- CALIMA PORTRAITS
(The Heavenly Spies' Diamonds!, is playing at the Triple Door tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday.)
It's not easy for 18 dancers to simultaneously remove their tops while standing in a row on a small stage. Last week at Fred Wildlife Refuge, during a rehearsal for the Heavenly Spies' 10th anniversary show, choreographer and dancer Fae Phalen suggested that half the women leave their tops on.
"I feel like it would be a better line with all our tits out," another dancer argued. In that case, Phalen said, everyone might have to perform this four-minute closing number "without a bra on." Some of the top-heavier dancers groaned. But bras, Phalen pointed out, make everything more complicated. Rhinestones and lace don't often peacefully coexist, causing weird shapes and catches in the costumes. Plus, Phalen worried that if the dancers strip too enthusiastically, people in the front row might wind up with brassieres in their desserts. But you can't let the bra limply drop either—hooks tend to gravitate toward fishnets. "I've had to do half a dance with a bra hooked to the side of my leg," Phalen warned her crew.
But the protestations grew and Phalen relented, adding nude bras covered with rhinestones to the number, straining an already-stretched costume budget. Phalen promised to bring glue guns and a bag of rhinestones to the next practice. Forget diamonds—glue guns, it turns out, are a girl's best friend. Everything from feathers to lace can be slapped onto a costume with a little hot glue, and a few of the dancers have nasty burns to show for their recent costume adjustments.
Considering the frailty of flesh, a 10-year anniversary is a big one for any dance company—and perhaps especially for a burlesque troupe...
