Strictly Ballroom

"So if you really love me
Say yes
But if you don´t, dear, confess
And please don´t tell me
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps"

If you don´t know the movie Strictly Ballroom, I can really recommend it!
I bought the video many years ago, but eventually our video machine broke down, so I haven´t seen it for years... However, I have now bought the DVD version, and finally watched it again. My daughter, who is 14, had agreed to see it with me (in return I had agreed to see the Disney Movie "Tangled" :-) ). Although she thought it was quite odd, she got caught by the romantic drama. Myself?... well I was flooded with tears most of the time, so not sure I saw all the scenes properly LOL




To me there is such an essential message in the film to follow ones passion, find the origianal sourses, follow a dream - and not live a life in fear. "A life lived in fear is a life half lived" Fran says, and how true is that...!
The movie also brings back my own memories of "Ballroom dancing";

When I was 6 years old I was one year in a dance "school" in our local village hall, it only went on for one year, but I didn´t mind, since my dancepartner was a boy with absolutely no sence of rhythm ;-)

Years later, at the age of 15, I had a teacher in school, whom I fell madly in love with. He was a dancer, and his parents owned a dance Studio in the city of Aarhus (biggest city in a part of Denmark called Jutland).
In order to get a chance to see a glimps of him dancing, I joined a beginners dance class at the Studio. And the way we were taught was so close to the way in the Strictly Ballroom movie!
You would have wanted to see the scene; Since we were not very rich, we couldn´t afford a nice dance dress. So I turned up in my green jeans and a big blue sweater. My father drove me there every friday evening, and whilst I was listening to Abbas "Dancing Queen" in a small transistor radio in the car, I was changing to my "dance" shoes, which were white sandals with thick heels of cork!
I did´t have a dance partner, so I managed to have three different male partners, and none of them could dance!! So in the break we shared a fizzy drink and I tried to show him with my fingers how to do the steps and turn around LOL, it must have looked so strange to the other "perfect" couples!
Whilst dance class went on, my father would go to an automat, where one could put coins in, and buy the left over baker bread from the day - which we would then go home and eat afterwards.
Well, it´s all a long time ago now. But some a few years ago a dance program series started in danish television, called "Vild med dans" = Crazy about dancing. In the program ten professional dancers teach ten beginners (most of them are known from sport, acting etc,) how to dance in a few months. The program really catches me, since many of the amateurs really get passionate about dancing. AND - believe it or not - my teachers (whom I was in love with) daughter is now a professionel dancer, and she and her partner even won the whole competition!!  So - thank God for music and dancing, one cannot not get lifted up and feel totally bright!