a performer, what social media does to us, depends a lot on where we stand with ourselves right in that moment when we are consuming the content.
If you are in a perfect balance and in a good moment in your life and you know who you are and your limits, social media can be a good tool to seek inspiration and information. But like you said, it can also be very consuming, overwhelming and cause a lot of anxiety and insecurities. We can feel like everyone else is training more, working in more fancy gigs, having more beautiful costumes and bodies… The list is endless.
So I think it is both good and bad and everyone has to draw their own lines with it.
The final push to take a break from social media was when I moved back to Finland for two years. There were some serious matters with my family and they needed me there so I went back to my hometown. The original idea was to stay for a few months but it ended up being exactly two years. I used the issues in my family as an excuse but actually I needed a break from everything. It was a very transformational time for me, almost like getting to know myself from scratch again, and part of that was to have a complete stop in social media. Also, I met my partner back then, and he is quite a private person, so different compared to how I used to be, and he taught me also with his example the beauty of living for yourself and that in some things privacy is sacred and we should treasure some things only with the people close to us.
I spent during that period a lot of time in nature (on my island), with my family, and finally also with myself. There were so many things from the past that I had not processed during the years and years of living the “fabulous, busy life” and I finally wanted to face and get rid of them. Those two years were very heavy, painful, and difficult but so needed. Now I have done little pretty videos of my circus adventures in a private TikTok account, that is all. Just for my friends and family and to keep the videos like memories. I like editing videos.
Jess: Since stepping back from social media, where have you found inspiration instead?
Aino:
Lately I have been driving a crazy amount of kilometers (from Finland to France and from France to Austria for example) and that is when I found podcasts. I listen to multiple Finnish podcasts and have found a lot of interesting information and inspiration in them.
I have always been a bookworm, and loved reading books. I need them to be the old-fashioned paper books, I don’t like reading from a screen. Me and my boyfriend, for example, created a whole show script based on one of my favourite books.
Inspiration for my newest act, my first hula hoop act, I got from a character that has been in my mind for a while already, a Slavic forest goddess. Again, I had such a strong vision for the act, from the music to the costume, and I used Pinterest and the internet in general for the research. The feeling I always have on my island was in the center of the inspiration.
I would recommend thinking out of the box. I guess it is very simple and obvious advice, but searching for inspiration for circus also in non-circus content, like books, tales and other types of movement disciplines like artistic ice skating or folkloric dances.
(Me and my genuine smile and magical sparkles)
Strength, Body and Ritual
Jess: On a slightly lighter but still very important note, I have to ask about your training, because your physical power has always really stood out to me.
You’ve done silks, hoop, fire, pole, dance, and probably many other things I don’t even know about. From the outside, you’ve always seemed like someone with a huge amount of discipline, grit and body awareness.
What does your training look like these days? Has it changed from when you first started circus? Do you train more now, less now, or just differently?
Aino:
My everyday training looks different depending on if I’m on a contract or not, if I’m creating or preparing an act for an upcoming contract and what else is happening in life.
For example, this year I wanted to make my first hula hoop act, so then the training was focused on that, so it was basically a lot of hula hooping, and exercises for hips and legs in the gym so my body would be prepared for the act. I do a lot of different disciplines and I try to balance between gym strength training, flexibility training, aerial and pole conditioning and skill training, and hula hoop skill training, and honestly it is hard to try to keep up with everything. Normally I train the disciplines that are coming next but I don’t think this is actually the best way, as then there is always a bit of stress when you re-take a discipline you haven’t done in a while.
I have periods when I train a lot, for example 8-12 trainings per week if we also count stretching classes and choreographing sessions, and in those periods I make the huge steps in level or learn even a completely new discipline, but I also have periods when I take it down a lot and I train for example only 3 times a week. I’m not sure if this is the best learning and training method but with this quite unstable lifestyle I have had, it has worked for me, and I feel because of the down times, I also haven’t got any very bad injuries or things like that.
My favourite cycles have been those ones that I just basically eat, sleep and train, and take a lot of classes learning new things every day, and sometimes I crave for those “crazy” warrior training periods in my life, but also it feels good to be more balanced and have other things going on.
Maybe all the performers struggle with this, that we want both? The crazy high-athlete kind of lifestyle where everything spins around the adrenaline of training all day long but also we want the normal life with relationships and hobbies and other creative things?
(The island witch)
Jess: I’d love to ask about how you care for your body now, because I think this is something performers are still learning how to talk about in a healthy way.
When your body is your work, your energy really matters. What helps you feel strong, clear-headed and ready to perform? Is it food, sleep, Pilates, stretching, rest, recovery, time outside, or something else entirely?
Aino:
I try to eat healthy most of the time, and within the diet I have noticed is the best for me. I try to take rest days also, and sleep enough. I make lists of what I need to get done and prepared circus-wise and this helps me not to stress too much as I have the feeling everything is under some kind of control.
