Liquid Latex

So I did the Brandeis Liquid Latex show last week as part of nennivian's fabulous Magic at Midsummer piece. It went really well; we looked great in our paint designs and our hard work learning the steps really came together.

One thing that struck me was I did not feel particularly uncomfortable being naked in front of other people. It's not something I've ever really done before, so I wasn't sure how it was going to feel, but I've always felt pretty pleased with my body, so I guess I shouldn't expect there to really be a problem. The fact that Zanna was in the same state of undress as me and seemed completely chill with it helped, I think. The one thing I was really focused on was being appropriate-- I didn't want to be the only person hanging around naked, because I didn't want to come off as attention-seeking or make anyone uncomfortable, but I also didn't want to be the only person who wasn't naked either and not properly participate. I'm not sure how the rest of our group felt-- mostly everyone seemed okay, but I got the vibe once or twice that it was weird for some --but maybe because I knew mostly everyone pretty well, because I'd been in dressing rooms with most of them before, or I'm just secure in my body, it worked okay for me. 

My design as Titania was very elaborate, personally done by Charlotte, involving a mostly white base with swirls of red and patches of gold. Really cool-looking, really complicated. It took something like six or seven hours to finish, and my feet were very tired by the time I got to rip it all off. The stuff tears very easily before it dries and you can grease yourself up so it doesn't stick to itself, but I found by the end of the night the stuff was very happy settling on my skin and had no desire to leave. I found myself wishing I were the Incredible Hulk so I could vent my rage at it by changing and having it explode off of me like Bruce Banner's clothes.

Our dance, with its elaborate choreography and precise timing, came off pretty impressively, I think. As I've mentioned, Charlotte's choreography was amazing, both fun to watch and excellent at conveying the story of Midsummer in four minutes. The rest of the show was fun as well. In general, I enjoyed the pieces most that had the most interesting movement, cool premises, and conveyed a story. There was a really fun depiction of Batman villains in Arkham Asylum set to songs with a theme of "crazy," and an awesome group of guys that portrayed cyborgs doing lame white boy dances like the shopping cart and the lasso. The ones I enjoyed least were the ones that just seemed like excused to parade around in the latex, like the group that not only did the most obvious sexy-by-numbers lap dance kind of thing, the moves were taken directly from the music video to Lady Marmalade.

I really want to dance more. I had so much fun doing this, having a dance rehearsal to go to on a regular basis and challenge myself to memorize the choreography and do the steps properly. If anyone has any more dancing of this nature that they would like somebody for, think of me, I'd love to give it a shot.