Your show High Society is very different from what we've gotten used to seeing you ladies in with productions by The Chic-A-Boom Room and DivaGirl Entertainment. How does it feel to be performing with just the four of you and being highlighted as individual dancers?
Kate: I hate being the star of any show, I hate when all the attention is on me, I just hate it!
Anna (in the background of Kate): She's a real wall flower this one.
Kate: I don't like being funny either! I don't like making an ass of myself or having fun!
Anna: Yeah we had to force her to do this, we had to pay her more. For her to even just come out to the venue it was such a chore! We were like "Kate you're so talented, come on'!" Like pulling teeth!
They all laugh.
Marta: Anytime you do a smaller show it's always nice. You get to be closer with the people you're working with and you get to understand the kind emotional investment that Anna has for example with this whole thing opening. and you know because we love her since she's like a little angel we're like "yup we'll make up these solos and come to rehearsals!" It's nice to get a chance to do something that highlights each of us is individually you know.
Kate: Shows like this are very different than your Electronic Cabaret for example. The other Chic-A-Boom Room shows have become a big, big show where that's a totally different way to perform and it's a different kind of audience and it's very different. It's equally as fun but I like doing these intimate venues because you can see your audience and you can mess around with them and make them feel nervous. It's very interactive and it's how I know Burlesque to be. It's about making the crowd nervous, they can get up on stage and kick you in the face if they really wanted to. They never do but you do it to them, but…
Lots of laughter fills our tiny space.
It's a different performance atmosphere and it's a lot more fun. This is an opportunity for each of us to try something a little different, a little out of our comfort zone for an audience that will probably be very forgiving for it. Also, for me this is getting back to my roots. I'm very much not of this decade and so I get to go back and do what I like doing, the stuff that's kind of my favourite.
Meghan: Also, I find that with these shows the dynamic and the energy is a little bit different before the show. When you put on this huge production and there's forty plus women in the show, and there's a lighting tech and there's like mic cues and there's get in and out of the stair well with twenty people coming on and off it gets really frantic and you kind of lose sight of it all a little bit until you're actually doing the show. There is just so much to do and so many people everywhere that's it's just all of a sudden you're doing the show and then it's over.
With something like this you have a few hours before hand to rehearse and get ready and there's only four of you so you get to hang out and go out for dinner and relax. You get to settle into the show a little bit more and you get to do your thing with it.
Marta: You understand what's happening more.
Meghan: It's less of a a gong show.
Marta: Yes less of a gong show for sure.
Anna: Gong show is another nice dance term.
Meghan: Yeah, gong show. Gong show is like our term for let's just do this. If it's going to be rough it's going to be rough, whatever happens, happens.
Kate: Not that it's ever bad. As long as we don't tell the audience how bad it really is they never know. The key is to never let your audience know.
Anna: They're like "how cute, yay! They look pretty, exciting!"
Kate: The only people that know are on the other side and that's how it should stay. The audience should never know that it's a gong show.
Do you think when a show you've performed turns out to be a "gong show" it's really you being hard on yourself as an artist more than the show actually not turning out perfect or the way you planned?
Kate: There was definitely a time in my career at least where if I didn't get something right I was very hard on myself and I would beat myself up and berate myself for the longest time. With shows like this and I'm finding with the more shows I do it's a moment in time and it passes. It's not that you made a mistake it's how did you recover from it? Mistakes are going to happen that's the beauty of live theatre. Costumes are going to fall apart, people are going to get injured, you're going to run into shit, things aren't going to happen.
Anna: You're going to go on stage wearing one shoe.
Meghan: Honestly, most of the time the majority of the audience doesn't know what's supposed to happen. If all four of you are doing something together and then you start doing something that's not what the other three aren't doing, and you make it like you're doing it on purpose people are going to think that you're doing it on purpose. "Oh that's her solo moment to shine!" Nope I just screwed up!
Anna: Which is part of the fun, it's been a really great process. We whipped this show together in a couple months and it's been really amazing working with these three incredibly talented women. It's really an amazing experience to be able to horse around in the studio, and come up with ideas and see what evolves and develops out of that and it's just been a really fun experience for us.
Meghan: With shows like this when it's so dependent on the venue as well you find things changing. We had some hilarious moments during our spacing rehearsal some of which have become a part of the show. There's one little part where we all go out to the audience and do an audience participation thing where we ruffle the guys feathers a bit and I end up hiding behind the curtain at the back of the stage and running back and forth behind the curtain. You can see the little lump it was so funny.
Marta: We died. We were like we just have to this.
Kate: I think I actually peed.
Anna: It's spontaneous moments like those where you go "wait a second that's amazing!" The things that can happen in small shows like this.
Meghan: When there's only four of us there's nothing set in stone so much that it can't be changed.
Marta: There's more creative freedom with a show of this size for sure.
I like that "creative freedom." Your show is described as a decedent scandal exclusive to the High Society urban, aristocrats of our city, which is just fabulous! What does High Society mean to you?
Anna: Basically what we were really keeping in mind for the concept of the show is keep it classy. We wanted to create a performance for all walks of life you know husbands and wives to come check it out. My parents are here, our good friends we really wanted to make it accessible to everyone and not alienate anyone.
At the same time a lot of the choreography, our opening number for example, really takes a stab and pokes fun at how women can become so competitive and get crazy over the idea of being the most beautiful and the most popular. You'll see moments where that really comes through in the first number, throughout the show, in between each solo and through each piece we'll be on stage doing little vignettes that are all sort of spontaneous, with a lot of improve to keep that going.