I try to listen to my body, and for example if it feels extremely tired or stiff, I don’t always push through the trainings anymore “no matter what”, like I used to do when I was younger. I like to try to train wiser, not more.
Jess: So many performers have a complicated relationship with their bodies because our bodies are not just bodies in this world. They are part of our work, our training, our image, our costumes, our strength, our flexibility, and sometimes even our sense of worth.
Has the way you relate to your body changed as you’ve moved through different chapters of circus, pole and performance?
Aino:
I have definitely struggled with my body image over the years. I have felt that I have always been somehow the wrong size or wrong body type: so many times I have been called too fat, heavy-looking or too masculine with the muscles. I think I have heard quite harsh criticism about every single part of my body, from having the wrong kind of smile.
At some point all these comments got under my skin, and I became quite obsessed with my body image. I remember a time when the first thing when waking up was to go to check in front of the mirror if my six-pack was still visible. I had real nightmares about getting very overweight. I really got sick in my head and started giving way too much importance to how I look and how I should look, and this is one of the reasons why I didn’t want to have social media taking so much space in my life.
Now, I try to be grateful every day my body works and I can train and perform, and take care of myself but not get obsessed about it. There are good and bad days also with this subject, but let’s say there is definitely more softness towards myself.
Jess: Do you have any rituals that help bring you back to yourself?
I’m definitely someone who goes through little ritual phases. For a while it was getting up before everyone else, sitting outside in the freezing cold with a cup of chai during the winter months. Then it was doing yoga every night before bed. Then I got bored of that, hehe.
At the moment, I’m in a very different kind of phase. We ripped down the ceiling in our house about eight or nine months ago, and between two kids, running a business, keeping up with bits of training and normal life, we’ve only been able to work on it for a couple of hours in the evenings and some longer days at the weekends.
A family member told me that my husband and I wouldn’t be able to do it ourselves, and honestly, that was probably the worst thing they could have said to me, because I immediately thought, “Oh no, now I absolutely have to prove that we can.”
It has definitely been a much bigger job than I imagined, and there have been moments where I’ve thought, maybe we should have just paid someone. But there’s also something I love about the challenge. If I’m not being stubborn and determined in circus, that energy seems to spill into every other part of my life. Right now, it’s gone into building our little nest.
Do you relate to that kind of determination? And do you have any everyday rituals, routines, or little grounding things that help you come back to yourself when life feels full?
Aino:
Yes, I definitely relate to that kind of determination. I don’t think I remember a time that I would not have had a “mission impossible”-kind of project going on in my life.
I learned to do a Spanish web act for New Year just in two weeks, without ever before having even had a go with it. I created a hula hoop act in less than a year and then already went to a full-length contract to perform it. I bought a caravan without any previous experience of towing it, had a 30-minute practice in a backyard and then drove a 1900-kilometer trip with it alone.
I can relate a lot to that “proving that I can”-thinking also. I think it can be a very positive thing, like fuel for making your goals come true, but we should be careful to not get too carried away with it. I remember all the doubts and jokes of other people when I first wanted to become a fire performer without any background in circus or dance, and I definitely used those hurtful comments and questioning as gasoline to my flames. But later I have learned that those kinds of revenge energies can also be really toxic, and we should always try not to think what others think and do the challenges for ourselves.
I love little rituals and also find them important in everyday life. My rituals change, but I love having my morning coffee in peace, and drinking it alone, in my own thoughts. I like to clean my home, and get my mind also organized meanwhile I do it, it is like meditation for me. I like to write a journal almost every day, just little details and happy things that have happened during the day. Time to time I like to do a tarot reading for myself and also do some kind of ritual, or spiritual celebration on the important days of the year, like solstice or Day of the Dead.
Before the show I have also a couple of little rituals for protection.
What centers me the most and takes me back to myself is spending time on my island, just smelling the lake, picking blueberries and doing some woodwork.
(Circus and the interesting combination of strength and softness, feminine and masculine and movement and stillness. )
Life Now
Jess: I’m not completely sure where you are in the world right now. The last I heard, you were travelling in a caravan in France and working with a traditional circus. Before that, my last memory of you online was seeing you in a pole studio, really diving into that world too.
Where has life taken you recently, and what does circus look like for you now?
Aino:
Life has taken me to live in Southern France, in a small, very pretty village together with my boyfriend. From here I travel to short, 2-4 month contracts. The last one was in Austria and the next one will be in Corsica Island. I really enjoy working in the travelling tent circuses, that we could call the “traditional circus”. I think it is my favourite kind of way of performing.
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Jess: Do you feel like you have found a balance between circus life and personal life, or are they completely woven together for you?
