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The One With the Gross Man

I’M A BIG SUPPORTER of the #metoo and #timesup movements. I’m pretty vocal about standing up for women’s equality, and that crazy idea that women shouldn’t feel as though we need to be subjected to sexist bullshit just because we’re women.

I have a story – two, in fact – and I’m going to share them in this book because I want to. I’m not going to name people, because I don’t want to. These are my stories about my experiences, and even though they have in no way shaped who I am as a person they are still my stories.

I’ve noticed that when people are named then they become the focus. Taking them down becomes the main objective, and the person who has told her story becomes just another victim and just another woman with a grudge. The perpetrator becomes the focus and is treated as a one-off event, whereas it’s a whole culture that needs to change.

I’m putting these stories in black and white in my book because I want other women and girls to start doing or not doing things because they do or don’t want to – not because they feel that they should, or that it’s their responsibility. The only people in these horrible situations who have any responsibility are the men. A responsibility not to sexually harass, assault, bully or intimidate women at any point, in any field, for the rest of time. In the name of the father, son and the holy goat, amen.

In 1996, my 14th year dancing and fourth at the Johnny Young Talent School, I was given a solo in the end-of-year concert. I was the only Senior and only one in the Show Group – the fancy dance group – who hadn’t been given a solo before, but this year was my year. You better believe it. I’d pinned that curly headpiece into my head year after year, but this year was different; I didn’t even cry when it drew blood. I was ready – I was fucking born ready for this solo, dammit!

Miss Colleen would put together a medley of different musicals each year. And by ‘put together a medley’, I mean she would pick her favourite songs from her favourite musicals, cram in some tried-and-tested choreo from previous concerts, and not give two shits about the narrative or how she was butchering classics. AND WE LOVED IT!

Only the Show Group was invited to take part in this section of the concert. One year it was a song from Grease. Julie, the pretty blonde girl, played Sandy; Remi – the only straight guy, whose mum and dad redefined the term ‘stage parents’ – played Danny; and I was a fun Pink Lady double up the back, miming the wrong lyrics to songs and trying to make my friend Bianca laugh. Another year saw us do a number from West Side Story. Julie played Maria; Remi was Tony; and I’m pretty sure that was the year I was lucky and talented enough to play a little bit of all the ethnic characters up the back.

Then in 1996, my final year, we did part of the 1969 classic Sweet Charity, and I was cast as – wait for it, you guys – THE LEAD. Yass, queens, I was cast as Charity Hope Valentine in Sweet Charity (hair flick emoji).

One of the exciting things that went with such a prestigious role as being a fancy Show Group dancer and performing in a bastardised medley was the exciting and nearly impossible quick-changes that needed to be performed side stage. They were almost as important as the concert itself. And they involved A LOT of planning and responsibility. The job of organising other people’s props if they were onstage was given to Show Group performers only because they knew the importance of it all. Most people who had solos didn’t have to organise anyone else’s props, because people who had solos in the concert were looked at as heroes, like doctors or Paula Abdul.

Miss Colleen: I need a dancer to run the umbrella from one side of the stage to the other during the final chorus of ‘Singing in the Rain’. Celeste, can you do it?

Me: Oh, I can’t, Miss Colleen I have a quick-change side stage and only just enough time to get back on for …

(Looks around, clears throat and waits for everyone’s attention.)

Me cont’d: MY SOLO!

*echo* solo solo solo.

If you had to do a quick-change side stage, you needed to get your shit together weeks before the concert was even in your visiting aunt’s and uncle’s diaries. You had to assess if the best time to ‘set’ your QCC (quick-change costume – keep up, you guys) was before the concert even started, or if it was better to leave it until you had a break between routines while the three-year-olds were doing their tap number to Swan Lake (my dad’s worst nightmare). Another vital step was to let people know where you were putting your things so no stage mum with an agenda would come along and sabotage your preparation.

My mum had made the costume for my solo this year. It was a simple black leotard that she had got a local swimwear designer to make, but it had a bit of a twist. Mum had designed the costume with a sheer diamond cut-out in the centre of my chest/belly, and she had alternated black and silver sequins around the perimeter of the diamond. For my solo, I would wear this fancy little number, paired with some tan chorus shoes and a red feather boa, naturally.

It was after I’d performed my solo, ‘If They Could See Me Now’ (HELLO! Art imitating life!), that my super-fast, super-important quick-change would take place. Miss Colleen had put the Show Group’s big number, ‘Big Spender’, right after my fancy dance solo, so I had to get moving. I mean, I couldn’t stay on stage for my solo AND a group number, because a 15-year-old performing ‘Big Spender’ alongside other 13- to 17-year-olds in front of dads, uncles and begrudging family friends in THE SAME high-cut costume as for her solo, well, that would be just weird and make everyone uncomfortable.

