The Plaza Stage at Celebration Centre
Credit: Forward Focus Productions Ltd.
Source: Mary Anne McEwen fonds. Crista Dahl Media Library and Archive, VIVO Media Arts Centre, Vancouver, Canada.
Excerpts of Plaza Stage performances. The video opens with a wide shot of the Enterprise Centre and the Celebration ’90 flag; faint music can be heard. The scene changes to the Plaza of Nations and people dancing in front of the Plaza Stage as a band plays and lead singer improvises.
Unidentified singer: “Rock. Yeah. Rock. Whoop! I said it. You better rock. I’m ready. Come on rock. I’m ready. Yeah, yay yay, yay. Woo! Ah-ah, yeah…(repeat)”
The next two excerpts are of the all-female trio, Venus Envy, singing to the tune of The Zombies’ “She’s Not There”.
“She said she’s sorry. The floor’s not spotless, she’s running away. Please don’t bother trying to find her, she’s not there.
You know I’m talkin’ ‘bout the way she works, comes home, keeps the kids out of your hair.
Her nerves are taut and tight. Her ass is clean and bright,
But she’s not there.”
Singing to the tune of Peggy Lee’s “Fever”.
“Oh, Mistress Cleaver. So good natured. Perfect mother. What a wife. Oh Beaver! (chorus) Cleaver. In the morning. Beaver all through the night.
Beaver Cleaver fever.
(Vocalizing to the the tune of the Leave It To Beaver theme song:)
Be-dep-de-dep-de-dah-be-dep-be-dep-de-be-daaaaaaaah…”
Comedian Lovie Sizzle, in signature cat-eye glasses, curlers, hair net, and boa, begins a strip tease to Lori Branagan’s song “Gloria”.
“And you really don’t remember, was it something that he said?
All the voices in your head calling, Gloria?
Gloria, don’t you think you’re fallin’?
If everybody wants you, why isn’t anybody callin’?”
In a pastiche of classic seduction tropes, Lovie slowly removes her long coat, pumps her hips as she sweeps her hand down the length of her pink sateen-clad figure, then dramatically exits stage right, one hand stretched to the rooftop, her coat in the other dragging behind her. Her clown assistant, wearing a classic red rubber nose, mimics her from behind.
The video cuts to an evening scene where the Plaza of Nations has been converted to a disco where every square foot is occupied by party-goers. Sound over large crowd talking loudly over reverberating disco music.