by Chuck Lindenman
The scene: Feature dressing room in the basement of the Zebra Club in Norwalk, CT. The Zebra Club is an all nude club, has weekly features, and Scandalous is a rare act because they scheduled them twice within a few months. The noise from the two bachelor parties and the music and the DJ make it almost impossible to tape the conversation.
MENTERTAINMENT: That was really a tremendous show.
ADARA MICHAELS: Thanks, we try to give 100% every time we're on stage.
MENTERTAINMENT: How much is strictly a performance of what we see on stage ?
ADARA: It's all a performance. We choreograph every step from the moment we take the stage.
MENTERTAINMENT: That's not what I meant. What I mean is that there is definitely a lesbian theme to your act. I was wondering whether any of that is actually a reflection of your relationship, or strictly an act.
ADARA: Wait, is this part of the actual interview?
MENTERTAINMENT: Yeah, why?
ADARA: Shouldn't we wait for Amanda before we get into this stuff?
MENTERTAINMENT: Sure, that's no problem. I was planning on talking to you both. Of course, if you'd rather not get into anything personal we can just stick to discussing your act.
ADARA: No, that's OK. I just thought both of us should be here, especially if you want to know about our personal relationship. (At this point, AMANDA enters the dressing room and introductions are made.)
MENTERTAINMENT: I was just asking Adara about your relationship. She didn't want to talk to me about it without you.
AMANDA: Why do you want to know about our relationship?
MENTERTAINMENT: Well, there's definitely a part of your act that reflects a lesbian theme.
AMANDA: Part?!(Laughter)
MENTERTAINMENT: What I mean is this: For all we know, both of you might be completely heterosexual, have no sexual relationship whatsoever, and go home to your respective married lives.
AM+ADARA: (More laughter)
MENTERTAINMENT: . or, the two of you might be dating each other exclusively, in which case, what we see on stage might be an extension of your personal relationship.
ADARA: What if it's neither, exactly?
MENTERTAINMENT: That's what I'm asking. Wondering about the nature of your relationship is natural after seeing your act. I'm sure some of your fans would like to know something about your "real life", especially whether or not the two of you are lovers.
AMANDA: It depends what's going on in our lives at any particular time. It's not like we're an exclusive couple, we both have relationships with other people.
MENTERTAINMENT: Men?
AMANDA: Sometimes, yeah. We might both have other relationships, and depending on what's going on in our lives, maybe we include each other. It all depends on what else is going on in our lives at any particular time.
MENTERTAINMENT: Have you always been sort of bisexual?
ADARA: I hate that question. You can't be "sort of" bisexual. Same as you can't be "sort of" pregnant. Either you're bisexual, or you're not.
MENTERTAINMENT: Obviously. But some people remember always having been attracted to both genders as far back as early childhood, whereas others never had any idea they were even potentially attracted to their own gender until a particular experience, or a particular partner. What I meant was: where do you consider yourselves to be, along that broad spectrum of sexual preference?
ADARA: That's hard to say. I mean, I've always been able to look at another woman and think: "She's really pretty". But society tells you so much that you're "supposed" to do this, and that you're not "supposed" to think that, so it's difficult to tell when I first realized I was attracted to another woman, sexually.
MENTERTAINMENT: In other words, you always had a capacity to appreciate other women sexually, that at earlier points in your life were suppressed, as a function of society's considering it "unacceptable"?
ADARA: Right.
MENTERTAINMENT: How about your relationship with each other?
AMANDA: What about it?
MENTERTAINMENT: What came first, your personal relationship or your working together?
ADARA: I was just dancing in clubs, myself. Adara was already featuring, and we just kept running into each other at different clubs. Eddie, our Producer, was the one who got us together and helped us develop the act. He still does most of our choreography.
MENTERTAINMENT: So your personal relationship developed simultaneously with the show?
AMANDA: Nope. I made her wait! (Laughter)
MENTERTAINMENT: What do you mean?
ADARA: We flirted a lot in the first month or so we worked together, but.
AMANDA: I teased her all the time, but I wouldn't give it to her for weeks.
MENTERTAINMENT: Little bitch.
AMANDA+ADARA: (Laughter)
MENTERTAINMENT: Do you remember when it finally happened?
ADARA: Oh yeah.