So, in stepped Kath Barber once again, with her handy sequinning skills. The device normally used for a QCC was a tearaway (a piece of clothing that is held together with a piece of Velcro – think The Chippendales but with more body hair). There was usually a skirt that was added or taken from a costume for a quick-change. Only, you guys, mine wasn’t a tearaway. My mum thought of it all! It was a Lycra skirt that I could just step into during the ever-important and over-emphasised quick-change. The skirt had a tiny slit on the front right side, which she had also sequinned in alternating black and silver, in keeping with the whole theme of the night: my night.

I was SO focused on my solo, and just as focused on the placement of the black Lycra-bedazzled skirt and split-sole jazz shoes I would wear in ‘Big Spender’. I had decided that I would place my skirt and jazz shoes on the ground just offstage.

Two years earlier, our end-of-year concert had been upgraded from the local services club down the road to Jupiters Casino on the sunny Gold Coast, and it was next level: a full-blown casino that tourists and rich old men looking for foreign wives would flock to. I’m not sure if it was because we were now the official Johnny Young Talent School that we were treated to end-of-year concerts at the casino, but I think the dance school’s namesake and the casino were as dodgy as each other, so it just makes sense.

Each year we would have a different compere for our concerts. One year it was Humphrey B. Bear (a fucking mute bear, go figure), another year it was Miss Colleen’s random son Brad, another year it was our singing teacher. I always dreamt of being that compere; I thought of this position as being much like when a Saturday Night Live cast member comes back to host, something I really wanted to do and aspired to.

This year we had some old, washed up local ‘entertainer’. I’m sure he was a great pimp back in the ’20s, and what seemed like the natural progression of his career was to then host nightly trivia on cruise ships and compere at kids’ dance concerts.

So, my costumes were set, I had just finished – sorry, SLAYED – my solo and I ran offstage, dodging my fellow not-so-professional teenage dancers as they made their way on with chairs and feather boas, and looked for my carefully placed gear.

It was exactly where I left it. YES, let’s get busy!

As I raced over to my things, adjusting my clipped-in wig, I noticed there was a stool placed over my stuff. No problem, I’ll just reach under said stool, grab my costume, throw it all on and be back onstage for the opening bars of ‘Big Spender’ – front and centre where I belonged, goddammit!

It was at this point that I realised the compere, a Big Fat Talentless Old Man, was sitting on this stool, preventing me from getting what I needed (oh, what a metaphor for life as a female). The Big Fat Talentless Old Man was talking to another Big Fat Talentless Old Man, and the two of them were having a jolly old time side stage at a kids’ dance concert. When they saw me approaching they smiled at each other, and the compere spoke to me.

Big Fat Talentless Old Man: What’s wrong, sweetheart?

Me: Um, I need to get my things.

BFTOM: Where are they?

Me: Um, they are under the stool.

BFTOM: Oh, I see.

And with that he looked at the other Big Fat Talentless Old Man and smiled.

I could hear the beginning of ‘Big Spender’; I needed to get my stuff and get the fuck out of there. When I realised what I needed to do to get my things and the smug looks on their faces, I froze.

The compere stared at me as he sat back in his stool – the fucking stool that was preventing me from getting to my things and my career! He crossed his arms, spread his legs open as wide as his creaking old hips would let him, and slid his crotch forward on the stool.

‘Well, you better get down there and get them, sweetheart.’

You’ve got to be kidding me. I walked slowly to the stool, feeling both their eyes on me, and instantly felt sick.

When I got to the stool I bent down to get my things as quickly as I could, and he spread his fat short legs further apart and slid his crotch further forward on the stool towards my face and groaned, and the other Big Fat Talentless Old Man laughed for a second time.

‘Fuck you,’ I wanted to say. But he was a man, and I was a female child. But fuck you!

As soon as I grabbed my stuff I thought, ‘Brilliant, I’m done, I can quickly get changed and get the fuck out of here, and tell my dad all about it after the concert so he and my uncle Ray’ – who wasn’t even at that concert but would have made the seven-hour trip – ‘can beat up these two predators.’

However, as we weren’t performing at the O2 Arena like we acted as though we were, there wasn’t a lot of room side stage, and I quickly realised that this exploitation wasn’t over. It had, as I was about to learn, only just started.

I realised I had nowhere to change except directly in front of the fat, groaning, objectifying men. I felt a wave of fear come over me. I had to either miss my dance – a dance that I was so excited about, my fucking dance – or get dressed in front of these two pigs, who seemed to delight in making a 15-year-old girl feel uncomfortable, unsafe, scared and as though it was her job to entertain them.

I kept my head down and got changed as fast as I could. They were staring at me the whole time. The only time they broke their stare was to wink at each other. I focused on the music onstage, knowing the quicker I ended this involuntary performance behind the black curtain the quicker I could get out onstage and perform in the light.

I got my skirt on, changed my shoes and ran onto the stage four bars into the song with tears in my eyes.

Tears soon turned to sweat as I danced my heart out, completely forgetting about what had just happened, to the point of thinking I had made it up and it hadn’t really happened at all.

My Jupiters Casino costume with alternating black and silver sequins. To be paired with a red feather boa of course.