The Dancers’ Private Dressing Room
The New York Times takes a peek backstage at the Hustler Club in Manhattan with an interactive panoramic shot of the unglamorous dressing room that lies beyond the stage lights.
"Where the Dancers Dress to Undress."In any act of fantasy — from a feature film to a political campaign — there is a hidden place where the dirty work gets done, where the make-believe is made.
In Hollywood, this is the editing room; in Washington, the spin room. At Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club, a strip joint on Manhattan’s West Side, it is the dancers’ private dressing room where the image of available sexuality and the naked facts collide.
Tucked behind a closed door upstairs from the dance floor, the dressing room is a shrine to female beauty — to the tireless attempts to tease the hair into a proper state of sultriness and adjust the bosoms upward at just the right incline. It is a small piece of the contemporary demimonde (strippers nibble take-out food in thongs and gold lamé). Near a plastic bowl of pretzels, a topless beauty steams the wrinkles from her ball gown with an iron. A tall brunette in nothing but a G-string wanders by. She is brushing her teeth.
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No grinding? Does that mean what I think?
Amazing panoramic with stunning clarity. As someone who does these a lot, I'm most impressed with the mirrors being bereft of any evidence of a camera/photographer. If only I could zoom in, it would be perfect.
"Do NOT sit BARE ASSED in the makeup chair."
Re #1: evidently the customers experienced considerable discomfort when they had a skateboard applied to their groins.
Backstage is either a great deal less or a great deal more interesting than onstage, in all things. Depends on your viewpoint.
Not sure I'd ever want to sit down and watch someone edit a film :)