On Saturday night, I went with some friends to El Plata, a restaurant/bar that is well known in Zaragoza for its cabaret show. It was, in a sense, a greatest hits of Spanish attitude – both funny and sexy all at the same time.
First, the sexy: although it didn’t always quite hit the “erotic” register, there were definite moments, including a woman who belly-danced walking around through the crowd with a sword balanced laterally across her head. Then there was the woman who picked out men from the crowd to take body shots off her, before she did a good ol’ striptease. It was sassy, not cheap, and it really was sexy.
I feel like I need to stop here and defend the distinction between “eroticism” and something that merely arouses you. Just think of the difference between mainstream actors doing a sex scene, especially one that has psychological overtones, and porno. One is erotic, one just gets you off, and this show was the former.
I have to admit, although intellectually I can understand why you might enjoy eroticism, I’m not terribly interested in it myself. My reasoning is, If I’m not going to have sex, why worry about the aesthetics of it or think about it in anything other than an analytical mode? This is why I don’t understand why men go to strip clubs.
Anyway, besides being sexy, the show was also genuinely funny and creative, or some nebulous combination of the three. For example: the young guy who slid around on rollerblades skates with his penis all out and exposed, eventually going into a spin, and, later, grabbing onto a harness that pulled him into the air as he spun. Later, a pair of woman who were almost entirely in naked, including all the rated R stuff, did a little dance to “I Love Rock ‘N Roll”. Then the song turned into “Yo Amo El Jamon”, the Spanish version that goes to the same tune, but with the lyrics swapped out for an ode to jam with tomato; the girls each took a big leg of pig and pumped it in the air over their heads, much to the audience’s delight.
And then there was the naked break dancing.
