Night at The Little Red Studio
May. 26th, 2007 06:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsSo my friend ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
j5nn5r has recently been absorbed into some kind of avant-garde art collective downtown called The Little Red Studio, which bills itself as a place for "Beauty, Art, and the Erotic," and his wife, Desirae, invited me to come down and check the place out for last night's show. Omaha wanted to go as well but couldn't: Kouryou-chan was sick and someone needed to stay and watch over her.
Jenner called when I was about ten minutes out from the place. He said, "Great, when you get here, I have work for you." Suddenly, I had gone from audience member to crew. I found the place, found Jenner's lovely wifedesirae, and she led me to Jenner. He grinned his favorite evil grin, handed me about forty feet of 3/8" rope, and pointed to a tiny, pretty sylph of a girl, barely five feet tall. "Tie her up."
She was fabulous sport, so bouncy and energetic. I did a straight-up decorative harness, doing a pretty good all along the way. She was such a lovely specimen, eagerly stripping down to a pair of underwear. I had to be careful about her breasts: she had recently had her nipples pierced. I have to learn the proper karada pattern, though.
After her, I did up the legs of another, taller, woman in restraint trousers with a rope belt. She wanted to keep her clothes on, and as she was wearing a long black dress the effect came out looking a lot like harem pants. It was kinda cool: I think I want to try that again.
Then the little one came back. "Can you make it tighter?" I made it a lot tighter, although I had to sacrifice some of the balancing ropes across her shoulders, ruining some of the visual effect. Still, it made her so happy she squealed.
Jenner had neglected to tell me that while I was doing this I was in the theater's anteroom, and they were letting people in. I had an audience. I was completely unaware of them while I played, though: the art, and the girl, were far too much fun.
I finished, and this tall, cute guy wearing baggy pants, a tight tank-top, and a feather boa that could not distract from his handsome manliness if he tried, complimented me. The girl I was working on said, "Oh, yeah. He does a lot of rope work."
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Elf Sternberg."
"Al?"
"No, Elf Sternberg."
He did a double take, his eyes getting wide. "No shit? Elf Sternberg? Holy shit, I remember you. You had the hanky code way back when I was in college. You wrote all those stories about satyrs and centaurs?"
"That would be me," I said. "Still got the hanky." I turned around to show the black one in my left pocket. He laughed and thought it was cool. I was a little embarassed. Desirae said, "Aw, Elf, you love it." I've learned to be gracious about it.
We headed to the stage floor, where a body artist was putting the finishing touches on two gorgeous young, naked models. She had painted their torsos from shoulders to knees in white as a backdrop, and was now painting a landscape of trees and crows. The two girls, probably early twenties like my rope model, were both glowing with that healthy, comforting layer of subcutaneous fat to their bellies and both sweetly geeky with expensively machined black square-rimmed glasses. One was a carrot-top with sly eyes, the other a black-haired lovely with adorable cheeks, a slight overbite and-- be still my heart!-- a snaggletooth. Nerdy arty girls are trés hawt.
There was a brief performance art piece that was kinda lame and quiet, and then a very tall woman came onto stage to sing "Me and Mrs. Jones." Coming from a woman, especially when another woman joined her on stage, made the point, which might have been painfully obvious but it was so well done that the obviousness could be forgiven amidst the laughter and whoops from the audience.
I should perhaps describe the performance space: it was tiny, no bigger than four times my living room, with red velvet booth seats on two sides and a small tiered platform that was clearly the other stage now covered with cushions for the audience. There was a small platform where there was drum set and a live band. It was the very definition of "intimate theater space" all around.
The audience was encourage to get close when two naked men and one naked woman stood up in the performance space and other people began handing out little martini glasses with paint in them and paintbrushes. I painted robot eyes on the cute, fuzzy guy's butt, and then handed the glass over to someone else.
The big art piece of the night was an "animal hunt" with two beautiful models in body paint and hand-made nekomimi fixtures. The first act started with two men walking around in trench coats and gas masks wielding black meters while ominous music played and the sound man added weird effects, then the animal models slinked around the stage, making animal sounds and crawling around leafy stage decorations. It was better than it sounds.
One of the better actresses, by reputation, has a mime act in which people call out emotions and she tries to show them-- all while wearing a white face mask so you can't see her expressions. It's all by body language. I wanted to call out "Tourettes" but I didn't know if it would go over well.