I ask because I think a lot of performers struggle with that line. Circus can become your work, your identity, your social life, your travel, your body, your creativity, and your whole world. Have you managed to create a life outside of circus too, or does it all live together?
Aino:
My boyfriend is a circus artist too, and my life spins quite completely around circus, but I love it, and this is the way I like it. There is also the part outside of circus, our families and the non-circus friends, and at the moment I actually feel very well balanced, better than ever before, and very happy with my life.
Jess: Looking at your journey from the outside, I see so many different versions of you: Finland, Mexico, Maldives, silks, fire, hoop, pole, travel, love, fierceness, softness, and now this quieter, more private chapter.
When you look back at all those versions of yourself, what do you feel most proud of?
Aino:
I feel very proud of that 19-year-old Aino who moved to Mexico without knowing anything about anything and who made it. I really sometimes think, how did she have the courage?! And I also feel proud of this Aino of the past couple of years, who had the courage to take a long pause from everything, even with the fear of losing all the gigs, contracts and the circus life, go through huge personal growth that wasn’t easy at all, and then come back to be a full-time performer and accomplish new things and disciplines once again. I’m proud of myself that I never stop moving forward.
Jess: And finally, the most important question of all…
Velvet or stripes?
Aino:
Definitely velvet for me. Even though as a kid I was rocking the stripes apparently, see the picture.
(My sister & me dressed in quite creative costumes (I’m the one with stripes, notice that it is actually my mom’s shirt) Being my own kind of cool since the nineties)
Outro
I made a cup of tea and stole two cookies from the biscuit tin at work.
Not really stealing. They are free. Lol. But it feels sneaky and wrong because every time I eat sugary snacks, I end up with a new sore pimple on my face.
Still, I knew this one was going to be an epic read, and I wanted to be properly settled in for it.
I have wanted to learn from Aino for such a long time. I wanted to know what goes on in her mind, in her creative life, and in the little corners of her world that have shaped her into this amazing, robust, soft, kind, funny human that she is.
I love people. I love learning through stories. Stories I can relate to, and stories I maybe can’t relate to directly, but that still carry so much meaning.
One thing Aino says in this interview really stayed with me. She talks about how we change a tiny bit every day.
And yes, some of that is inevitable. Life changes us whether we notice it or not. But I also think there is something really beautiful about choosing to look within and become more self-aware. Not in a toxic, self-obsessed way, although I’m sure that has been there at some point too. More in the way of gently noticing little bits about yourself.
Why did I become who I became?
What was something I actually wanted to do as a challenge for myself, and what was something I felt I needed to prove to somebody else?
I think when you step away from the social media bubble, a lot of things become more crystal clear. What really matters. Who really matters. How we can show up for ourselves, rather than only showing up to prove to somebody else that we are worthy.
I’m glad Aino spoke about revenge energy too. That feeling of adding fuel to the flames can absolutely give you drive, and sometimes it can push you forward. But it can also become a toxic, negative energy, depending on why you are doing something in the first place.
I wonder sometimes if we go looking for that validation. Do we seek out approval so we can use it as fuel? Or do we genuinely want someone else to tell us we are good enough?
One film that always sticks with me is I, Tonya. In the film, Tonya Harding’s mother is shown as someone who pushes her in a really harsh, painful way, almost as if cruelty is a form of motivation.
Tonya seems to use that pain as fuel, and it made me think about what Aino said around revenge energy. How sometimes being doubted, criticised or put down can light something in us, but that fire can become toxic too, depending on why we are doing the thing in the first place.
I totally understand what Aino means about the toxic side of drive too, and it is definitely something I need to sit with myself.
The biggest thing I took from this interview is the reminder to slow down. Do what is important to you. Cherish the small moments. Stay in touch with the people you love.
When you strip away the things you were doing for social media, approval, applause, or to prove a point, what is left standing?
Those are the things that matter most.
The things you can do quietly in a corner, with nobody watching, and they still make your heart sing.
A little edit inspired by Aino’s interview: fire, softness, strength and movement.
Resources & Links
Sirkus Finlandia
The travelling circus Aino visited every year as a child with her dad, and one of her first memories of seeing circus as something magical.
Chavela Vargas
The singer Aino quotes when talking about feeling Mexican from the heart.
SISU
The Finnish word Aino mentions when talking about resilience, bravery, determination and not giving up when things get difficult.
Pinterest
Aino used Pinterest as part of the visual research for her first hula hoop act, inspired by a Slavic forest goddess.
Books, podcasts and non-circus inspiration
Aino talks about finding inspiration through paper books, Finnish podcasts, nature, stories, artistic ice skating, folkloric dances and looking outside the circus world.
I, Tonya
The film Jess mentions in the outro when reflecting on drive, criticism, revenge energy and the way pain can sometimes become fuel.