Forbidden Art

Topless girls in g-strings, gyrating on stage. Hard to believe I'm seeing this in straitlaced Singapore - where even normal tabletop dancing was, until recently, illegal.

Donabel and I went to see the Forbidden Art body painting performance by Yaari at Indochine's Forbidden City. The models started off skimpily dressed in a bandeau and mini-skirt, and then progressed to wearing nothing but a thong as Yaari painted them. Quite racy at the point between disrobing and getting enough paint on...

At first I wasn't too impressed. I mean, really, we could have painted those random colored stripes ourselves! As the paint layers increased, the body designs started to look more and more creative. Then the models stepped under the black light and we all went, "Aha!" It was neon body paint and looked pretty good on the dance floor.

The body paint exhibition was followed by a fashion show, also by Yaari. He designs clothes specifically for clubbing. In other words, they may look boring or uninspired on the rack or on the street, but they're made to shine (literally and figuratively) on the club floor under the black light. Of course, many of the dresses were so translucent and scantily cut, you'd be hard-pressed to try and wear them while travelling to and from the clubs. I did like a few of the designs, maybe if he had slightly less outrageous versions I would try some.

Surprisingly, Indochine wasn't packed. There was a crowd about two deep in front of the stage, but that was it. We had a clear view of the stage's left side from across the room where we were comfortably settled on cushiony soft divans (gotta get me some of those).

As far as art goes though, Botero was still more my style.

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