America's Next Top Pussycat Doll

My farewell to dancing and the reality TV fame that was not.

During Spring 2006 Fashion Week in the Imitation of Christ show, one of my earlier dance gigs.

Around 8 p.m. on a Sunday night, I received a voicemail from a CBS casting director. “I noticed on your resume that you sing and dance,” she started. I’d been collecting ketchup bottles, soaking the caps in hot water, and wiping their crusty rims with a damp cloth one when I felt the buzz from inside my short black server’s apron. I plugged my free ear with a finger to drown out the country music. The electric glow of a neon beer sign lit the side of my face while I looked out at the passing cars on Second Avenue. After a brief explanation, she said, “Come dressed like a Pussycat Doll, ready to perform at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning.” I clipped my flip phone shut and set it down next to the watery ketchup caps.

“What’s a pussycat doll?” I asked Stefani as she strolled in looking down at a wad of cash. She stopped and looked up, confused.

“Wait, start over. I lost count anyway,” she said, shoving the stack of bills back into the pocket of her apron. 

What began as a screening for America’s Next Top Model had turned into a dance audition for the reality show, Pussycat Dolls: The Search For The Next Doll. It was past 9 p.m. when I got home from the restaurant, which is early in New York City, but not early enough with someone on limited funds or local know-how to drum up a corset, latex chaps, and chiseled abs, which is how to look like a Pussycat Doll, according to a quick Google search. From what I could gather, they were a Los Angeles-ified burlesque group. I needed something that shouted, “lady in the streets, freak in the sheets.”

The Pussycat Dolls, for reference

I flung clothes from my drawers looking for anything that might not give me away as a saccharin-sweet 24-year-old waitress with the fashion sense of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (and I don’t mean the remake). My wardrobe was full of sensible denim skirts, colorful blouses from Urban Outfitters, and Ralph Lauren Polo shirts—I wouldn’t know sex appeal if it hit me in the face. Ever since I’d arrived in Manhattan, I’d been in awe of women in their skinny jeans and leather jackets; women who wore less makeup with more confidence, who blended patterns and colors with ease. I didn’t know how they did it. I just knew I didn’t posses this skill.

I settled on a black ribbed tank top. I decided I’d position it to reveal a bejeweled silver bra from Victoria’s Secret. Then I unearthed a mini skirt with tiers of flouncing ruffles, probably something I bought for Halloween, and the only pair of black heels I could find, which I bought to wear to a funeral and had not worn since. The next morning, I gave myself a once-over before walking out the door. I looked like the off-brand version of a Pussycat Doll. The Gacci of knockoff bags. A Kittykat Gurl. Lady in the streets, only sort of knows what she’s doing in the sheets.

I arrived at the audition just before 8 a.m. and rode an empty elevator to my floor, the metal interior still cool from the night. It opened into a long hallway lit by fluorescent bulbs, where I immediately heard an eruption of chatter. As I drew closer, I could see these girls were nothing like homogenous, tight-lipped, bun-headed dancers who attended my usual auditions. This crowd was an array of women in every height, shape, and skin color. Their accents spanned the globe—or at least as far as Staten Island, which sort of feels like it could be another world. 

I started talking with some of the girls, dressed in neon sports bras and baggy cargo pants, metallic leggings and fitted t-shirts. Soon the requisite nerves that followed me to each audition began to melt away. They were nice. Nothing like the cutthroat crowd of dancers at auditions for Hairspray or 42nd Street. “Yo, I was born for this,” one of the girls said proudly, flipping her hair. 

But I was out of practice. I’d abandoned vocal lessons from the lady who lived on 85th and Riverside, where I’d take the crosstown bus once a week so she could lecture me on my strained vocal cords. “If you’re serious about Broadway, you need to get a job somewhere quieter like a steakhouse or a nice Italian restaurant.” I ignored her advice. Just the night before I was dancing on the bar while screaming “Pour Some Sugar On Me,” playing air guitar, and dumping vodka into the mouths of 20-somethings. I’d long abandoned the jazz classes at Broadway Dance Center. When my tables asked what I did—insinuating, surely, I did something besides sling Long Island Iced Tea to drunk New Yorkers—I stopped telling them I was a dancer. At a certain point it became a lie.

But these girls didn’t need to know that. That I only came to this audition because a casting director asked me to. That I wasn’t cut out for this. That my need to dance had been outweighed by the realities that come with professional dancing: the juggling of jobs, the constant obsession of caloric intake, the rejections and wasted hours shuttling myself all over Midtown in pink tights. I felt like an imposter here, and in every dance class; I spent more time obsessing over my waist line and admonishing myself for poor turnout and pointy shoulder blades than I did devoting myself to the craft. I thought if I could just keep practicing, or just got this one break, or if I lost this much weight, then I’d stop worrying about my silhouette and focus on being a better dancer.

Robin Anton, Pussycat Dolls creator and choreographer, entered the room to our applause. We stood at attention for a short introduction and pep talk, and then she cranked the bass on an industrial-sized sound system. “Don’t chaaaa” rang out across the Manhattan studio while nearly 100 dancers imbued themselves with the high-throttled spirit of sexuality at 8:30 a.m. on a Monday morning. And 5, 6, 7, 8! Robin called out and started into the choreography. The opening sequence was a catwalk forward, a hip pop, and a strut back before all varieties of hip-thrusting and body rolls would ensue. I swished cautiously toward the front in my funeral heels, a sensible height for both dancing and grieving. I could tell I was holding back, and as I shimmied my hips, I tried to remember how I ended up here in the first place.

