Boogie Cindy is her name, and boogying down tonight is her game -- never mind that the game in question peaked some 30 years ago.

We're talking disco, baby: pure, 100-percent burn-that-mama-down '70s gold.

Which means we're also talking Cindy's brainchild: the Boogie Wonder Band, a 10-piece caravan that has led the disco-tribute-band pack since it was founded nearly 14 years ago.

The group takes over the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts Saturday for a night that starts upstairs, then segues downstairs to an ad hoc disco in the BCPA Ballroom.

What goes around comes around, of course, and the music fad that once "sucked" has now become fashionably, even lovably, retro.

Back in '96, Boogie Cindy was still smarting from her years "dreaming of fame and fortune in the bowling world."

When that didn't happen, she hauled out her bass guitar to start a band, playing the music she loved.

Which brings us up to 1996, and the turning point.

Cindy, we should note, was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio, but wound up in Montreal, acquiring a distinct French accent, which renders any disco discussion slightly surreal.

As in: a Canadian disco tribute band founded by a female, bass-playing, ex-bowling American ex-pat.

During disco's original pass through global pop culture (roughly 1974-79), she was too young to shake her booty on down to Studio 54. Maybe that helped save her from any preconceptions about the music, which suffered a lethal backlash at the decade's turn, with mass public record burnings and the infamous "disco sucks" sloganeering.

Cindy Boogie escaped all of that ugliness.

"I guess," she says, "because I was a bass player, I discovered that I loved disco-funk's bass lines."

And that, she thinks, is what separates the resulting band from the legions of imitators who've followed: The Boogie Wonder Band arose from a working musician's love of the live funk sound -- not the heavily processed studio music -- that captured her fancy.

In fact, the bands that truly set the patter were funk-favoring acts with live instrumentation, like Kool & The Gang, Ohio Players and Earth, Wind & Fire (whose "Boogie Wonderland" provided the namesake for Cindy's group).

"I just did this thing for fun," she says. "I put together a 10-piece band -- three singers, two brass players, and one percussionist, keyboardist, guitarist and bass player -- and then tried to play as close to the recorded sounds as we could."

Current lineup

In keeping with her Boogie Cindy handle, the players were christened accordingly, with the current lineup sporting the colorful likes of Stardust, Kat Brown, Dr. Tony Fever and Marky de Sax.

"We had no idea," says Cindy, "that it would last this long."

Certainly, she adds, the concept of a disco tribute band in 1996 was virtually alien, with no competition to speak of; now, she notes, there are dozens of similar acts around the world.

"We were something people had never seen before -- and we immediately started playing a lot of private parties and hotels and casinos."

They've played countless celebrity birthday parties, from Celine Dion to Donald Trump, who has personally requested their services twice.

What's a Donald birthday bash like?

"Lots of girls," she observes. "Girls, girls everywhere."

Eventually, Cindy adds, "because of the size of the band and the show, we couldn't do clubs or small stages anymore."

After 14 years, the Boogie Wonder Band can dispense around 4½ hours' worth of booty-shaking, disco-burning live music.

"It's 100-percent live -- really edgy live music -- Earth, Wind & Fire meets KISS," she says.

An average concert clocks in with 60 to 70 songs, with many of them polished off in carefully calculated medleys designed to lift bottoms out of seats and into the aisles.

"Even in the sit-down theaters (like the BCPA), people just have to get up and dance," she says. "They really need to. And they will."

 

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At A Glance

 

What: "Let's Get Down Tonight" with the Boogie Wonder Band

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts, 600 N. East St., Bloomington

Tickets: $23.40 to $35

Box office number: 866-686-9541

 

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Boogie Cindy's 10 best

 

Boogie Wonder Band founder Boogie Cindy counts down her personal disco top 10:

1. "Good Times," Chic

2. "Let's Groove Tonight," Earth, Wind & Fire

3. "Disco Inferno," The Trammps

4. "She's a Bad Mama Jama," Carl Carlton

5. "This Groove Is Bad," Skyy

6. "Disco Nights," GQ

7. "Don't Leave Me This Way," Thelma Houston

8. "Let's Start the Dance," Hamilton Bohannon

9. "Stomp," Brothers Johnson

10. "Le Freak," Chic