Stripper Dreams

Marcelo Tinelli's wildly popular Argentinian version of TV's Dancing With the Stars, SHOWMATCH, Canal 13 at 22:30, debuted a new dance this week: Strip Tease. Last week it was a campy milonga (photo below), but previous new-to-the-arena-dances were Poledancing (is that one word?), and a barefoot folklore. But whatever the dance of the week is, the main thing is to show the girls' thong-clad asses.



Which is of course the idea of a strip tease (is that two words?) Now because I admire good dance in all of its forms, I have no problem with the choice of art form. Sure, it's sexist but we are in Argentina, and there's also a guy dancing with the girl (in the pole dance too, but he of course doesn't dance with the pole, since he has his own.)

So I tuned in last night hoping to see a sexy pas de deux, sort of like Julio Bocca's Ballet Argentino, or at least as good as a lounge show in Vegas. Silly me. It was soooooooo boring. Because even if the bodies are perfect and almost naked, prancing around quickly taking off clothes isn't easy. If there's no technique or grace, just pulchritude, a three minute performance is two and a half minutes too long. Being almost naked just isn't enough to make it entertaining. And on Marcelo's show, that's the usual state of affairs anyway.


The producers and choreographers know that, and so tried to make little dramas out of the numbers: two soldiers (one a girl, of course) lost in the jungle (one judge criticized the ethics of the theme because there's too much war in the world), a Spanish prostitute and a bullfighter to the music of Carmen, and, it's hard to remember now, a nurse and her patient, which may have been the best of the three and the nurse may have been a transvestite, but I was almost asleep at this point.