Dreamscapes: The Smokeshow
Sometimes the line between audience and performer becomes irreversibly blurred…
I am looking through a closet full of clothes that I haven’t worn in years. My mom walks up to me and exclaims, “You need to get dressed, it’s almost time for the show!” She helps me into an elegant costume that we have both picked out, with a leotard and a tutu.
“They need to cut and style your hair, too,” she says.
“Are they going to dye it?” I ask. “I don’t think blonde will go with this outfit.”
I sit in the hairdresser’s chair, and they make my hair look beautiful, but they don’t dye it.
I make my way into the kitchen, and a stairway descends from the middle of the room. Light streams through the entrance at the top. Two of my college friends are there, wearing beautiful dresses. The stairs don’t start at the floor, so we must jump up to start climbing them. My friends go first, and then I follow, right onto the middle of a stage, which is in a tiny round amphitheater, with only a few rows of seats for the audience.
Right away, I realize that I am the star of the show. Classical music plays, and I begin to dance, quickly pulling off my outfit to reveal a different, lacy dress underneath. I move my body quickly but gracefully across the stage, and then I start to fly over the audience. They ooh and ahh. I land back on the stage and I dance like a graceful bird. At the end of the piece I press a button on my outfit and life-size feathered wings pop out. The audience gasps and bursts into applause.
I step backstage and the crew is hurriedly changing me into my next outfit. I can hear the other dancers performing an interlude while I change. Once I am ready, I step onto the stage again and dance to “Body Electric” by Lana Del Rey. I have backup dancers this time, and as we dance, I can see the crowd is pleased.
The final song I dance to is “Blowin’ Smoke” by Kacey Musgraves. The song starts out with the clanging of dishes and the sounds of diner chatter, and then I appear on stage and begin to sing. When I come to the chorus, some women wearing old Western dresses and carrying lit cigarettes start rudely making their way across a sill above the top row of seats, and as I sing, “We’re just blowin’ smoke!” the women sit down in the audience and blow the smoke from their cigarettes right in people’s faces. The audience is none too thrilled, but what a way to end the show!