The Libertine Ball

Still flying high on a truly scrumptious performance in Philadelphia. Officially our second performance ever, we didn't have a lot of time to get ready, but we pulled it together extremely well. We were invited through Deb at SalonCon and by extension Ms. Kitty, a country & blues vampire singer. How awesome does that sound?! Oh, yes, the event! It was the prestigious Libertine Ball! Admittedly, my personal BDSM event knowledge is limited, but we were completely game.

Genevieve actually spoke to me with this exact point of view, "We can't do this, right?" Not that we didn't want to (we've been dying to get our feet wet again during the endless wait of our biggest opportunity yet, SalonCon '07); quite the opposite. We just didn't want to get our hopes up. But after some frantic e-mails and calls, we got together a cast and decided early on, "Let's not go crazy--let's do an encore performance of 3 of the songs from SalonCon '06." Not a problem. Ok, problem.

The "Candyman" (Christina Aguilera) choreography and concept was written with Jordana, Lauren, and myself in mind. Lauren was going to be in Florida, so she was out. Ok, we'll try Dani, who worked in a different number at SalonCon '06 but had given me a heads-up she was totally down with doing "Candyman" at some point as well. Ok, no good; she's out, too! Fortunately, Danielle was available already for an entirely different musical number ("I Want You" by Rachael Yamagata) and was on hand for a last minute replacement, so she was doing 2 numbers of the 3.

Sarah and Regina confirmed and they reprised "Wicked Woman, Foolish Man"--a charming and obscure track by August Darnell that he did for the Dick Tracy soundtrack in 1990--and Danielle and Genevieve were good with "I Want You" at this point, having created the choreography for that on their own in first place.

Admittedly, I was nervous. An entirely new crowd, more intimate space than SalonCon, and well, I didn't know what to expect. I loved the building, everyone was extremely friendly (I guess if you're gonna let semi-strangers flog you, you're gonna be friendly), and we had a really great, responsive audience. I was able to crack some jokes that were setting appropriate ("In my home country, when you want to dance with a girl, you have to ask their daddy. I am glad that here it's pretty much the same.") and the dance numbers went flawlessly. I was even able to cement the "Tickle Tango" from Zumanity as my theme with two dance partners, and we introduced the gypsy-punk-dance-party that is Gogol Bordello's "Mishto!" as our finale.

As it turns out, we not only had a great time, we were able to effectively network. We already have a job offer in Edison, NJ. It looks potentially expensive (I won't name the event 'til it's confirmed) but if we are able to work that out (starving artists, all that) it looks like a similarly fabulous time. It comes before SalonCon '07, so we may be able to workshop at least one number planned for that, and try some others that wouldn't be appropriate.

Trust me, Genevieve and I are glowing.

Check back soon for details.

--George