Dance 10, Looks D-Cup

In a titillating Washington Post article today titled Body Suit by Sarah Kaufman that seemed to be timed to coincide with Tony award coverage, a dancer is suing the producers of Moving Out for firing her after she came back from an injury-related leave one bra cup size bigger than when she left. At age 29, Alice Alysa claims her hooters just moved up and the show moved her out. She is suing for ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS (as Dr. Evil would say) over the loss of her $130k a year chorus line job.

She claims she’s just an entertainer that wanted to be a dancer for the longest time. This need for physical perfection is part of the pressure to become a big shot uptown girl and achieve a New York state of mind. I’m sure dancers in Allentown don’t go to extremes like that when they say goodbye to Hollywood. She now lives in Miami, but doesn’t want to be stuck there until 2017. Judging by her publicity photos, she’s always a woman to me and can start the fire anytime she wants.

The paper quotes Billy Joel as saying:

Under no circumstances would I ever have anyone fired for having breasts that were too large.

And I think most of us would agree with that mildly lecherous assessment. From a guys point of view, the bigger the better when it comes to funbags. She says that this is the way nature made her and she’s not going to have surgery just to fit in with the chorus line. The article spends a lot of time talking about how strict physical appearance requirements are for theater and dance. I understand that for something like the Rockettes, but Moving Out is a modern dance show set to Billy Joel tunes and nobody is forming up in a kick step line where her boobies would be blocking the view of the other dancers. It seems like a petty dispute about trying to make molehills out of mountains.

I’ve known that bodacious tatas were a detriment to a dancer’s career since I was about ten because I read that in A Gift Of Magic by Lois Duncan. In it, the heroine’s sister says she will never become a great dancer because of her big chest. To a fifth-grader, this is a bigger eye-opening revelation than the money shot in Then Again, Maybe I Won’t.

My college roommate’s favorite show tune was “Looks 10, Dance 3”. The song, which despite Gene Weingarten’s ignorance (search for "dance") is not called “Tits and Ass”, actually suggests that dancers get their ladybumps enlarged in order to get more parts. Obviously, real life on the Great Flat-Chested White Way works differently.

And I namedrop A Chorus Line, because that is my wife’s favorite musical. We’ve seen the movie starring Michael Douglas, and we saw a very good high school production of it at Atlanta’s School For Performing Arts. I swear we have even seen a very bad touring company of it, but my wife doesn’t remember it. Her dream has always been to see it on Broadway with the full “One Singular Sensation” razzmatazz.

The show is being revived on Broadway this fall in a futile misguided attempt to chase Phantom Of The Opera for most Broadway performances ever. Super Secret Advance Internet Tickets went on sale last week and we scarfed up fourth row aisle seats for Thanksgiving weekend. I think we got them just in the nick of time since the show was being heavily advertised on the Tony Awards.

Since this post is long enough already and I’ve run out of Billy Joel allusions and breast euphemisms, I’ll stop here and give my take on the Tonys a little later in the week. Let’s just say The Drowsy Chaperone can go back to sleep and I won’t be taking the exit for the Jersey Boys.