ent001673-030

This item has not been digitized in its entirety. The original item is available for research and handling at the UNLV University Libraries. Additional digitization is available upon request. Please contact Special Collections to request additional digitization or with any questions regarding access at special.collections@unlv.edu. ty much it. Smile.?╟Ñ She admits she botched a few steps. But overall she says she was pleased with her first professional performance. Fluff mentioned nothing to her about it afterward, she says. But then, normally, Fluff wouldn?╟╓t. She delegates that to the line captains. Thaven?╟╓t talked to her much at all,?╟Ñ Sabina says. ?╟úBut Diane [Palm, the assistant company manager] said I did real well. The first night it was just... well, exciting. You know, we got our first show done, and we just all went home. I took one of my friends home that?╟╓s in the show.?╟Ñ Suddenly, she hesitates and puts a thin hand to her mouth. ?╟úUrn, and we had some champagne. Oh, but don?╟╓t put that in! It was just our line captain, you know, who works with our group of new girls. It was our first show. Backstage, after the show, she opened a bottle of champagne. It was just a little celebration. We each had a glass. ?╟Ñ The teenager blushes. ?╟úOh, please don?╟╓t tell Fluff. It?╟╓s a secret.?╟Ñ CT he directions are explicit: turn right at the main entrance to Bally?╟╓s, go to the snack bar and look to the left for the pay phones on the wall by the women?╟╓s bathroom. A uniformed security guard will be waiting there to take everyone upstairs for the privilege Of watching Jubilee! from the glass-enclosed light booth high above the theater. This unique vantage point is restricted to six people per performance and only for those connected to the show or the cast in some way ?╟úYou know, because they have family and friends,?╟Ñ Fluff explains. Tonight, the group includes some of the boyfriends and husbands of the dancers along with a young choreographer and the mother of one of the new girls hired in December. She flew in from Philadelphia to see the show and mutters about the unfairness of the nudes getting more favorable treatment than the covered dancers like her daughter, who has studied ballet since childhood. By 9 p.m. the finale is under way. Outside the Jubilee Theater it?╟╓s a chilly Sun- 6 8 APRIL 1 998 day night in February. Inside, it?╟╓s Hollywood, 1935, and Fred and Ginger are gliding cheek to cheek against the backdrop of that grand silver staircase just lifted to the stage from the chasm below. Soon they are surrounded by a bevy of beautiful young women in sequined gowns and handsome young men in top hats and tails. The music of ?╟úDancing in the Dark?╟Ñ fills the theater as they all pair off. Unlike those late-night rehearsals, it comes off flawlessly. That is, unless Fluff has caught a hitch. She?╟╓s way down there in the wings somewhere, or she?╟╓s watching from her seat in the 12th row, making mental notes, missing not a movement, a smile, a step. It?╟╓s all so much larger than life?╟÷which is exactly how it?╟╓s designed. Fluff says you?╟╓d never recognize her showgirls if you saw them on the street or in a supermarket. She?╟╓s right. In performance, Carey and Sabina are a blur of shimmering skin beneath their ?╟úFlaming Fans.?╟Ñ Principal singer Kathi Angelastro is a sultry Delilah in the big Act III production number based on the biblical tale. Her body appears sculpted from marble. And if you think this kind of stuff is passe, think again. The theater is packed this Sunday evening with 1,000 people or more, many of them willing to believe, at least for an hour and 41 minutes, that maybe dance is the most sublime expression of romance after all, that romance can be an ascent to heaven with Fred and Ginger on a sparkling silver staircase* As Vikki Pettersson, one of the Folies?╟╓ Les Mannequins, puts it:. ?╟úAs long as there is something to be written about Las Vegas, it will always be the city of beautiful girls.?╟Ñ If it is true of architecture that it gives substance to the spirit, then dance gives it flesh and breath and motion. So, as she has done for more than three decades, Fluff LeCoque continues to build her temple of glamour?╟÷audition by audition, rehearsal by rehearsal, night by night; And, perforce, a tour backstage, one she promised for later in the evening, has to be canceled. The security; guard who took everyone upstairs to the light booth delivers a brief note to that effect, scrawled in Fluffs hand: ?╟úSorry,?╟Ñ it says. ?╟úIt will have to he another time. I have rehearsal after the show. "4