Roses from a Stranger

Further Info

This story was made on a five-day training workshop led by Joe Lambert and Emily Paulos from the Center for Digital Storytelling (www.storycenter.org) in California. Participants were Watershed and Museum staff, freelance practitioners, and staff from community based arts and media organisations who wanted to learn how to deliver future digital storytelling workshops in Bristol.

The course took place at Watershed during March 2005 and was supported by Bristol’s Museums, Galleries & Archives.

Transcript

[Atmospheric music]

I should have warned my mother before she met me at Heathrow. I thought I’d be able to walk from the plane, but I needed a wheelchair.

My first job was in Belgium, my second in Sunderland, the third in Monte Carlo and my fourth in Japan. I was twenty and a Japanse businessman had just sent me fifty red roses after enjoying the show.

Two weeks later I was limping around the streets of Tokyo; I’d pulled a muscle but knew I still had to do a Can Can that night… twice. Somehow I did, but the following day I couldn’t move without pain. I don’t remember how the dance troupe got me onto the bullet train and to the hotel room in the south of Japan, but I do remember the tiny doctor speaking in a strange language and dressed in a kimono.

The show moved to Hong Kong and I found myself in a hospital bed in rough cotton pyjamas, offered soup and chopsticks for breakfast and being spoken about loudly by several doctors at once, in Cantonese.

Mum was kind. I was scared. Dancing had hurt me but still I loved it and couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I really missed being able to do the one thing I so enjoyed and could do well. And that feeling of being in a group moving together with the music and getting it right and all looking amazing.

For more than a year I wondered if I’d ever dance again. But I did. The next job was a Carribean cruise with more Can Cans. I danced in shows for another fourteen years. In the Bahamas I worked with Pat, who was fifty and dacning and looking great. But I’ve given up now. Occasional back pain reminds me why.

I still miss it; there’s nothing like it. It sets the spirit free. Sometimes I remember those fifty red roses from a stranger and in my dreams I’ll Can Can forever!

Credits

All media not otherwise credited created by the story author, or permission obtained, used under copyright licence.