Carrie Ann Inaba is known for being one of the tough judges on ABC’s Dancing With The Stars. Her extensive resume consists of releasing 3 singles in Japan under Pony Canyon Records, co-founding a dance company with Alexandre Magno (Britney Spears, Madonna) called Personna Productions, being a “Fly Girl” for ‘In Living Color ‘ for 3 years, starring as “Fook Yu” in Austin Powers 3, starting her own digital video production company EnterMediaArts.Inc, and being a bald, topless pole dancer for Madonna’s ‘The Girlie Show’ tour in 1993.
US Asians were very interested in how Carrie Ann got the opportunity to be in Madonna’s show, so they asked her some questions to suet their curiosity.
On performing topless and with a shaven head:
My family still tease me about this. But I loved it! I thought hit was so amazing to be given an opportunity to be a little different, to be edgy, and not what a stereo typical Asian woman is represented as usually. I took it as a challenge. The original idea was for the show to be filled with androgyny. I loved the idea and wanted to find the beauty in that type of performance. It was risque but it was so exciting to see how people reacted to it every night.
Responsibility of opening every tour performance by going down a 50 feet fire pole:
This was huge to me. I took it very seriously. I rarely went out with everyone after the shows because I didn’t have a SWING replacement that could really do what I did and I was hired to do my special routine and did not want to let any one down. I had negotiated pretty hard with them about financial aspects and I felt that I needed to live up to what I said and would be. Before every show, my rigger, Leti Alcala, and I would check the pole and run the routine. You see, since it was dangerous stunt, we had to be careful.
Which choreographer did you work with on your opening “Pole Routine?”
Mostly it was Madonna and I. She knew what she wanted and I was the only one who knew what I could do and how to do it. So we collaborated.
How did this routine come to being created? Did Madonna have the initial idea and then flew out the stripper that inspired the concept?
Yes… she saw the stripper and got the idea.
Were you initially comfortable with going topless during your “Pole Routine?”
I was fine with going topless. At first I was supposed to wear pasties. But honestly, I didn’t like the pasties, they got in the way of the choreography- so I suggested that I go topless. We all agreed it would be more organic that way and it was the true vision so why not be true to the vision. I had only asked that in countries where it may be offensive, I could were a top. They agreed but when we go to Israel, there was no top. I remember being afraid, after all I was a slow moving target.
What was your initial reaction to shaving your head for the entire tour- in addition to being topless?
Well,. I had really long hair at the time and Madonna loved to challenge me and play with me because I guess I’m somewhat of a strong person. But she knew I was working for her so whatever she wanted for the post part went. So, I had 5 really bad haircuts on the way to shaving it. She wanted to keep me a bit different than everyone else so I had some really ugly hair days and she loved putting it up in strange hairstyles for rehearsals. Then she’d say I had to wear my hair like that for the rest of the day.
