FOUNDED in Wellington, New Zealand, the Real Hot Bitches ’80s Dance Troupe now have a Melbourne chapter. They specialise in histrionic workout choreography: pomp rock stylin’ in loud G-string leotards.
Today my friend Elle and I join them in an East Brunswick warehouse, where they’re walking new recruits through Pat Benatar’s ‘Love Is a Battlefield’.
We take to it quickly. There’s loads of thrusting and complex arm pumping, plus pained facial expressions to master, but we’ve done all this before as little girls.
I still remember my choreographed routine to Limahl’s ‘Never Ending Story’ and Elton John’s ‘Nikita’. Just like my eight-year-old self trying to convey Nikita’s “eyes like ice on fire” through hand movements, the Real Hot Bitches are keen to take a literal approach to lyrics. Imagine, if you will, the physical interpretation to this verse:
You’re begging me to go, you’re making me stay
Why do you hurt me so bad?
It would help me to know, do I stand in your way
Or am I the best thing you’ve had?
Believe me, believe me, I can’t tell you why
But I’m trapped by your love and I’m chained to your side
Oh god, it all makes perfect sense. My favourite move is the eagle taking flight, but you’ll find the lobbing of hand grenades while crawling on one’s belly satisfies the more adventurous. The x-rated, on-the-back squirmings (“You open your legs on ‘touch me deep inside’, FYI”), meanwhile, make me feel like I’ve been busted doing naughty things at a pajama party by someone’s mother. No wonder the absent Jane Fondle – choreographer of many epics – is talked about with the same reverence as Colonel Kurtz.
It’s all daggy as a sheep’s bum, to be sure, but I love it and so does Elle. On the tram home she tells me about her own blog that never quite came to fruition: Hula-Hooping Your Way Out of Heartbreak. Her plan was scuppered when her ex-boyfriend came back, bearing platitudes and talking rubbish. Time to resurrect it, I think.
Keeper? Definitely. I was really feeling it.
Hey man, now you're really living 
ahahahslfsdfoijwer. yes. this sort of thing is NECESSARY to proper living.