So you think you wanna dance?

I am no aficionado of dance.  By a long stretch.  Or by any stretch.  I don’t really know what krumping is and though (I think) I know what a pirouette looks like, I have no idea what an arabesque is.

I possibly offended my sister-in-law and niece years ago when I finally admitted that I didn’t enjoy accompanying them to classical ballets.  For me the night was akin to a slow-moving book or movie – where I just wanted those on stage to get on with it.  I admit to a frustration with plodding (though beautiful) prose.  Ballet presented me with the same problem.  Though I could guess at the vague degree of difficulty, it seemed a monotonous and a long-winded way of getting to the point. 

Having said that, I suspect a night of endless hip hop or contemporary dance would be as tedious to me.  Though I accompany my niece to some of her eisteddfods (and I can happily watch my niece dance until the cows come home) where a myriad of styles are often show, my favourite shows are the end-of-year concerts where there is more variety. 

The art of dance itself has garnered more attention and support recently with the advent of TV shows, Dancing with the Stars (which I don’t watch) and So You Think You Can Dance (which I do watch).  Note here I refrained from adding Dance Your Ass Off, as I don’t think it lasted long enough on our screens to count as having any impact on its 17 nation-wide viewers! 

SYTYCD restarts on our TV screens tonight which I discovered yesterday as I watched an old MC Hammer film clip and marveled at the ability of the African-American chicks (in the video) to shake their booties.  This (of course) led to some sort of pondering on genetics and nurture versus nature (I obviously have WAY too much time on my hands!!). 

There is no question, for example, that some cultures include music and dance as part of their everyday lives, and not solely for the purpose of eventually ‘performing’ for an audience as many of we Aussies do. 

In the mid 1990s I went to work in Mozambique (in south-eastern Africa) as a volunteer with a women’s non-government organization.  I recall walking to the shops in my first or second week in the country and being enchanted as I was passed by a convoy of trucks carrying groups of men and women all singing and dancing.  They were in the throes of a wedding – always a huge (and loud) celebration in Mozambique.  I wanted to ring home and share my excitement at what I had been privy to.  

I worked in the head office in Maputo but about a week into my time there, my counterpart and I traveled to the outskirts of town to visit one of the groups we supported. We were greeted by the group at Boane with song and dance.  I was delighted.  It really was the stereotypical Africa that you saw on television.  And, of course I was also eventually dragged up to join the women (after being draped in a capulana – piece of fabric / sarong). 

 

As my time in Mozambique wore on I became more accustomed to the role that singing and dancing played in their culture and lives.  Some of the issues we promoted (family planning, safe sex etc) were translated into songs.  I sat in a church where a priest-of-sorts and his hen (or perhaps it was a rooster?  I couldn’t focus as I was worried it was to be a sacrifice* and wasn’t sure how NOT to react) preached to the masses before one of our Activistas (facilitators) presented a session on AIDs – complete with demonstrating how to put a condom on a fake penis – before we broke into song and dance. 

 

In a place called Xai Xai, I remember some young boys getting up to join the dancing women.  And it took me a while to realise that they weren’t taking the piss out of their elders for doing something that they found ‘uncool’.  They just wanted to join in.

Of course as time went on, I became more inured to what-once-thrilled me (or horrified-me in the case of many Mozambicans with missing limbs as a result of land mines and homeless children sleeping on the footpaths in rags).  I have to admit to occasionally getting frustrated on our visits across the countryside.  I wanted to see other aspects of our work in action.  Did, I wonder, the singing and dancing ensue when I wasn’t there, or was it all for my benefit?  Something in between I suspect.  But there was no question about the fact that music and dance brought such joy to these people facing difficulties once unimaginable to me.  Something I should remind myself of (as I settle down tonight to watch SYTYCD) now that 15 years have passed since I lived amidst such passion and was fortunate enough to share in it for a while.

*Note.  The hen / rooster made it safely through the service though it did run amok at one point.  We (the official party) were however served a meal of chicken and rice after the service, so unless there was something special about it, I was not really sure how long the hen/rooster would last in the overall scheme of things!

Borrowed time

I originally posted this on 10 December 2009, but deleted it when I changed the theme of this blog.  However, in retrospect, this entry means a lot to me, so I am reposting it. 

Nine years ago someone died. I don't know how or why. I don't even know who. But I do know that their death benefited my family in a way that we will never forget and in a way that we can never repay.

My father has had heart problems for as long as I can remember. I vaguely recall his hurried trips to Brisbane from regional Queensland when I was a youngster. Not to mention the regular check ups which, to my mind, always seemed tokenistic and the rotating array of interns, fairly disinterested.

