Monday afternoon – On the plane from LA to Seattle…
Jerry came down early yesterday morning so that we could attend Billy and Bruce Stuart’s Christmas party. Attend isn’t the right word, though, because I was actually performing. They are amazing, amazing guys, who, for their annual Christmas party decided that they wanted Diavolo to perform. They went out and built a full-sized stage in their garden (really and an extra lot that fills in the space between their main living quarters, a cabana, a guest house, a green house, the pool complex and some other unknown, but equally opulent and amazing structures.) The stage had full lighting trusses and support structures so that we might perform the Knot, a piece where the silver orb the three male dancers interact with is suspended from the ceiling, and can be swung from and circled with a support wire.
I realize I’ve lost all order in trying to describe this party. Henceforth, I am just going to type it as I think about it… and there is soooo much I want to document. I’ll start with the Stuarts themselves: I can’t even believe how wonderful they are… it was such an amazing and fun experience to begin with, but having these two generous, openhearted, amazing, amazing men take such wonderful care of us was beyond anything I could have expected.
When I say that they ‘took care of us,’ I mean this in about 800 ways: Mostly, that they threw this party for the who’s-who of Beverly Hills, and asked us to perform, not only because they like our company, and just wanted their friends to enjoy a good show, but also because they wanted to help spread the word about us, and wanted to provide for us a way to get our name out among people who matter in the arts world. It was just so wonderful, I still am in awe. They had a basket by the front door of flyers about us, and came up on stage after we performed and talked about us, and how much they love our company… and they were so genuine, and it was so touching.
They also took care of us by allowing everyone in the company to not just be there to perform, but to actually be full party guests, and for each of us to be able to bring a guest. This was why I splurged and flew Jerry down just for the one night to be my date… when else will I ever, ever get to go to a party like this?!
They also gave the Diavolo people their cabana (read: full other house on the property,) to have as our green room and chill-out space. When we went upstairs, there were even gift bags full of very-well selected goodies for each of the dancers. You can tell these guys just care, a lot, about everything they do. Otherwise, how else would they have thought to give the dancers foot-care products, back pain spray, relaxation bath and body accouterments… It was so fun. I was giggling for about five minutes while I delved into my bag, grinning.
As if it couldn’t get any better, the Stuarts also gave full rein over use of their hot tub, warm, simmering pool and cabana-house for our use after the party, once all the other guests had left. (!!!) They told us ahead of time to all bring our swimsuits and stuff to spend the night (should we so choose, or should we be so inebriated that we would incapable of driving home…) AND!! As we all were enjoying ourselves, and having an amazing time in the spa, they would come over and sit and talk with us and bring us (even more) drinks, waters, towels… it was unbelievable, and when I offered to help clean up and everything, they just said it was okay, and to just enjoy ourselves to the fullest… wow, right? RIGHT.
So… back to the party itself. We got to the house early to run through all the pieces before we were going to actually perform them. Afterwards, guests started showing up at about 7:00, and by that time we had all had time to pile into the same room in the cabana and get ready girl-slumber-party, before-prom style. Many of us had brought multiple choices on dresses, shoes, make up, dress shirts, pants, accessories… so we have mini fashion shows and swaps until everyone looked their absolute best and we were all ready to hit the party for a couple of hours before we had to go get ready to perform.
One quick note: I have always had gorgeous friends, but really, I really, really had the most gorgeous friends last night. I mean, everyone in the company (and all our dates,) are very pretty people, but everyone also cleaned up like, talk-show makeover worthy. It was awesome.
