Dance competitions. Alternatively referred to as 'Soul Stealers', 'Day Destroyers', 'Daylight Obliterators', and 'The Edge' (of human sanity). There are very few things crazier than dance competitions. An entire weekend of mothers obsessing about their spoiled, snobby daughters, dressing them up in various stripper outfits, and joyously celebrating when all this nonsense is rewarded with a piece of plastic made for eight sixty-thirds of a cent in some factory in Taiwan. Kinda hard to understand in some ways; completely natural in others. Amidst this debachery and buffoonery, there are moments of genuine artistry; moments of tenderness. Kinda makes it all worthwhile, those moments.
This weekend was the first time I had seen a number that actually revolted me, no small task considering some of the routines I've seen over the years. The number was the 2005 rendition of 'International Playboys,' Larkin's annual guys number that wows audiences and judges alike and usually leaves with a top award. This years number featured boys from the ages of 6 to 17 wearing Chippendale inspired bowties, white tuxedo jackets, and tight black pants. During the routine, all boys girated, stripped, and wriggled in and out of their coats provacatively, ending up in a large group of half naked boys posed for the audiences delight. The show alternatively drew cheers from the boys' parents and disgruntled wives glad to see some fine flexing and headshaking, muttering, and raised eyebrows from a much larger segment of the audience that found the routine to be simply too much. Call me old fashioned and prudish, but I find it hard to accept the sight of a 6 year old child performing what amounts to a strip-tease on stage to the drooling cheers of parents with no thought other than that plastic first place trophy on their mind. What's next? Is next years edition going to feature an interactive feature where the audience gets to place play money in these boys' g-strings? How about some naked mud wrestling, or a little bondage? Why is Michelle Larkin choreographing this garbage? What is her obsession with naked 8 & 9 year old boys? Hard to understand. Seems to me that an event designed to provide child performers a venue to show their skills should feature just that, children performing. Again, I'm all for artistry and pushing the envelope, but watching a 7 year old child strip provactively to a tight pair of pants is not artistry, it is perversion. Please parents, make it stop.
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