ADARA+AMANDA: In the limo!
MENTERTAINMENT: That's exactly the kind of thing I wanted to know. To the same extent the simulated sexuality between you makes for a good show in the first place, your fans are probably interested to know the real story of your relationship.
ADARA: Well, that's the story.
MENTERTAINMENT: How long did it take you to develop the show we just saw?
AMANDA: We're always making changes and adding things to the show. Besides Eddie, we have full-time roadies. Gino, our head roadie, does an great job. We set up all our own equipment and do our rigging and staging. What you see on the stage is only the finished product, our show encompasses a lot more than you might think. As a matter of fact, we just put a full two years' salary back into the show. Our goal is to go as far as we can with this, so we're taking the long-term approach to developing this career for ourselves.
MENTERTAINMENT: That's definitely obvious from watching your show. Actually, the manager here was just telling me that you're the only feature act he's ever booked twice in just a few months. He said that after the last time you were here, customers were calling to find out when you were coming back. Besides the drawing power you have, he also said he admired your crew's professionalism. And the fact that they set up such quality equipment and rigging. He said that you've rocked the house every time you've been here.
ADARA: It means a lot to us that they appreciate what we try to do.
AMANDA: As I said, to us this is a full-time career, we're definitely taking the long-term approach to developing a following by the way we market ourselves.
MENTERTAINMENT: Speaking as a former trainer, I can tell that you guys spend as much time in the gym as I do. Are you training partners, too?
AMANDA: Yeah, we have a gym in just about every place we perform. Besides the actual working out we do, we spend even more time rehearsing, staging, etc.
MENTERTAINMENT: I noticed you don't wear pumps on stage. The sneakers and cheerleading outfits are a cute touch, but I was wondering whether there was anything else behind that.
ADARA: Like what?
MENTERTAINMENT: I don't know, I thought maybe you were worried about intimidating guys when you interact with the crowd between sets. Being as tall as you are, maybe you didn't want guys to have to look up at you or something.
ADARA: We're tall? (They exchange glances, shrug, and stand up next to me. Being only 5-10 myself, I'm very surprised to be looking down a good couple of inches at both of them. Watching them perform, I'd formed an image of them as being very statuesque.)
MENTERTAINMENT: Wow. Guess that's what you call "stage presence".
AMANDA: Thank you, Chuck.
MENTERTAINMENT: Any interesting road stories?
AMANDA: Like what?
MENTERTAINMENT: I don't know, the other day I was talking to a club owner who feels that there's nothing wrong with nude dancing (his club is all-nude), for instance.
ADARA: So?
MENTERTAINMENT: Well, he happens to be a very nice guy, all the dancers I know say he treats everybody who works for him just great, and he thinks it's terrible that some people just don't understand that dancers can be very nice girls.
ADARA: Yeah?
MENTERTAINMENT: Well, this same guy says that "lesbo shows" and porn stars are disgusting, and that clubs that book them as features are denigrating the exotic dancing industry by suggesting any similarity between the two.
AMANDA: Oh yeah. We have a story like that. The "no yellow" guy!
MENTERTAINMENT: No yellow?
ADARA: We were at this club in South Carolina. The owner had a rule that nobody could wear anything that had any yellow in it. If a dancer showed up with a yellow bikini, she was gone.
MENTERTAINMENT: What about customers?
AMANDA: Nope. If a customer came in with a yellow shirt, he had to go home and change, no exceptions.
ADARA: And no long hair.
MENTERTAINMENT: The same guy?
ADARA: Yeah, one time we'd been setting up our equipment all day long, we were scheduled to do a whole weekend there. The owner comes in, sees Eddie, and goes: "Get that guy out of here". (Eddie has long hair)
MENTERTAINMENT: Did you tell him he was your manager?
AMANDA: Of course. We told him that he's our manager and that we don't perform without him there.
MENTERTAINMENT: What was his reaction?
ADARA: He told us to get our shit out of his club.
MENTERTAINMENT: He canceled your whole show?
ADARA: Yup. He just said "Bye, bye."
AMANDA: The guy was a real psycho. Either that, or just a control freak.
MENTERTAINMENT: You seem to really get into interacting with the crowd during your performance. When you pull guys up on to the stage, they seem totally shocked to when you lay them down on the stage and get on top of them. How do you manage to incorporate audience members without interfering with your act?
