Naked

It's commonly known that the French think Americans are a prudish people. And when Americans make a list of "French" things, nude beaches are usually mentioned along with the Eiffel Tower, croissants, and escargot. 

Of course, no one in France walks around naked. France isn't that liberal. However, you can usually find a few postcards of naked woman posing with local scenery sold in tourist shops, and one of the advertisements of a local beer has a woman with her skirt flipped up for no reason.

So why am I bringing this up? Well, last week, I went with Malou to the Maillon Theater for the last spectacle of the year. It was called "Usually Beauty Fails," and was meant to be a dance and music show. As we were waiting for the show to begin, Malou leaned over to me and asked, "Have any of the other spectales been nude?" When I responded in the negative, she nodded to herself and stated casually "Oh, then this show will probably feature nudity. Each year, one of the productions do. Once it was the opera." 

At least she warned me in advance. 

The dance started off normal, well, as normal as an avant-garde theater's hip-hop techno dance show could be. No nudity for the first 15 minutes, and I found myself seriously doubting Malou's warning. Imagine my surprise when, during the fourth song, the five dancers all start unabashedly stripping on stage. Everything came off. Two other songs also featured nude dancers, and all I could think was, "There are children in the audience!" No one else seemed to mind at all, though. In fact, the dancers were given a standing ovation at the end of the performance. 

Yep, so that was an experience. Honestly, I'm not sure why the dancers had to be nude, as I found it strange and unnecessary. It made no sense to me. Too American, I suppose. 

And one final thought: a nude opera? I can't even imagine that. The horror.