Kristina Finnie

Name: Kristina Finnie
Age: 35
Location: Melbourne
Heritage: Australian with Greek/Egyptian/English/Polish roots

Who I am in the world:

I run Strutt Empire, which is all about helping women to be empowered, love themselves and Strutt their thing. It started through dance. The background is that I’m a curvy girl. I’ve got the boobs and the booty and when I was a teenager I started dancing and I just felt like I never fitted in with all of these cool wafer thin girls and I used to get told “tuck your butt” and I was, but I have a big butt. It’s there for everyone. You see me and you know it’s there.

I just felt like I didn’t fit in. I wasn’t that typical dancer type, so I wanted a career in dance but I ended up pursuing a career in corporate instead. You get told it’s difficult and if you don’t have a certain aesthetic or if you started later in life, it’s just not possible for you. And then coming into my early 20’s I got back into dancing again and I had a great mentor who said I could dance. I found all of these styles that were for me, like belly dancing. All the cultural styles of dance. Latin dance and Brazilian dance where my body shape was appreciated and it wasn’t frowned upon.

In my travels I meta bunch of women and I started teaching them and every single woman I met had a story. That they weren’t skinny enough. Tall enough. Blonde enough. Good enough. Brunette enough. Ethnic enough. Too ethnic. Or whatever the story was. And these women I met were the most amazing, incredible dancers, but there was no stage for them because the world told them that they weren’t enough in some way, shape or form.

And so, what I decided to do was gather all the “misfits” together and form a dance crew. And that’s how Strutt was born. It was at first a small crew of 20 somethings who just wanted to get on stage and show the world that it doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, if you want to Strutt your thing, you can. Over the years, this effect has snowballed and we have recruited more dancers from 14 years old to grandmothers.

As I have evolved from my 20’s to mid-’30s, it has evolved from outer work to include the inner work. We have had all kinds of women come through, women going through divorces, women with kids, without kids, women who have been single and are struggling with the single life, and other women trying to navigate motherhood, women with sexual abuse and trauma, women of every possible background.

Dancing for them is something where they step into the studio and for one hour, it goes away. As a dance teacher, over the years my students have asked for advice as a leader and mentor for them. So Strutt Empire has evolved from just dance to something where we Strutt in the world and also inside, to feel the inner expression as well. Something for me is “believe you can and if there is not a space for you in the world, then create it”.

I feel fortunate that I have been able to explore various sides of myself through a combination of consulting, corporate, and dance with Strutt. I see so many people who are stuck and I just want to say “whatever you want to do, just go and do it. Yeah, you can do it!”

I’m just a single 35-year-old girl who is fierce and has a huge heart. I’m a lover and a fighter!

The story that I would like rewritten for women is:

I want women to know that they can have anything they want. I get the fears, the doubts, all of it. I’ve had it all. And I’ve also been fortunate in this life in that I’ve always got what I wanted. It may not have happened when or how I wanted, but it somehow has. If you’ve got something in your heart and you’re passionate about it, believe me, it will happen. You are worthy of it all.

The story I want to be rewritten for women is to believe that you can. To stand up. To love yourself. And to Strutt your thing.

My next story is:

The last two years my whole life has fallen apart and it is coming back together. I had to shut down my physical dance studio and move out and there was a lot of “am I going to keep doing this? Have I chosen the wrong calling?”. This year has been better as I’ve entered the workforce again. The story I want to rewrite is that it is time to stop playing small. I’ve been very comfortable in my little Melbourne studio, but the Strutt message is Global. The next story I want to write is to not be afraid of being Global and inspiring the Strutt message and seeing what happens! If there are women in Melbourne who need us, there must be women across the world who need us.