Courtesy of Jim MoureyDear Reader: This article appears as part of Student Life’s annual April Fool’s issue. Please don’t think anything in it is true. It’s all made up.
Despite a history of poor funding, things are looking up for Washington University’s Performing Arts Department. This year, in an unprecedented move, Chancellor Wrighton has agreed to allot $6,900 more to the department.
“We’ve never had so much in our budget,” said Helga Smith. “This is a real climax to our years of effort, and we’re excited by the many prospects opened up to us by this new funding.”
“Maybe now they can afford to clothe a few more of their actors,” said Rachael Maudest, a sophomore who says she was shocked by the nudity in productions such as “Hair” and “The Awakening.” “Or at least be more selective of whom they unclothe.”
One of the Performing Arts Department’s (PAD’s) producers noted,”We really only throw nudity into so many of our productions because we never had the funding to clothe all of our actors and actresses.”
The increased budget comes with the inception of a new group within the Performing Arts Department – the Group of Lap Tease, Burlesque, Exotic, Pole, Strip, Contortionist, Exhibitionist, Belly, Interpretive and Provocative (GLTBEPSCEBIP) dancers.
“We hated to leave any forms of dance out, because everything is a form of art that deserves to be represented,” said Esra Fillmore, one of the group’s founders. “And anyway, LGBTIQAA gets so many letters, so we figured we deserved some of the alphabet, too.”
Funding was received in small bills after the troupe made an emotional appeal to a faculty and parents board during their annual meeting.
“We feel it is necessary to support all forms of art,” said board member Lars Heltch, “This seemed like the opportune time to show students in the PAD that we value what they are doing.”
The PAD has set aside a portion of the funds as scholarship money for students seeking to make a living in the provocative dance industry.
“It’s such a wide field out there,” said Allison Irving, one dancer who plans to work as a showgirl in Las Vegas after she graduates. “Having a Wash. U. degree really makes you competitive in the field, and with the scholarship money I can get a head start on my career, since my parents won’t pay for my ticket to Vegas.”
Some Wash. U. students, however, have a bone to pick with the new group, feeling that it encourages women to use their bodies for profit rather than their brains.
“We’ve come so far, fighting for our rights and our right not to be objectified as just sluts with boobs and a vagina,” said a member of Vagina Monologues. “What these dancers are doing is putting women back down as sex objects and slaves of men.”
The troupe, however, insists that it is open to men as well and serves only as an outlet for the creative natures of the students involved.
Some have questioned the timing of the board’s funding approval with the entry of the new dance group into the Wash. U. scene, but parents and faculty alike deny the claims.
“We pride ourselves in being on top of what students are doing here,” said Heltch. “The insertion of this new group into the Performing Arts Department just made us realize that the time had come to grant more funding to this expanding region of student interest.”