Friday Night is Dance Night - The Elysium Cabaret

Friday nights are very busy ones for us dance groupies!

We start off at the very elegant Empire Room at 6pm, where the amazing Elysium Cabaret Dancers entertain us with their creativity through music and dance and their wonderful stage settings.

The Empire Room at Copperhead Road

Paul Woodrunner, the man behind this elegant venue as well as sometime dancer with the group, is on hand to greet the guests as they enter and move in to find the ideal chair for the upcoming performance.   It's best to arrive early to find a good spot near the stage and the music stream will entertain you while you wait.  Suddenly I Gotta Feeling with The Black Eyed Peas begins to play and the excitement in the air increases as everyone knows, with this theme song, the show is about to begin.   Gunner Von Phoenix, DJ and dancer with the group, announces the first dancer and the blue curtains open to reveal the set with the dancer or dancers in place and the show begins.  The group describes themselves as follows: Elysium Cabaret is a performance group that does a variety of acts, mostly dance. Something naughty, something nice, something wicked, something sweet, something hot, something cool... never know what we are going to do!  But you can count on surprises and a lot of fun!!  We are only limited by our imaginations!! Performing in The Empire Room at Copperhead Road!  Dedicated to friendship and honour above all. Each dancer choses the music, choreographs the dance and builds the set.  It's a very large stage so the sets are large and while some are simple others may be very detailed.  The talents of the performers as builders are showcased in the way they use lighting, particles and special effects as well as changing the set along the way and fading from one scene to another during one dance.  It may be a solo dance or a dance with multiple dancers but one dancer is the creator of each dance. I don't usually take photos during the performance as I am too busy enjoying it and trying to avoid crashing out.  Besides I think a video is more effective than still photos of dance so I'll show you one performed by the incredible Queen of Dance,  Babypea Von Phoenix with her partner and RL husband, Gunner Von Phoenix.   In this case Gunner choreographed the routine while Babypea built the set, with Gunner also videotaping the performance!   May I present Gunner and Babypea dancing to Parov Stelar's Booty Swing! The group consists of a large number of women (mostly) and men, not all of whom choreograph routines every week but many of them appear as "back-up" dancers for others.  The administrators and driving forces behind the group are Paul, Gunner and Babypea, Wiz Nirvana and Jilley Resident both of whom are also dancers.   The performance lasts for an hour.  Sometimes it's a little more, sometimes a little less.  Sometimes there's a theme, other times not.  All in all it's a very professional event on every level.   But for dance groupies, like Roni and me, the highlight of the evening is at the end of the show when the audience is invited onto the stage to dance in a group routine with the Elysium Cabaret dancers. One of the dancers chooses the music, choreographs these dances and creates a set and for five glorious minutes we can believe that we too are dance stars in Second Life.   Occasionally I manage to take a few photos during this although sometimes I just relax and enjoy it.    Roni leads the "Chorus Line" on the Stage at the Empire Room After this Gunner spins us some music and the dancers and audience adjourn to the Empire Room's nearby dance floor to wind down after the evening's wonderful performance.   Yes Friday night is dance night!   And that is not the end of the evening which I'll talk about in another post.  Dancing can reveal all the mystery that music conceals.                                              ~Charles Baudelaire