Kind of a high school "Mean Girls" on stage?
Anna: Yeah, that sort of bumping elbows with each other. It's really trying to say that this is something that we should just enjoy and have fun with and people get crazy trying to be given the spotlight and being so glamorous.
Kate: I find that this very much a pin-up style and another type of woman. The lady of leisure and they have their own ridiculousness with them. With my solo I actually took the other side of it and I dubbed it "my desperate housewife routine." It's this poor woman who's at home doing laundry and she lives the high life and she has everything but she's not getting laid and that's her desperate attempt to seduce someone.
It seems that the desperate housewife who want to let loose and be a little more sexual has been made so popular now from "50 Shades of Grey." Did you get your routine idea from the book?
Kate: EW NO! OH GOD NO!
All: Oh no, no!
Kate: I feel that all of us are different in our creative processes and I see stories and relationships when I listen to music and listening to Etta James do "I Just Want to Make Love to You" and I don't know why I saw this really sexually frustrated housewife just deciding to take her relationship into her own hands. I exaggerated, evolved it and changed it then came up with ideas in the shower and was like "that's totally what I should do!"
Etta has a great way of making you feel what she's feeling so I hear you. Okay let's talk about solos. Where do the ideas and inspirations come from when you're developing your choreography?
Marta: Mine is based on my dress. Anna approached me with a song, Jessica's theme song from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit."
Oh my gosh gorgeous! Is that what your dress looks like!?
Marta: No, not exactly but it's very much like that. I knew I had this dress and then Anna gave me the song. I was like yup that's what I'm going to do, I'm just a character, that's it. plus like Kate said we all have very different creative processes and I don't really do stories much when I do choreography so this is more like "I get to wear this dress, and be all leggy on stage, kick myself in the face and have a boa" which never happens really for me.
So Burlesque is totally different for you?
Marta: Yeah, this isn't really my niche style. I just got into this a couple years ago so this is really fun for me and totally, totally different.
Anna: Mine is a spoiled little, good rich girl routine who kind of comes a little unhinged. She starts to shed that image but throughout the solo she'll make these looks like "I'm so innocent and I'm so good" then the dress start to come off and there's this little get up underneath with feathers and things.
I was inspired by the song "But I Am A Good Girl" from Burlesque sung by Christina Aguilera and it just moved me and fit with the concept of the show so I decided to just go with it.
Meghan: for my solo it was initially supposed to be a dance solo. Anna sent me the song, "I Put A Spell On You" by Nina Simone and I thought awesome, great it's scatty and fabulous.
What's scatty?
Meghan: bee, di, bop, doo, bop, bada, di, doo, da zip, bop. Yeah that.
Then I started listening to the song and I thought yeah I could choreograph something and do a thing but I kind of just want to sing the song. I approached Anna about what she'd think about me finding an instrumental and singing it instead. Again, it's nice to have that creative freedom with a small show where nothing is set in stone and you can kind of take what you want and do what's actually going to suite you. I feel like I connect way more to a piece when I'm singing that song than dancing around.
Anna: I'm actually really glad you approached me with that too because initially when I set out to pick music for the show and put it together I thought it's all just going to be dance forgetting that you all sing. When Meghan approached me with the idea of singing for her solo I thought hey yeah let's do it!
Meghan: It definitely fits the bill of the show and it's nice to break up the solos a bit.
Okay last question, the venue that you're performing in tonight is a small space tucked away in downtown Toronto in what feels like to me as a 50s jazz type bar where they'd have a piano man as regular entertainment. What made you choose this spot that fits so nicely with your shows theme?
Anna: this venue used to be a nightclub called Jezebel and the owners created it a couple years back originally to be a Burlesque night club so they actually built this space as it is nothing has been changed or touched. The chandeliers were received from Hurricane Katrina and dates back to 1918 so they're real vintage, it's a very unique space.
I've been coming to this space for years and I've always wanted to do my own show in a space like this. A few months ago we were here and I noticed that it was an empty space not being used for anything. My husband actually works for the company that owns this and the restaurant below it so I had a little in. I reached out to the owners with a proposal for a show and reached out to Laura of DivaGirl Inc. - we all dance with DivaGirl Entertainment. She was totally on board and it just went from there and here we are tonight! Now we're minutes from going on stage and there's a line up I heard and it's all just totally exciting, amazing, and wonderful!
Kate: It's really exciting for our first show as we're launching what hopefully is going to be weekly, monthly what have you that already the first show we're getting a line up at the door and last minute we sold tickets. I feel like with this space it's so doable because capacity is much smaller than we're used to and I think there is a lot of opportunity to do this every weekend, of course if we're smart with our business and marketing. It's just a great opportunity to have fun, do something interesting and even make cash off of it, we have everything we could want out of this. Only the future will tell but we have high hopes for it.
High hopes for a High Society.
Anna: Hey great title!
Kate: Yeah, It's very exciting to take a look into the future, I'm really pleased! High heels, high hopes as Carla would say!
Divas, be sure to check out my review of the show "High Society - An Exclusive Affair in Review" and "Oh Aren't They Sassy - Meet The "High Society Gals" We also have another show coming up October 25th - "High Society - Dangerous Dames and Wicked Little Girls." Check it out!
Until next time Darlings!
Written By: Julia Marie Gallo xox
Photography courtesy of Boudoir and Portrait Photography by Marlen James
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