Next gen? Bodies in black

Entertainment producer Marynette Gamboa has come up with an atypical way to launch a sexy girl group: dress them up in black. Not in flimsy minimal covering for the girls’ bodies but thick pleated mini-skirts and conservative midriffs.

Gamboa calls her girls Bodies Next Gen. She’s actually the creator — in 2005 — of the girl group, which came to be known as Baywalk Bodies.

Actually, that group began simply as D’ Bodies. But it was taken over by a talent manager who, one afternoon, had the girls doing a sexy pictorial at the Baywalk area of Roxas Boulevard for which they were arrested. All because at some  point in the pictorial, some of the girls (there were 19 of them) went topless though they had on transparent and translucent raincoats. 

Words about their titillating outfits reached the nearest police station which caught them in the act, literally. All the girls were herded to the police station. They were kept there for a few hours until they had proven that they were not streetwalkers but a singing-and-dancing group. 

Upon their release, the girls began to be labelled as “Baywalk Bodies.”

The scandalous outfits were not Gamboa’s idea but that of the talent manager. After that bout with the police, Gamboa was released from their contract with her the girls who were willing to be branded as “Baywalk Bodies,” so they could be managed instead by the talent manager willing to handle them as such. 

Almost all the girls joined the talent manager, thus prompting Gamboa to freeze her production company and concentrate on her other business ventures. Eventually, though she went back to her native hometown, Dingras in Ilocos Norte, where her family is into politics. 

Subsequently, Gamboa variously got elected as mayor for two terms, though her political career eventually became too controversial for comfort. She decided to go back to Metro Manila to be a businesswoman again and after some time to be involved in showbiz once more. 

Before putting up the girl group Bodies Next Gen, Gamboa produced through her Premium Water Plus Productions the movie Idol, which is about the late much followed singer April Boy Regino. By that time though, she already had in mind reviving and rebranding her girl group D’ Bodies. 

After the film’s run in the theaters, Gamboa decided to hold a cattle call (open auditions) for girls 18 years old and above who want to become part of a girl group like ABS-CBN’s Bini. 

From among those who auditioned, she and her team (which included character actor Efren Reyes Jr., who directed Idol) chose 13 women whom they soon put on intense training on singing and dancing under some professionals in those entertainment skills. 

For marketing purposes, Gamboa and her team decided to give the women stage names starting with the monicker “Bodi.” We suppose that we have to be thankful that they didn’t spell the stem name as “Bodhi” — as in “Bodhisattva,” which in Buddhism refers to a spiritually enlightened soul. 

The 13 singing-dancing entertainers of Bodies Next Gen are Bodi Amara, Bodi Chanel, Bodi Darrah, Bodi Dior, Bodi Iris, Bodi Jade, Bodi Kesha, Bodi KZ, Bodi Mycky, Bodi Selina,  Bodi Sherie, Bodi Tia, and Bodi Wendy. 

Gamboa may really be an iconoclastic business woman. Take note that the girl group has 13 members. Thirteen has long been considered unlucky. (Do you know that the ABS-CBN building that’s scheduled to be demolished when the Ayala’s took over half of the ABS-CBN compound in QC used to have a 13th floor, which was changed to Conference Floor A and B much later?) Again, take note that Bodies Next Gen was launched in black outfits. 

Iconoclastic, too, is the girl group performing the children’s song “Mamang Sorbetero” at their media launch at Great Eastern Hotel in QC. Well, it could have been erotic if the girls came out in their black outfits licking ice cream on a stick or in a cone. But Gamboa and company must be beyond that, eh? 

The other songs Bodies Next Gen performed included “Let’s Get Loud”, “Killing Me Softly”, and “Until I Found You”. They did not sing and move seductively. (But even BINI girls don’t have seductive moves when performing, right?) 

By the way, the damning dancing pictorial at Baywalk was re-enacted at the media launch by guest dancers, including some members of the original D’ Bodies. The reenactment of the dancing and arrest was the opening number of the media launch of Bodies Next Gen. 

Gamboa did not sit down with the media people for interviews during the launch. Nor did the girls. Iconoclastic decisions, aren’t they? 

Meanwhile, Gamboa’s publicist, Obette Serrano, told us that Bodies Next Gen is slated to have gigs late March in Cavite and on the first week of April at the Iceil at Okada hotel. 

It took Bini some three years of doing gigs before they made it really big as a girl group. Gamboa has not revealed her target timeline for making Bodies Next Gen one of the leading girl groups in the country.