Much to my incredulity, Menon affirms that the vision before me is what she looks like just about every waking hour. Her imaginably extensive wardrobe includes only one pair of jeans — and there has never been a day that she has ever stepped out “dressed-down”, at least not over the last five years since she took on the identity of Sukki Singapora, the burlesque artist. “I’ve always taken pride in my style. I see myself as an artist, and the way I express myself is as if I am a walking piece of art… There are no two sides to me; I am just consistently like this,” says Menon as she gestures to herself. Blessed with a curvaceous hourglass figure, which she thanks her British mother’s genes for, she shares that she hits the gym about five times a week — not with the main goal of staying in shape, but rather to maintain stamina needed to keep up with her demanding performance schedule.
Menon claims her extensive wardrobe includes only one pair of jeans — and there has never been a day that she has ever stepped out ‘dressed down’, at least not over the last five years since she took on the identity of Sukki Singapora, the burlesque artist From IT geek to ‘It Girl’
It was an interest in vintage style and fashion that first led Menon, then a university student in the UK, to unwittingly discover burlesque and establish a determination to master it without any formal training: “I was Googling ‘vintage fashion’ and you can’t do that without seeing the word ‘burlesque’, because these two go hand-in-hand. I’d never heard of [burlesque] before, and when I finally stumbled upon it, my initial thoughts were: ‘Oh my gosh, this is incredible. Where, when and how can I do this?’” That was when Menon applied on a whim to audition with a friend at a cabaret theatre, albeit with a white lie that she had “years of experience” in the performing arts. Armed with just a week’s worth of knowledge and experience from watching YouTube videos, Menon unabashedly describes her first so-called burlesque performance in 2011 as “wrong” and “awful”, even though she eventually landed the job. “But the spirit of burlesque is not to take oneself too seriously, as it is very tongue-in-cheek. So, even though it was kind of awful, the audience loved it. And because it went down as such an accidental hit, my friend and I ended up being asked to come every Friday and Saturday to perform. I guess you can say that the first-ever live burlesque show that I attended was actually my own!” Upon graduating, Menon spent a year juggling a career in IT with her budding but clandestine identity as burlesque performer in the UK. “I was always the weird, kind of gothic, geeky one in the corner at work. You could say I was one of the guys, but I did tend to push the boundaries of my male-dominated office in terms of my style. Once I came to work in a PVC mini skirt and was told off because it wasn’t considered office-appropriate, and that’s when I began to think that a corporate environment was probably not the place for me,” she recalls of her stint as an IT programmer for the British Cycling Olympic team. “Like burlesque, programming was something I decided to pick up myself,” says Menon, who majored in Geography in university. It was not long before the cat was eventually let out of the bag — or box. Menon says she did not end up resigning from her day job to pursue a full-time career in performance art, but that her hand was, in a sense, forced. “While I was getting better at burlesque, I came to realise that I needed professional costumes. So I ordered some original, vintage 1950s costumes from a store in the US and thought I’d get them to deliver to the office because it was to sign for. I made explicit instructions to the sender to mark the package as ‘vintage clothing’ or ‘vintage fabric’ because I couldn’t have people at my office know… But instead, the box came marked in big, capital letters: BURLESQUE COSTUMES,” she exclaims between cries of laughter. “It completely transformed the atmosphere for me at the office. Suddenly, I wasn’t one of the dudes anymore. I realised at that point that I had no choice but to hand in my resignation, which was probably just as well, as I was being offered more shows at the time.” Fresh and feminist
It was following Menon’s departure from her IT job that her patriotic stage name, Sukki Singapora, was established — along with the rapid evolution of her non-traditional approach to the ancient practice of burlesque, whose origins can be traced back to 16th-century performance art. Kalani Kokonuts and Barbara Yung were some of the icons she looked up to during her transformative journey as an artist, during which Menon began to introduce both inspired and original quirks such as traditional Chinese fan dancing and, more recently, hip-hop elements into her routines.
Burlesque is a theatrical art form originating from Europe in the 1800s. Derived from the Italian word burla, which means “joke” or “ridicule”, it is generally used to describe a literary, dramatic or musical work with a comedic or parodic intent. It was only in the early 1900s that the strip-tease tradition became popularised in burlesque theatre to compete with film and other entertainment art forms. Menon attributes much of her poise and enviable confidence today to burlesque, which she says has helped her to express her sexuality and art in ways that she would never have been able to fathom before the birth of Sukki Singapora. “Growing up, I was so insecure. I was never one of the cool girls, nor the pretty girls. In fact, part of me still feels that way, even today. I’m still very much the weird, studious Indian girl with glasses and braces who never felt particularly attractive back in school,” she admits. “Burlesque has actually helped me to become much more confident in a sense that it has enabled me to experiment a lot more with fashion and style, even though I still don’t feel like one of the cool, pretty ones right now.” Showgirl glamour and friendly exuberance aside, Menon, who hails from a family of doctors, spent her entire childhood and teenage years living by traditional Indian values. As the eldest of three sisters, she recalls sporting a long plait during her days as a student because her parents discouraged short hairstyles, as well as keeping all of her relationships firmly under wraps as dating was strictly not allowed.
Tantalising takeaways about Sukki Singapora
- She has a sweet tooth. Menon claims that anyone who knows her personally would have heard of her obsession with cake and Nutella, which she eats out of the jar with a spoon. Dessert is her favourite thing in the entire universe.
- Her cat is named Seven of Nine after the Star Trek character. Aside from Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars and Babylon 5 are just some of the television shows she is a big fan of.
- You will never take the IT geek out of the showgirl. According to Menon, she gets a “nervous sweat” in the presence of malfunctioning gadgets. She also used to be an avid player of Eve Online and Oblivion before she got busy being Sukki Singapora.
- She will never make the first move. Menon says she is way too shy to consider ever asking a stranger for a phone number, much less a date. She is currently single.
- Rap and hip hop are her jam. Cardi B and Nicki Minaj are her favourite artistes, just to name a few. She is good friends with US rapper Too Short, who has also massively influenced her work.