The costume fairy came around, distributing costumes and encouraging us to get into them. I ended up spending the evening in a pair of prison-strip pyjamas. I spent a good part of the evening snuggled up with Desirae wearing prison stripe pyjamas-- life is good.
Then it was poetry night. Different members of the collective read their works aloud. Some were very good, one was just, uh... let's just say that you really can't rip off Laurie Anderson in this crowd and get away with it.
And then came the Humiliation of M, in which a young woman was pulled onto stage and convinced, mostly through the cheers and encouragement of the audience, to play the "bottom" in a mimed woman-on-woman scene while the "top" recited her poetry aloud. She was so embarrassed and said to the poet, "You can only do this because I'm so drunk right now!"
There was a second animal shtick, in which the animals were hunted and captured. I kept seeing my rope bondage across the room and I kept thinking, "Damn, I really want to fix that knot, move it up a bit so we can see her belly button." During a stage transition the audience milled. "Hey, come here," I said to her. "Turn around." She cheerfully did so. I adjust a knot on her upper left shoulder that had come slightly undone, making the frame I'd made around the small of her back unsquared.
More paint went onto the hypercute nerdy girls, and then the "hunted animals" went into their next act, being led in on chain leashes and nuzzling the audience. I was disappointed to learn they were both girls-- I hadn't realized that before. As they slinked around the stage, a duo of a woman vocalist with a head-filling soft, sultry wail of voice and her nifty fiddle accompanist, and then everyone moved off the stage, they cleared out the performance space and the live band started to play. The audience was encourage to come out and dance, and we did, me in my pyjamas, but other people were dressed up in their own outlandish things: a pope's costume, a hockey uniform, leopard-print pyjamas.
After three or four dances (some by the live band, some by the DJ, who played Freakazoid among other things), it was time for me to go home. I changed back into my regular clothes: Queer nation t-shirt, Furry art sweatshirt with TOP written down one side, black hanky (left).
Jenner talked up the place. I'd love to spend more time there; it looks like a neat crowd. But performance isn't my gig, and is probably more demanding than I have time for right now with two kids.
It was a very good time. Omaha and I should go together. I think she'd have a blast.
The only question remains: how much of that can I use in stories?
j5nn5r has recently been absorbed into some kind of avant-garde art collective downtown called The Little Red Studio, which bills itself as a place for "Beauty, Art, and the Erotic," and his wife, Desirae, invited me to come down and check the place out for last night's show. Omaha wanted to go as well but couldn't: Kouryou-chan was sick and someone needed to stay and watch over her.Jenner called when I was about ten minutes out from the place. He said, "Great, when you get here, I have work for you." Suddenly, I had gone from audience member to crew. I found the place, found Jenner's lovely wife
desirae, and she led me to Jenner. He grinned his favorite evil grin, handed me about forty feet of 3/8" rope, and pointed to a tiny, pretty sylph of a girl, barely five feet tall. "Tie her up."She was fabulous sport, so bouncy and energetic. I did a straight-up decorative harness, doing a pretty good all along the way. She was such a lovely specimen, eagerly stripping down to a pair of underwear. I had to be careful about her breasts: she had recently had her nipples pierced. I have to learn the proper karada pattern, though.
After her, I did up the legs of another, taller, woman in restraint trousers with a rope belt. She wanted to keep her clothes on, and as she was wearing a long black dress the effect came out looking a lot like harem pants. It was kinda cool: I think I want to try that again.
Then the little one came back. "Can you make it tighter?" I made it a lot tighter, although I had to sacrifice some of the balancing ropes across her shoulders, ruining some of the visual effect. Still, it made her so happy she squealed.
Jenner had neglected to tell me that while I was doing this I was in the theater's anteroom, and they were letting people in. I had an audience. I was completely unaware of them while I played, though: the art, and the girl, were far too much fun.
I finished, and this tall, cute guy wearing baggy pants, a tight tank-top, and a feather boa that could not distract from his handsome manliness if he tried, complimented me. The girl I was working on said, "Oh, yeah. He does a lot of rope work."
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Elf Sternberg."
"Al?"
"No, Elf Sternberg."
He did a double take, his eyes getting wide. "No shit? Elf Sternberg? Holy shit, I remember you. You had the hanky code way back when I was in college. You wrote all those stories about satyrs and centaurs?"
