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Shall We Dansu? The note at the beginning of the comedy Shall We Dansu? explains that in Japan, where even married couples do not embrace in public, ballroom dancing is beyond risqué, it's taboo. Shohei Sugiyama, a Japanese salary man, is not only having a midlife crisis, the mortgage on the new house he has bought for his wife Masako, Natsuko and himself, has ensured that he is financially tied up to his eyeballs for a long time. One evening, on the train home from his workaday drudgery he spies a beautiful melancholy woman gazing out of the window of a nearby dance school. Against his better judgement he secretly enrolls and is drawn into the strange underworld of Japanese ballroom dancing. So, Shohei meets Mai, the woman at the window: The unapproachable teacher who demands perfection and total commitment to dance. She rebuffs his awkward advances but Shohei soon finds he loves dancing for its own sake. Masako, suspicious of his changed countenance and recent exuberance, hires a private detective. This is an endearing heart cockle-warming film on Japanese society without any sentimentality. It's filled with hilarity and a sublime cast of social misfits. I see aspects of myself in all the characters, not least the fat guy with the sweaty palms who says it’s the only way he can meet girls; the bald po-faced systems analyst by day who transforms into toupee-wearing flamboyantly be-sequinned Rumba stud by night; and even Shohei, the buttoned-up accountant begins to spontaneously trace out dance steps on the public train platform with a phantom partner. I remember that week in Jerusalem after the head cleric of Hamas had been assassinated by Israeli missile. All the city was awaiting the unleashing of Palestinian fury. Thinking back it is one of the surreal highlights of my life waltzing by myself in the mirrored room somewhere in the hills of Jerusalem while waiting for my young dance teacher Shimon. And for the world to end. The dancing, both in the comic scenes and in the straight ones, is a delight, whether or not one knows the slightest thing about ballroom dancing. An irresistible gem of a film. I was mortified when I heard that Hollywood bought the remake rights which eventually starred box office bigwigs Jennifer Lopez, Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon. Why tamper with perfection, losing in the cynical process the exquisite charm and heart of the original? Made in 1996, I picked up the film in a video rental shop in 2003, around the time I first started to take Latin and ballroom dance lessons. It remains one of my all-time feel-good movies. My original intention was to know my maternal grandmother better, who had died several years before in 1999. I was fat and ungainly as a , had never really danced because of poor gross motor co-ordination, being tone deaf and unable to pick out a beat. Once, as an adult while teasing and cajoling her and not knowing she would die not long afterwards, I asked her to teach me something. While going through the intricate Foxtrot I tumbled and fell on top of her. That moment is one of my happiest and most precious last memories of her before she succumbed to loneliness and cancer. She came to Singapore from China as an eight-year-old with her parents and two younger siblings. My great grandfather died early, so she left school to support the family as a dance hall hostess or "taxi dancer" in between the two great wars. She never spoke of this aspect of her life as it was considered shameful. It was doing this that she met my would-be grandfather as a carousing heavy drinking student from a middle class family in the state of Kedah. The running myth or lie of the family was that they had met “at the bus stop”. We only found out in later years as long before my own parents met my would-be paternal grandmother was acquainted with her through running an underground gambling den. I loathe physical exercise of any sort but found I loved dance as an end in itself, the precision and relinquishment of control in the hands of a partner I trust. Heterose.xual men confident on the dance floor are poised, elegant, dead s.exy in a non-salacious way, even if they are of less than average looks. I long to take up dancing again. But have so far been hindered by the difficulty in finding a dedicated partner who matches my objectives and personality (ie. someone who is not one of these overly serious competitive types who only do it for self glory and to win trophies) and is at least 5’8” - 11” tall. Any volunteers? No experience required. Incidentally, I have found those who are mathetimatically or analytically inclined actually fly through it. It is an absolute joy to behold. My favourite dances are the Cha-Cha, paso doble, the English Waltz and the ballroom Tango. Shall we dansu? Image credit: Shohei at his office desk, Shall We Dansu? (1996), dir Masayuki Suo 
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12/7/2006 7:13 am |
mould i luv this movie but i havent watch it. Saw the Advert in Astro LOL Yes i luv latin dance LOL
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Mold, Great writing by twisting of many things together, threaded by the dancing theme. I enjoy a lot this post and plant yr Jerusalem waltzing and yr grandmother's dancing, all these scenes into my brain/heart. I got some training in university where we had ballroom party every weekend but I am never a good dancer due to my not-accurate-and-always-faster sense of rhythm. Yet i enjoy very much watching pairs dancing in tandem, dancers who really plunk their bodies in the beautiful music, they look the happiest, most sensual ppl in the world. Appreciate your approach to take on dance. Hope you find a partner soon. 2-in-1 is the most perfect. (Do u like salsa?)
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1/13/2007 6:52 pm |
The salsa would suit a free spirit like you. I didn't like the total relinquishment as it was danced with a particular Latin dance teacher with whom I had a close and sexually tense (unconsummated) relationship. I was whirled around and around till I was sick. It was symbolic of a more horizontal type of dance (punishment).
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