I was really excited when I was called to dance for the wedding of Princess Huda of the Brunei Royal Family. What I didn’t expect was that it would turn out to be rather comical.

I had danced for the Sultana before at a private party for the Queen of Malaysia in KL. She requested my all-white wing dance, and I was honored to choreograph a piece specially for her.

When my care-taker picked me up at the hotel, we drove through the gates of a giant park filled with peacocks and ponds and exotic flowers in intricately arranged garden patterns. These were the “small” palace grounds and presently the “small” palace emerged – a sprawling white colonnaded complex of marble and gold leaf with two indoor swimming pools, a private disco, and a private theater. Next to the atrium. Next to the cavernous banquet hall easily seating a few hundred people.

Closed-circuit flat-screens allowed plebeians like me and the rest of the staff to watch the red-carpet arrival of the dignitaries, and the two hour ceremony. I couldn’t take photos for security reasons. After the several hundred guests (mostly women) had assembled themselves inside the atrium, it was time for my first set, the wing dance.

I glided around the geometric marble floor pattern and allowed the air to fill my wings. It was sublime. I finished my dance and bowed to the Sultana – only to have the closure on the back of my white Hellenic gown snap open!! Horror of horrors! My poor wings collapsed around my newly freed bosom, and I’m sure I looked like I was having stomach pains. Red-faced, I backed away into my dressing room to agonize, change, and wait for my second set. My handler assured me no one noticed the untimely rupture of my gown and realistically, I think I hid it well, but now that you’re reading this, the whole world is going to know anyway.

My second set went fine, although the ladies were very very shy. A few kids came out to the dance floor, but mainly it was me and my zills and the air around me. A solid forty minutes later (they were shy but kept asking for encores, hmmmm) I was quite spent and looked forward to my hotel room and my book. Nothing doing.

It was……bingo time. At an alcohol-free State wedding. In a palace in Brunei surrounded by all sorts of diamond-encrusted rich/royal folks passing around…..bags of fluffy Chee-to’s till the wee hours of the morning. Yes, we played bingo. And ate. And played more bingo, and ate more cake, Chee-to’s, beef rendang, cake, cookies, coffee, Chee-to’s, chicken curry, and vegetable stir-fry. If I didn’t know how to count in Bahasa prior to that, I now know I will never forget.

“Aaaaa ha ha ha ha ha!!! Lima kaca-mata!! Ha ha ha!!” the announcer would bellow into the microphone, and my whole table would imitate him – “aha ha ha ha ha!!” giggling like kids. It caught on – and the other tables would join in the chorus “Ahhhaha ha ha ha ha!!!” until it became this odd sort of tribal joke – a game of one-upmanship to see who could put out the most outlandish “AHAHH haa h ah haha ha ha!!” A strange mixture of self-conscious decorum, innocent goofiness, and bio-hazard-orange finger tips. Of course, my table consisted of me, the fashion designers and makeup artists, and the singers. So it was Diva Central, but in a good way. They all fanned themselves and looked adequately shocked when I broke protocol and touched the Princess who came to talk to me – I didn’t know who she was!