My mother enrolled me in dance classes when I was about four. Anything to keep me from emptying the art cabinet and drawing on the walls, talking her ear off when I should have been napping, or worse, uttering the two words that send every parent into a blind rage: “I’m bored.” Nearly every photo of me as a toddler is in motion. Standing from a posed position, already halfway out of the frame, running or climbing or doing anything other than sitting still while my brother sits politely and smiles at the camera.

Dance, and later tennis, and then cheerleading and drill team and soccer, were all excellent ways for me to extinguish the never-ending rush of dopamine that propelled me through life like an energizer bunny. Once, when I was about 7 or 8 years old, mom took me to the doctor for a series of ticks I couldn’t seem to control. Blinking, a neck twitch, knuckle cracking. After my examination, the doctor declared that I did not have Tourette’s, which was my mother’s suspicion. “It seems she’s just got more dopamine in her brain than most children,”  he said matter of factly. Great. I was chemically wired to never sit still. 

In high school, I danced with a competition jazz studio. “And 5, 6, 7, 8!” our instructor would shout, and we’d pop open our eyes and flash our teeth wide. I wasn’t particularly talented. I was never the standout of the group. Never the most precise, with arches too flat and thighs too thick. But I lived to perform. How much I loved moving in time with drums and keys. How desperately I needed somewhere, God anywhere, to put all the pent-up, dopamine-overload energy of this wholesome teenage girl. I thought by college I’d have learned how to sit still, but it seemed the older I got, the more I needed to move. Dancing had become the only way I could express what I wanted to say. It gave me language. It made me a storyteller. I didn’t just want to dance to pass the time; I needed it to make sense of the world, and most importantly, of myself.

It only took about four lecture-style, stadium-seating, intro-level PR classes my freshman year of college for my eyes to glaze over and for me to realize this wasn’t going to work. I auditioned for the dance program and it sent me into creative orbit. My senior year, I was nominated by my professor to attend the Paul Taylor Summer Intensive at Manhattan’s famed LaGuardia High School. Five weeks of ballet, Feldenkrais method, and rehearsals in the thick of summer in a non-air conditioned building with professionals from the Paul Taylor Dance Company; my overworked bare feet would sweat so profusely that my callouses began tearing away from my feet, revealing raw, red layers that I’d tape several times a day. It was one of the greatest times of my life. All I ever dreamt about was moving to New York City, with its big energy and quickly bustling bodies. All that movement, I just knew I belonged. 

After Robin walked us through the first sequence, we auditioned. Three at a time, we were asked to come to the center of the floor. I did my best to lay it all out, best as one can in their modest heels. But I feared my wholesomeness was giving me away. I didn’t possess one-tenth of the sexual energy as these girls. I’d never been to a burlesque show. The last time I wore a crop top I was a toddler. I was nearly certain I had a latex allergy. 

After the first round of auditions, after all 100 of us has done something in the vein of twerking, Robin announced a break, where they’d calculate the first cut. I sat on the floor with some of the other girls, sipping water and exchanging background stories. One of them was a former Knicks dancer. Another girl shared that she’d always wanted to be a Fly Girl. Like J.Lo. She tapped her long acrylic nails on the floor. She was certain she could win this competition.

Once Robin gathered us back into the glass-walled studio, which peeked out over a sea of skyscrapers, she rattled off a list of names. Some girls held their breath, some held hands, and some, like me, were resigned to a larger fate. It was obvious to me that I didn’t belong here. And then, I made it through the first cut. We’d been whittled down to 60. 

I once read a quote by George Balanchine, “I don’t want people who want to dance, I want people who have to dance.” This struck me because I was not that person. Something happened in the year between my Paul Taylor Summer Intensive and a year of auditions. It’s not that I didn’t believe I was good enough; I felt quite confident in my abilities. It’s that I just didn’t care enough. I never wanted the job as badly as the girls elbowing their way to the front row, the ones who showed up to auditions Monday–Friday. Who attended their vocal lessons with gusto and their dance classes regularly. The ones who didn’t dance on bars as part of their vocation. I was too greedy to be a dancer. I wanted too much of New York City, to devour its late, late nights and mid-day brunches. I wanted to live freely in this chaos, and unfortunately, being a professional dancer would require a rigidity I could no longer stomach. I didn’t have to dance anymore. I had to stop torturing myself.

Back in the studio for round two of auditions, I felt less confident about my performance. Whatever pizazz I’d brought to the floor at 8 a.m. had worn off by mid day. Maybe, deep down, I knew that this was my final audition. And when Robin called out her top 30, I was not in the running. I waved nonchalantly to a couple of the other girls and swapped my stilettos for sneakers in the hallway. I walked back down the long hallway to the elevator, now warm from shuttling bodies up and down the building.

Outside, Midtowners were just breaking for lunch, waltzing out of their office buildings and into the ballet of the Big Apple. People skittered past one another, bobbing and slinking to their next destination. Still clad in my bejeweled bra and ruffled mini skirt, I took an inhale and stepped onto the sidewalk. Just a lady in the streets. 

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Now for your viewing pleasure: “Don’t Cha.” This could have been my life, you guys.