Purple sparkly minidresses

A little while ago I received an email from an event organiser looking for a tap-dancing act.

Hi there, I run a gay girls event called Blonde on the Rocks, in the cbd. Throughout our night we have a variety of shows that we put on. We've had a variety of shows so far consisting of hoola, circus tricks, topless tap dancing, skipping (professional), burlesque, classy stripping, contortion, fire tricks, puppetry with a twist and the list goes on.

Anyway I noticed on a flier that you have a troupe called the Tap-Pets and thought it was worth asking whether your girls have any stylised routines they'd be interested in performing at our night? For solo shows we pay $xx per show and for duos or more we pay $xx per show. Our favourite topless tapper has left our shores for a married life in xx so we miss our tapping routines!

Anyway if you think they're be interested and think they'd be up for the task, let me know.

I wrote back and said that while we could definitely provide a tap act, there was no way on earth it could be a topless one. I'm pretty comfortable with my body, but not quite that comfortable - especially seeing as I've breastfed 2 kids. Plus the other girls are my students and I didn't feel right asking them to do it. But the organiser said she wasn't even looking for a topless tap-dancer, she just missed having tapping at the shows because she loved it so. In that case, I replied, we're your gals. So then she felt duty-bound to warn me that we'd have to be very comfortable with performing in front of a crowd of adoring ladies. We thought about it for maybe 5 seconds and decided we could live with being adored.

Work began. We already had one act, some specky a'cappella tap leading into a sultry number to a Nina Simone song called I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl. But we had 2 performance slots on the night so I choreographed a feel-good routine to Mariah Carey's All I want for Christmas is you, to complement the Christmas theme.

Our costumes were whipped up by my dear friend Jenny who unlike me is a very good sewer. For which I can't thank her enough. As you can see, the costumes are purple. And sparkly. And short, very short. As it turned out though, we were slightly overdressed compared to the other performers...

Naturally, such purple sparkliness needed to be accompanied by red lipstick and false eyelashes. For a change, I affixed mine first go ... ... but Kaye and Jodie were wimps and after a failed attempt gave it up.

Making my list was a good idea (and essential given that prior to the show was Cherub's crèche Christmas party, which is why my performance list also includes items like wrap small presents and cook Shrek patties); it meant that I did not forget my Santa hat for the Christmas routine. Unlike Mel. Fortunately the barmaid had one, even though it was black and said "naughty" on the brim. Which given the vibe of the show was actually okay but I wished we'd realised before we went on that the 'naughty' writing had red flashing lights inbuilt because how cool would that have been?

This is half a shot of the very crowded dressing room, which was home to the assorted barely dressed performers and the glasswasher and ice-machine. There were a couple of burlesque girls, a hula hoop artiste, some belly-dancers and the occasional venue staff navigating their way through holding a tray of glasses.

We were the opening act, with our Nina Simone routine and it went really well, you could tell they liked us. But it was our second number later in the evening that really went off. From the opening strains of Mariah crooning I don't want a lot for Christmas to us leaving the stage waving and blowing kisses, we were adored. Totally and utterly. And it was one of those performances that everything went right, and I can recall it with perfect clarity because it was fun and I felt completely focussed and there were all these chicks smiling and dancing and clapping and stamping and trying to tap and cheering and screaming and whooping. It was SO MUCH FUN!!!! Then we were led through the crowd and girls were stopping us left, right and centre to tell us how great it was. I could get used to that, I reckon.

Jodie, me, Kaye and Mel

I got stopped as I walked through the crowd and asked if I was gay. When I replied (apologetically) in the negative, she said she could tell really but that it was a shame.