Angel Wings on a Strip Stage
Give me a warm wooden floor to love
It seemed as though I’d been dancing all my life. My neighbors took dance lessons when we were all five. My mother wouldn’t let me take them because I was skinny and clumsy. So, I would visit the two girls every Saturday afternoon to see what they had learned that morning at ballet class. They put up with me until they got bored and sent me home after I memorized plies, releves, first, second, third positions, and more.
I’d take that dance knowledge and practice in front of my dresser mirror until I could copy their moves perfectly. When that first magical library card was handed to me, I took out every book I could find on dance and spent hours trying to imitate the pictures.
I danced in secret. Every. Single. Day. I told no one.
Much later, when I arrived at college for my first semester, I was able to take real dance classes. The other essential classes fell by the wayside, as I concentrated on learning everything I could about modern jazz, ballet, and yoga.
Saturday mornings were spent in the empty dance studio with the mirror, the music, and the barre, creating my own unique style of dance. There is a name for my brand of dancing now- it’s called ‘Combo’. Back in 1972 I just called it ‘mine’.
My college dorm mates encouraged me to enter a dance contest at a big club in the nearby city of Rochester, New York. Once onstage at the club, I realized that I was terrified of being in front of a crowd, and could barely move, let alone dance.
Disappointed by my dismal failure, I was leaving the club when an older gentleman stopped me to suggest I keep trying. He handed me his business card and said he could get me booked into smaller clubs until I got comfortable. That was all it took for me to toss my graduation cap into the air and put on a G-String.
That was the beginning of a thirteen-year-long adventure through the underbelly of the exotic dancing world. Many changes happened during my years in the business. What was once a glamorous strip tease show with women removing silk gloves for an audience’s rapt attention in 1973, devolved into lap dancing, and private rooms during the latter years. Not being a fan of up close and personal dancing, I finally retired at age thirty-one, with lots of stories to tell.
It always escaped me that I was performing in some terrible places because in my head it was all about the stage and the movement. I could be dancing anywhere and in my head that usually meant Broadway.
Sometimes my life was hell. Pure hell. I don't know how I survived it. Broken relationships and broken hearts chased me through those years, leaving fading scars and permanent damage that I’m still recovering from.
Through it all. Through loneliness, dangers, forfeited motherhood, vicious lovers, injuries, and estrangement from my family, dancing held me prisoner on those warm wooden stages.
Dance gave me invisible wings, and although I may have been garmented only in a sequined G-String, that was as close to Heaven as I had ever been.
About the Creator
Tina D'Angelo
I am a 70-year-old grandmother, who began my writing career in 2022. Since then I have published 6 books, all available on Barnes and Noble or Amazon.
BARE HUNTER, SAVE ONE BULLET, G-IS FOR STRING, AND G-IS FOR STRING: OH, CANADA
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