"That would be me," I said. "Still got the hanky." I turned around to show the black one in my left pocket. He laughed and thought it was cool. I was a little embarassed. Desirae said, "Aw, Elf, you love it." I've learned to be gracious about it.
We headed to the stage floor, where a body artist was putting the finishing touches on two gorgeous young, naked models. She had painted their torsos from shoulders to knees in white as a backdrop, and was now painting a landscape of trees and crows. The two girls, probably early twenties like my rope model, were both glowing with that healthy, comforting layer of subcutaneous fat to their bellies and both sweetly geeky with expensively machined black square-rimmed glasses. One was a carrot-top with sly eyes, the other a black-haired lovely with adorable cheeks, a slight overbite and-- be still my heart!-- a snaggletooth. Nerdy arty girls are trés hawt.
There was a brief performance art piece that was kinda lame and quiet, and then a very tall woman came onto stage to sing "Me and Mrs. Jones." Coming from a woman, especially when another woman joined her on stage, made the point, which might have been painfully obvious but it was so well done that the obviousness could be forgiven amidst the laughter and whoops from the audience.
I should perhaps describe the performance space: it was tiny, no bigger than four times my living room, with red velvet booth seats on two sides and a small tiered platform that was clearly the other stage now covered with cushions for the audience. There was a small platform where there was drum set and a live band. It was the very definition of "intimate theater space" all around.
The audience was encourage to get close when two naked men and one naked woman stood up in the performance space and other people began handing out little martini glasses with paint in them and paintbrushes. I painted robot eyes on the cute, fuzzy guy's butt, and then handed the glass over to someone else.
The big art piece of the night was an "animal hunt" with two beautiful models in body paint and hand-made nekomimi fixtures. The first act started with two men walking around in trench coats and gas masks wielding black meters while ominous music played and the sound man added weird effects, then the animal models slinked around the stage, making animal sounds and crawling around leafy stage decorations. It was better than it sounds.
One of the better actresses, by reputation, has a mime act in which people call out emotions and she tries to show them-- all while wearing a white face mask so you can't see her expressions. It's all by body language. I wanted to call out "Tourettes" but I didn't know if it would go over well.
The costume fairy came around, distributing costumes and encouraging us to get into them. I ended up spending the evening in a pair of prison-strip pyjamas. I spent a good part of the evening snuggled up with Desirae wearing prison stripe pyjamas-- life is good.
Then it was poetry night. Different members of the collective read their works aloud. Some were very good, one was just, uh... let's just say that you really can't rip off Laurie Anderson in this crowd and get away with it.
And then came the Humiliation of M, in which a young woman was pulled onto stage and convinced, mostly through the cheers and encouragement of the audience, to play the "bottom" in a mimed woman-on-woman scene while the "top" recited her poetry aloud. She was so embarrassed and said to the poet, "You can only do this because I'm so drunk right now!"
There was a second animal shtick, in which the animals were hunted and captured. I kept seeing my rope bondage across the room and I kept thinking, "Damn, I really want to fix that knot, move it up a bit so we can see her belly button." During a stage transition the audience milled. "Hey, come here," I said to her. "Turn around." She cheerfully did so. I adjust a knot on her upper left shoulder that had come slightly undone, making the frame I'd made around the small of her back unsquared.
More paint went onto the hypercute nerdy girls, and then the "hunted animals" went into their next act, being led in on chain leashes and nuzzling the audience. I was disappointed to learn they were both girls-- I hadn't realized that before. As they slinked around the stage, a duo of a woman vocalist with a head-filling soft, sultry wail of voice and her nifty fiddle accompanist, and then everyone moved off the stage, they cleared out the performance space and the live band started to play. The audience was encourage to come out and dance, and we did, me in my pyjamas, but other people were dressed up in their own outlandish things: a pope's costume, a hockey uniform, leopard-print pyjamas.
After three or four dances (some by the live band, some by the DJ, who played Freakazoid among other things), it was time for me to go home. I changed back into my regular clothes: Queer nation t-shirt, Furry art sweatshirt with TOP written down one side, black hanky (left).
Jenner talked up the place. I'd love to spend more time there; it looks like a neat crowd. But performance isn't my gig, and is probably more demanding than I have time for right now with two kids.
It was a very good time. Omaha and I should go together. I think she'd have a blast.
The only question remains: how much of that can I use in stories?
