Kevin Stea could share stories about pop music royalty all day. The dancer recalls fans booing a young Britney offstage, reads unfriendly Xtina and laughs about being literally locked on-set with the world's top supermodels filming a George Michael video. But touring with Madonna, he admits, will always define his career.
"Over the years, it held on as this lingering, amazing job that changed people's lives," said Stea, who 25 years ago shot to fame with the Blond Ambition tour and accompanying film Madonna: Truth or Dare.
Kevin Stea Stars in "Strike a Pose," Unofficial Sequel to "Madonna: Truth or Dare"
"I've done so much work -- pages and pages and pages on my resume -- yet this is what sticks," he told Party Foul Radio with Pollo & Pearl, Podomatic's No. 1 rated LGBT podcast. "It was one of my very first jobs, and people always come back to this...to how [Truth or Dare] impacted them."
Scarcely a year into life as a professional dancer, Stea landed what most would consider a dream gig. Along with Carlton Wilborn, Salim Gauwloos, Oliver Crumes, Gabriel Trupin, Luis (Camacho) Xtravaganza and Jose Xtravaganza, Stea joined the era's biggest female pop star on a 1990 world tour which became a cultural phenomenon.
Their time together was captured in the acclaimed 1991 documentary, the highest-grossing film of its nature at that time. As much as its focus was Madonna, her romantic and familial relationships, the film also showcased the seven young men -- all but one (Crumes) gay. Through scenes like the boy-on-boy kiss (which so scintillated me at the time), it gave faces and names to individuals who usually remain anonymous to audiences.
"Dancers are movement and bodies, nothing else. They don't stand for anything else," said Stea, explaining how the film built the crew into celebrities. "They're just expressions of movement, and in this rare, weird twist of fate, we were thrust as people on our job into the public spotlight."
Watch the Trailer to New Documentary 'Strike a Pose'
But as quickly as the boys shot to stardom together, once the hype of the tour and film died down, they went their separate ways. Over the last quarter-century, the men lost touch as life continued.
Strike a Pose, a new documentary from Ester Gould and Reijer Zwaan, focuses on those years. Currently showing at film festivals around the world, it catches up with the dancers, recapping their journeys since Truth or Dare.
Professionally, Shea has, indeed, racked up quite a resume in that time. He's worked with the top names in entertainment -- from icons like Prince and Cher to Beyonce, Rihanna, Michael and Janet Jackson. He landed modeling gigs for Calvin Klein and Jean-Paul Gaultier and roles in films like Sister Act 2 and Showgirls. In 2012, he released an album as That Rogue Romeo.
During his 40-minute chat with cohost Pearl Teese and me, he freely reflected on each experience. Revealing and humorous anecdotes mingle with insight into how each star impacted his personal growth.
Turning to Strike a Pose, Stea said the film proved eye-opening even for its participants. He describes the climactic reunion of the six remaining men as "healing."
"Years ago, we didn't have the self-awareness to share ourselves the way we did this time around," he pointed out. "I think we were all ready and willing to share how we felt about each other and what we meant to each other. We were all aware there was something missing in our lives, but we didn't realize how obvious it was until we were all together."
Not only did they acknowledge the void each felt since parting ways, they addressed collective grief over the loss of Trupin. AIDS took the dancer in 1995. Stea recalls how deeply his best friend's passing impacted him.
"It shook my world, honestly," Stea says, reciting how Trupin denied having the illness even when asked directly. "The idea it was so shameful to him that he wouldn't even share it with me, and that I was so naïve enough to believe him, made me feel like a terrible friend."
He never expected to come face-to-face with mortality at just 24-years-old, Stea confessed. Scared, shocked and suffering from "survivor's guilt," he worked to better express his feelings to and gratitude for those left in his life.
Madonna's 'Blond Ambition' Dancers, Including Kevin Stea (center), Reunite.
"It prompted me to certainly tell people how I felt," he shared, "Which is also what Madonna had sort of been asking me to do. She said I was emotionally unavailable on the tour, and I listened to that as well."
What he did not realize until filming Strike a Pose, the Chinese-American performer admitted, was his fellow dancers felt the same way.
"We had all been suffering solo," Stea noted. "We all kind of suffered internally and separately and solo. Having us all together almost brought him back for a minute and let us all come to completion and resolution about that."
"It was that resolution, that healing," Stea concluded, "I think was the most surprising thing about the film."
Kevin Stea and the cast of 'Strike a Pose' plays San Francisco's Castro Theatre as part of the Frameline Film Festival on Sat., June 25, 8:30pm.