AMANDA: Usually, it's not a problem, but once or twice she's had to beat a guy up a bit.
MENTERTAINMENT: You mean, as part of the bondage act, right?
ADARA: Well, it was during the bondage routine but it wasn't an act. Usually, we're pretty good at picking out guys who aren't too drunk to cooperate with our instructions. This one guy kept fucking around, waving to his friends, and it was messing up the choreography.
AMANDA: She grabbed him by the front of his shirt and all the buttons went flying off.
ADARA: And he still didn't knock it off, so when I got on top of him, I had to roughed him up, which wasn't too difficult, being that it's an S+M type routine, in the first place.
AMANDA: Yeah. Everybody was telling us what a great show it was. That it looked so authentic.
MENTERTAINMENT: I thought she was the quiet one.
AMANDA: Tell him about the tattoo contest!
ADARA: You tell him.
AMANDA: We were out at this club where they asked anybody with an interesting tattoo to come up on stage.
MENTERTAINMENT: You mean at a "regular" club?
ADARA: Yeah, in Florida.
AMANDA: So, Amanda gets up, and when it's her turn to show her tattoo, she goes: "I don't have a tattoo. But I have a really cool piercing. " The guy says: "Let's see it."
MENTERTAINMENT: What do you have pierced?
ADARA: Didn't you see our show?
MENTERTAINMENT: Hey, I'm a professional. I'm looking at things like your choreography, the lighting, etc.
AMANDA: Sure, Chuck.
MENTERTAINMENT: OK, so maybe I might have just caught a glimpse. What did you do, lift your skirt?
AMANDA: Practically over her head.
MENTERTAINMENT: Nothing underneath?
ADARA: Just my piercing.
AMANDA: The place went nuts.
MENTERTAINMENT: I can imagine. OK, you've already explained the nature of the relationship between you.
AMANDA: You're back to that again? I thought we explained all that already.
MENTERTAINMENT: Well, I was just wondering whether you'd do anything more than simulate sexuality between yourselves.
AMANDA: Actually, we did produce a video that goes a bit further than we're allowed (by law) to do on stage.
ADARA: It's called "Scandalous Dreams". Basically, we take some of our fan mail, where guys tell us about their particular fantasies. If they sound interesting to us, we try to answer the letters by producing a video of some of what our fans want to see, that we can't do during live public performances. So far, the response has been really good.
MENTERTAINMENT: Do clubs ever try to tell you what to do on stage?
AMANDA: No, they realize we're professionals and they don't interfere with the act itself. When a club gives us a hard time, it's more about stuff like making Eddie take the lights down 'cause they don't like the way he set them up. Or hassling us about contract clauses that say we have to have hotel accommodations within a certain distance of the club, that sort of thing.
MENTERTAINMENT: Are some clubs a lot better for you to work than others?
ADARA: Definitely. Some places are very professional about it and treat us like they appreciate having us there. Other places do shit like call girls to the DJ booth, or to the VIP room, over the PA system.
MENTERTAINMENT: You mean right during your act?!
AMANDA: Right.
ADARA: This hasn't been like our typical interview, Chuck.
MENTERTAINMENT: Why, what are you used to?
AMANDA: Where are you from, how long have you been dancing, how old are you. .
MENTERTAINMENT: Where are you from, how long have you been dancing, how old are you?
AMANDA+ADARA: Fuck you. (Laughter)
MENTERTAINMENT: Seriously though, can we wrap it up with your thoughts about life as a feature performer, or on dancing, in general?
ADARA: There are a lot of good dancers out there, and we appreciate the fact that we're in demand as features. Even when I was just working as a "house-dancer" I thought about how this industry can sometimes be a girl's first real opportunity to be independent. Both financially, and otherwise.
MENTERTAINMENT: Yeah. That's something I've noticed too. As a matter of fact, it kind of bothers me when I see girls waste the opportunity, and just spend everything they make, instead of using dancing to start getting their lives together.
ADARA: Exactly.
MENTERTAINMENT: Listen, Eddie's pointing to his watch again. I think I better let you get ready for your next set. Thanks a lot ladies, it's really been a pleasure. Don't wear anything yellow.
AMANDA+ADARA: Bye!