He was an unlikely candidate for early-onset heart problems as a non-smoker and non-drinker. As a child and young man, he was an athlete - reportedly excelling at most sports he played, before settling into rugby league. And in those days he was as close to 'professional' as you could get.

So, he was a fit and healthy bugger. But, his heart wasn't. For most of my life I had known that - at some point - my dad would need surgery to make it all better. The doctors just needed to wait until it was bad enough to do something about it. I was overseas in 1996 when they finally discovered that the problem was worse than they initially thought. The wall of the pumping chamber of his heart was damaged. It seemed that the rheumatic fever he had as a child was more brutal than anyone realized and it meant that the valve replacement they had always planned wouldn't make any difference. Then came the news patients and their families dread… The only option available to him was a heart transplant.

Devastating as the news was for my family, we took solace in the fact that we still had time. He was only 57 years old and still quite healthy. The life or death wait for an organ donor and transplant surgery seemed a long way off.

His only grandchild was born later that same year. Always good with kids he was a devoted grandfather and 'Tinkers' seemed to revel in the attention. But as 60 approached his health worsened. I was overseas (again) and insulated from the stress when his pacemaker failed and he had a cardiac arrest. He was in hospital at the time and easily resuscitated, but my mother was jarred. But defibrillator installed he was again sent home. To wait. Not for a donor, but to be sick enough to even make it onto the waiting list.

Only months later, in December 2000, he was again admitted to intensive care. My mother's correspondence had become filled with increasing stories of his deterioration. A man, who had very recently played an excellent game of tennis now had difficulties walking around the yard. Worse still, there were comments from others. My once-upbeat mother sounded worried. I was wracked with guilt at being so far away - with my father so ill and my mother obviously needing support.

After being in hospital for a week and undergoing a barrage of tests there was little else the doctors could do to improve his condition. My father was officially added to the organ donor register. It was Saturday. The transplant team delivered a sad message for others, but a good one for us: that it was a time of year when more lives are lost and more donations (inadvertently) made.

I arrived home from overseas late the following day and was surprised to see my recently-active and healthy 61 year old father looking old. He had always looked so young for his age. That night, on Sunday the 10th of December, my father called from hospital to say he had been told they had a donor heart for him.

We raced up to the hospital. It was 9pm. The next 12 hours were surreal. Though the donor heart was a match, we would not know until about 3am if it was undamaged. My mother and I waited overnight with my father as he was prepared for surgery. It was an emotional night, but what I remember most now, was how resolute he was that he HAD to have the transplant. He didn’t seem to consider the alternative. His only fear was that the transfer wouldn’t take place. Never once did he speak of possible repercussions of having the surgery – death – either during the operation or shortly after. So then, it was only joy that greeted the witching-hour news that the heart was good and the operation would go ahead.

We walked him to the theatre at 5am before leaving him in the hands of green robe-clad surgeons. As the rest of the world awoke, we started making calls to tell friends and relatives. And then waited.

Four hours later dad was out of surgery. He woke later that day. There were a few early hiccups, but these related more to the enormity of what had happened and the emotional rollercoaster that accompanied it. The concoction of drugs he is on prevents his own body rejecting the interloping heart. As yet it hasn’t.

He was as good as new. Still is. Almost. My father used to be larger than life. He loved, played, worked, stressed and obsessed with passion. Whether it was battling illness for years before the surgery, the surgery itself, or the concept of living on borrowed time, he is changed. He isn’t the same. I suspect that there are some emotional scars that could only be understood whose heart was stopped, removed and replaced by a stranger’s. His confidence has diminished. He often talks about feeling unworthy. Undeserving. But I think, ‘If not him, then who?’ But despite this, there are still glimpses of the old dad and we treasure them.

Nine years have passed since the stranger’s death. My father has seen his only grandchild grow from a toddler to a beautiful teenager. He has (to date) had nine extra years to wander this earth, spending time with his family and friends. And those of us who love him (and there are many) have been blessed to have him for almost a decade more (so far) than we otherwise might…

The night before the operation, as we stalked the corridors of the hospital, another family was echoing our actions. A 21yr old man was to receive the lungs from the same donor. His wife and parents were there. At the hospital. My mother and father saw them often during regular transplant checkups. Never responding as well as dad, the young man died one year after the transplant. I often wondered if his parents resented the fact that my then 62 year old father was still going strong. But, they did get an extra year with their son and in a lifetime of 22 years, 12 months is a hell of a long time.

Coincidentally...

