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Heaven and the G-String
by Aleta George
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It is 1:30 a.m. in Acapulco, Mexico on a warm tropical night in the early 1980s. I grab my dance bag and walk alone to the front of the Convention Center, where I know I can find a cab. Most of the other dancers are going to Babylon, our frequent hangout after work and the most popular discotheque in Acapulco. We always get in free, and in the wee hours of the morning, we are celebrities on the crowded dance floor. . .
. . . I am a showgirl — well, for now anyway. I grew up in a small Northern California town and studied dance at the local college, where I felt like a shining star. When I turned 21, I moved to Los Angeles to be a dancer.
I went to many auditions, most of them cattle calls. I wasn’t getting the jobs, but I was learning a lesson about image and attitude — things they didn’t teach us in college, but that I seemed to need in shiny, slick L.A. I started to realize that my hair wasn’t big enough, my teeth not straight enough, my legs not long enough, and my stomach not flat enough. All around, I began to feel that I just wasn’t enough.
But I could dance. I figured that must be worth something. I love to dance and I especially love dance classes. I like being strong, and I like the intense focus required to learn a difficult combination. But mostly, I love to feel and express music in my body . . .
And I’ve discovered something else. The lifestyle of staying up late disco dancing and sleeping the day away doesn’t suit me. I want to live in the daytime. I want to know Mexico, learn about the Mexican people. I want to be accepted by la gente, not the convention hombres . . .