So, heading out into the party, it was a little chilly because with no cloud cover in So Cal, even when it’s moderately warm during the day, by night, there is nothing to keep all that moisture in, so it just gets real cold real fast. There were heat-lamps spread throughout the grounds, though, so it wasn’t even an issue really (until I got out of the pool later that night, and realized I had left my towel in the room in the cabana across the property…)
There were waiters walking around with hors d’ouvres, as well as “Hottie Santas” walking around with mojitos and champagne. By “hottie santas,” I mean that there were scantily dressed men in santa hats and red bottoms walking around spreading alcoholic Christmas cheer. There was also a full, hosted bar, and desserts later on in the night. Another function of the Hottie Santas was to, at the end of the night, as the guest were leaving, to change into hottie santa, open-chested, red flannel PJ’s and hand out presents to everyone as they left. Unfortunately, I never got around to getting mine since I ended up leaving about three hours after the normal guests.
Oh! And there were Jingle Dogs!! The Stuarts have three beautiful, amazingly fun puppers that they had outfitted with jingle-bell feet warmers and collars, so they jing-jing-jingled their way all over the property throughout the party. I found this highly enchanting, to say the least.
So, about our show: We did three pieces: The Door solo, which David did, Origin (body sofa,) which I did, and The Knot, which Garrett, John, and Leo did. (Also – last night was the best I think that I have ever seen Atom (aka the knot) look. Especially since all of the dances were set against a backdrop of manicured foliage and a cloudless starry sky, and a three-quarters full moon.
The stage itself, by the time we performed around 9:00pm, as dewy and very cold, but it was so amazing and fun to perform under the night sky like that. I feel so lucky to be one of our dancers who got to perform at the party… it’s something I’ll never ever forget for sure.
Also, doing Origin there was the first time Jerry got to see me perform that piece, and as well, it might be my last time doing the full, long version of it as a solo. (Now origin has been combined with hanging duet, so the piece is half origin statue, half hanging duet.)
– Cut to: me in bed, Wednesday morning, really tired. —
Also, I was the only female Diavolo member to perform, so I was the only one who didn’t get to come cute, and stay cute… this also led to me not being able to drink until after I performed, so I was on a different track than everyone else… by the time I was done, most of my friends were far too wasted. The party continued on, I got re-fancied-up and wandered around the grounds. The inside of the house was amazing, it looked like Indiana Jones and Thom from the fab-five had collaborated on the decorating.
Everywhere were important people… one conversation I had with someone that was meaningful to me was that I ran into the man who produced and created the special on MTV that aired when I was in high school about Matthew Shepherd, starring his mom, right after he had died. It was weird, getting to hear about the whole process. It made that special, which has obviously haunted me until now, all the more haunting.
Jerry made friends with Melisa, Becca’s best friend and guest and Becca, and the three of them were on serious party-patrol while I was up getting ready and warming up and all that. After we had performed, and mingled, and drank, and wandered for quite awhile, one by one, Diavolo members started getting in the pool and hot tub. It as funny, because I was in the middle of a random conversation with a party guest, when, all of the sudden, Felix and Garrett popped up on either side of the guy, in their swimming briefs, dripping wet and pulling me towards the pool.
Eventually, I succumbed, once I had changed into an extra swim suit Becca brought, but Jerry, as per usual stayed as far away from the water as he could manage. Once the the hot tub turned into… an awkward place to be… I got out, and went back and changed into everything warm I brought. By that time everyone else was too drunk to notice that Jerry and I and some of our more sober companions had chosen to stay in the nice and warm Cabana to talk, and play with the pool table. Once I made final rounds, double checking that everyone had a safe ride home, Jerry and I took off, getting back to my apartment at about 1:00. Obviously, I fell right asleep.
The next morning, Jerry and I finished Sky High, and watched the 40-year-old Virgin as I packed up literally everything I could possibly think of. I let go of any concern about over-packing for this trip home, I really didn’t want to be accidentally without any possible thing when I was stressed out about, and about to get married. We got lunch on the way to the airport at Cilantro’s – to which I had never been, but is now squarely on my list of mexican places to go once or twice a week – and flew home on a mid-afternoon flight.
In a weird turn – we got the same taxi guy I got the last time I flew home. This time, instead of a morality lesson on why it’s best that my dancing is not not the stripping type, we were privy to a philosophy lesson on the joys of married life. Bizarre.