I finally saw the much-lauded Avatar last weekend.  I was blown-away by how far technology has come since I suffered through queasiness and blue and red tinted lens’ for Jaws 3D in 1983.

I have been entertained by the media reports comparing Avatar’s plot to that of Pocahontas as well as the web postings which do a ‘Find / Replace’ from an excerpt of Pocahontas - replacing John Smith with Jake Sully.  Though patting him on the back for his ingenuity, bloggers everywhere are describing Avatar as Pocahontas in Space and wondering if James Cameron merely ‘lifted’ the plot (based on real events anyway!) and added some colour and special effects. 

I recently touched on this idea of ‘everything old is new again’ in a blog I wrote about sampling or remixing old songs into new ones, which gave me a chance to revisit with old faves.

But this is different.  We see our share of remakes.  Some good – Ocean’s Eleven and The Ring come to mind.  And some not-so-good – think Psycho and Planet of the Apes.  But what I wonder, in a world of remakes and trashy reality television about the world’s worst car-crashes is, are we lazy and purposely stealing ideas or have we just run out of new ones? 

I am currently watching two separate television shows, both of which initially had me indignant about the fact that they had seemingly pilfered their storyline from feature films.  I couldn’t believe the audacity and wondered why I hadn’t read about copyright breaches.  But it appears that all is not as it seems….

My first exhibit is the TV show, The Sopranos, which I am watching half-a-dozen years after the rest of the world.  The show has never really appealed to me, but I was in need of something to keep me entertained during the summer off-season here – other than tennis or cricket – so figured 6 seasons of approximately 13 episodes a season would give me 70 hours (give or take) of TV viewing to stave off the boredom. 

I vaguely knew what the show was about (mobsters), but it wasn’t until I watched the first season that I realized how closely it resembled the movie, Analyze This.  Both centre around a mob boss seeking assistance from a psychiatrist and the consequences (good and bad) of this action.  (Of course latter seasons of The Sopranos focus less on this angle, but it plays a pivotal role in the first season.)

I was shocked at the blatant ‘rip-off’ unless of course the show was meant to be a spin off of the movie.  It wasn’t.  Meant to be a spin off that is. And, more interestingly, it was not a rip-off.  Though the series appeared on TV screens in 1999 – the same year the movie was realized - the TV show pilot was actually filmed in 1997.  So, just coincidence apparently.  Two separate individuals had the same idea.  At around the same time.

Then there is a current summer season offering on our TV screens, which I find myself watching though it is a tad trite and obvious.  Accidentally on Purpose sees an older career woman become (accidentally – as if that can happen in this day and age?!) pregnant to a 20-something guy who lives with his always-stoned buddy.  Sound familiar?  If you saw the movie Knocked Up in which Katherine Heigl found herself in a similar state thanks to a drunken one night stand with Seth Rogen, then the plot is WAY too familiar.  And yet, wait for it...  Apparently the TV show has not pilfered the idea from the movie.  Bizarrely the TV show is actually based on a memoir (of the same name).   

Thanks to Jenna Elfman and the dry accented wit of Ugly Betty’s Ashley Jensen the show is watchable. Even if full of clichés. 

And, speaking of Ugly Betty, though seemingly a product of the success of the feature film, The Devil Wears Prada, the concept was in fact developed in Colombia as Yo soy Betty, la fea (I am Betty, the ugly) in 1999.  Again – apparently just a similar idea manifesting itself in the written word and celluloid in different countries.  Perhaps that explains the spate of vampire movies, TV shows and novels raining down upon us?

So, it seems, we are not stealing ideas from others.  Nor are we lazy.  But, have we run out of new ideas? Are there, I wonder, a finite number of ideas floating about in the ether, and have we plucked them all out?

Hopefully not.  Occasionally, amid the sea of formulaic offerings about cops, lawyers and doctors, there are glimpses of creative brilliance.  Current fodder such as the serial-killing Dexter, raunchy 30 Rock and Entourage and polygamist world of Big Love offer a  glimmer of originality amidst the Battlestar Gallactica and Stargate remakes and lazy low-cost reality television shows.

I am (admittedly) a fan of the quirky, such as Joss Whedon and Bryan Fuller and their shows: Firefly, Buffy, Pushing Daisies and Dead Like  Me to name a few.  However, many of these shows which have piqued my interest did not garner sufficient interest to fend off axe-weilding TV Execs, which makes me all-the-more passionate about supporting new and unusual offerings. 

So, as I settle down to Season 4 of The Sopranos and await new seasons of Dexter and  Entourage I will continue to hold out some hope for what the year ahead may have to offer.