9 Hours at the El Rey

I don’t really know how, but I got commandeered into participating in Anderson Cabaret, which is essentially b-school’s answer to your third grade talent show. Except, the acts are lewd (hip hop dancing that involve some very suggestive boob touching), the commentary is lewd (“rusty trombones?”), and the audience is largely drunk. Umm, also, I told a lie. I do know how I got commandeered. A friend invited to do an Indian dance forwarded on the invite and I accepted b/c, hey, why not. So basically I volunteered, I wasn’t commandeered, but that’s all in the past.

For the several weeks several pro Indian dancers (who are in fact Indo and classically trained in Indo dance) taught about 20 v. un-pro and mostly un-Indo dancers how to do Bollywood shimmies. We were really, really bad at the beginning but got progressively better, and by game night we were set to go.

We were decked out in full Indian attire. The outfits were beautiful but hellish, can’t lie. The theater was about 200 degrees. I’m not even exaggerating. The dressing rooms were about 300 degrees. Not lying. The skirts were long and weighed like 20 pounds. The tops were midriff-baring and tight as all hell – it took a lot of strength to strap that sucker around my rib cage and I also discovered that I apparently have massive upper arms in comparison to Indian chicks. Luckily we got to drape a little wrappy deal around our tops to cover our midriffs, another addition to make us even hotter in the 400 degree heat.

Let’s also talk about the dressing rooms (b/c 10 chicks putting on these costumes as well as 28 bangles, full makeup and bindis – bindis – so fun! So fun! Means a lot time in the dressing rooms). Although “big” acts such as G-Love perform at this theater…the dressing rooms have seen better days. They smelled like something b/t wet dog, BO, and really stale beer (think frat house, but much worse), and I’m sorry, but all I could think of when I saw those couches was cum stains. Sorry, that was graphic, but necessary. The dressing rooms were nasty. Note that this was simply a fun fact.

We were the last act of the night (before the bands came on), the finale if you will. I have to say we were pretty much super awesome. Of course I didn’t make it through completely flawlessly b/c I’m really just not that coordinated and if you know me then you know that, but it was damn fun. I never knew how much I liked Indian dancing…or performing…Fravel, the drama queen you have instilled in me is coming out in more ways that I know… I am going to be running da basanti through my head for a long time, and I can’t wait for Cabaret next year cuz we are definitely doing an encore performance. The end.