Fiyah burnin' on the danceflo'

I need some doggone help.

For my AS Art exam, I chose my final outcome to be a canvas.
Our theme is Rhythms and Cycles, and along the way most of us have made our own interpretations of it and gone off into weird and wonderful tangents regarding our ideas for our final piece.
Along the way my ideas have consisted with a woman's face/bust with decorative hair--at first it was machinery, then it turned into flowers, and then bird wings and feathers after some observational drawings (I just found a book on birds in the library near the flower ones) and I've let my imagination carry away with me.

I was then brought back down to earth by Fiona (teach) that all this has gotta have some kind of meaning behind it--a story or a connection to a myth rather than nicely placed, irrelevant things attached to a lady's face and hair.
And that the whole thing has got to be SIMPLE. Not too illustrative.
So I decided to make it more meaningful by turning the bird attributes into phoenix ones, and I've just recently thought about adding lotuses (yes those white things are supposed to be lotuses I can't do flowers SORRYYY) after a bit of research since they're supposedly associated with rebirth.
And the whole illustrative thing has toned down a bit from the traditional stuff in my book (the stuff at the top, sorry they're photos; I was lazy).

But, I have another problem. I can't do this unless I have reality to back it up. By which, I mean that I will probably have to make the mask/headset or whatever and take photographs of it, take photographs of the flowers, and ESPECIALLY take photographs of a figure posing like what I'm doodling.
And I have no idea how I'm going to do that. I really don't want to use myself as subject matter again.

All in all, these are just some concepts, and I'd like a few ideas or suggestions since I'm feeling a little stuck.
You can't see it very well, but I had an idea where I could make the skin look as if it's burning away like paper. That's what the burnt paper is there for. I scanned some in after having fun with that. I could stick some on the canvas or something crazy.
And if any of you could provide photo reference, you would be a God-send.

This might be moved to scraps if I ever REMEMBERRR

Thanks y'all peace out

Augh I burnt my tongue and it still hurts