Racy Dance Gets Onion Award From Church Group

A provocative performance by two scantily clad dancers drove a group of Mormons from the stage of San Diego’s annual Orchids & Onions architectural awards ceremony.

During the ceremony Saturday, one of the dancers removed her T-shirt, revealing lingerie, and draped the T-shirt over the head of City Councilman Ron Roberts.

The dancers were on stage to help accept an award for the Midway Medical Building, a glass-and-neon building next door to a topless bar called Pacers in Point Loma. The women from the bar were invited on stage by Dr. Richard C. Richley, who was accepting the award as one of the partners who developed the project.

Also on stage at the time was a contingent to accept an award for a Mormon Temple. During the dancers’ suggestive performance, the three Mormons left the stage.

The annual awards ceremony, which drew about 500 to Mandeville Auditorium at UC San Diego, celebrates and deplores good and bad buildings, design and planning in San Diego County.

Bill Lewis, the architect who had just accepted the award for the temple he designed, said he and his colleagues left the stage because the dancers’ offended them.

“We represented a serious project, a project many people consider sacred,” said Lewis, a Mormon. “Not that I’m a prude or anything, but I felt uncomfortable. It was just bad judgment.”

Richley, an orthopedic surgeon and UCSD School of Medicine professor, said he hired the women. He also had a friend on stage dressed in a chicken suit to represent a fast-food restaurant on the other side of his building.

“This was a fun celebration, and I was celebrating in a flamboyant way,” Richley said. “I was adding a statement that represents the neighborhood. It wasn’t to exploit women or offend people.”

The arrival of the dancers “was a big surprise to all of us,” said Sandra Waggenaar, a ceremony organizer. “Had we known, we would not have kept the Mormons up there.

“I thought it was humorous, but that it was probably offending some people in the audience, which was unfortunate.”

She added that suggestive language in Richley’s speech offended her more than the dancers.

Roberts, who wore the dancer’s T-shirt during the rest of the ceremony, called Richley’s skit “harmless.”