After twirling her bejeweled G-string across the room and flinging her
glittering silver pasties to the floor, Rebecca Whittaker stands completely,
gloriously naked. Posed in a television studio with a reporter, a publicist
and the crew looking on, she smiles wide, basking in her primal (though
clean-shaven) glory.
Now, she’s ready for basic cable.
Whittaker, a 25-year-old corporate office assistant and sometime burlesque
performer, stripped down for “Pants-Off Dance-Off,” last year’s surprise hit
for cable’s Fuse network. With a concept that’s the essence of simplicity –
fans of the network stripping to their favorite videos – “Pants-Off” has
become the biggest hit in Fuse’s history.
But the appeal of the show, which returns Tuesday at 10, is more complex than
that. Sure, it features average, everyday people removing their clothes with
wild abandon – the actual naughty bits are pixilated for air – but
interjections throughout also reveal quite a bit more about them.
According to Fuse’s Director of Production Andy Meyer, the show’s appeal has
as much to do with personas as it does with skin.
“We want people with something to express, a character that’s gonna be fun on
television,” says Meyer. “They can be silly or serious, very accomplished
dancers or can’t dance at all. The point is that, ultimately, it’s a very
honest expression of self.”
As such, the show’s dancers – known as “pancers” – have included a bizarre
variety of personalities, including: a former congressional candidate from
Kentucky, a mime who was painted orange for his shoot, and a man covered in
balloons who stripped by popping them.
To bring their uniqueness across, the pancers are interviewed for almost an
hour about various aspects of their lives. They trash-talk about other
pancers, make faces, strike poses and flirt wildly before finally shedding
their inhibitions and underwear.
Whittaker, a luminous redhead who goes by the name Gal Friday, is a feisty
natural for the camera, rarely at a loss for a quip or a pose. When director
Mark Marraccini shouts out, “Give me ‘cheesy fashion shoot,'” she
instinctively blows a kiss, crosses her eyes and enhances her bust with her
hands.
Standing before a green screen, she boasts that she has “more shimmy and
shake than the ‘Frisco quake,” and when asked to spew some put-downs to
fellow pancers, delivers “Dick Cheney is smoother than this guy” without
missing a beat.
For the strip, she bares her bod to Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out” without
hesitation.
“Dancing to Franz Ferdinand was different for me,” says Whittaker, who
sometimes performs burlesque dressed as Queen Elizabeth I or Marie
Antoinette. “I do a lot of rock music, but this is my shimmy outfit, so I
usually do something faster, like ‘Touch Me’ by The Doors.”
Next up is 30-year-old Fashion Institute of Technology student Irene
Kontalibos, a wild-eyed, leggy brunette in a black flapper dress who has
slightly rockier shoot, occasionally freezing up when asked about her life.
Still, Kontalibos, who also has a sideline in hipster burlesque and is
pancing as “Pandora,” has some great moments. When asked if she has any
special talents, she responds by placing her entire fist in her mouth,
leading to the ridiculous scene of everyone on the set trying to emulate the
stunt.
During the dance, to Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie,” Kontalibos feels right at
home. Using a “hip drop” she learned as a belly dancer, her ambivalence is
gone, and her hips shake faster and faster until she’s quaking like a
vibrating bed.
Unlike Gal Friday, Pandora leaves on a flesh-colored bra and her fringe-laced
panties since, she says later, “I wouldn’t be nude on camera anyway, so why
show my boobs?” Then, wearing a Fuse towel, she puts her fist in her mouth
while rolling her eyes, and finishes her taping by freeing her mouth and
flashing a seductive smile.
She even gets to keep the towel.