How I was a Human Bowling Ball and lived to tell the tale...

This post is especially for Rhi, who wrote recently about her fall off stage while taking photographs and my alluding to my escapades on a cruise ship... and my utter klutziness!

Some back story about my nom de plume - in 1999, age 38 - I joined Miss Lou Lou's Tap Dancing Academy as an Absolute Beginner with a close friend. The last time I had had dance lessons was at the age of 6, learning ballet at a local ballet school for all of one term... but I enjoyed tap, particularly once I realised the more ridiculous our costumes and our song choices, the less likely people would actually pay attention to our less than fancy footwork.

At the time at work, one of the blokey blokes, started to refer to me as Miss Frou Frou, and I used it once or twice on an online group as I wrote about my faltering and hysterical and shortlived tapdancing career... and the term stuck! As did the reference to my friend as Miss La De Da!

And in 2003 I went away for a 10 day cruise to Noumea and Vanuatu with a group of 3 friends including Miss La De Da and Gigglegirl. The story below was written to that online group on my return...

The first night and day at sea was pretty rough, half the ship was suffering from sea sickness and yours truly ended up having a shot in the rear after waiting for 2 hours to see the ship's doctor and slept most of day one away.

First morning I slammed my thumb in the cabin door - but as that was also the period that I spent most of the time with my head in a paper bag I was too miserable to realise how much it hurt!

In the information we received from the cruise line before we left it said that they had two theme nights with passenger participation floorshows.

I said to Miss La De Da that maybe we should put our names down to do something. She was horrified and I said, why - it's not like we'll ever see these 1500 passengers again!

On the first night they asked for people to register interest in the two shows, one a Country and Western theme, the other Fright Night. I looked at MLDD and she said, no way, so I resigned myself to not participating.

When we got the daily news on that first night it said they were having linedancing classes the following morning. The 4 of us decided that would be fun to do. Well of course the following morning I was sick, so missed the line dancing class, and most of the first day.

So at dinner time when the girls woke me I was a bit disappointed to hear that MLDD and one of the others had signed up to do a linedancing routine in the Country and Western night, and despite the fact that MLDD thought she could teach me the dance, they hadn't put my name down.

Imagine my delight, when the next morning they had square dancing classes, and asked people to volunteer to do a different number in the show. Both MLDD and I had the class and put our names down.

What a hoot square dancing was. There were 4 groups of 8, with MLDD and I making up the 8 people directly at the front on stage right. The show room on the Pacific Sky is at the front of the boat, so it sometimes gets a bit rocky, so learning to do square dancing, and swinging and circling around was pretty tricky but we got the hang of it.

Now, of the two of us tap dancers, MLDD is by far the more accomplished. She has a great sense of style and dances well. I, on the other hand usually bumble along and generally look like an idiot. BUT, she has terrible trouble remembering a routine, while I, who has the memory of an elephant, pick routines up really quickly.

Square dancing was exactly the same. About a third of the way through the dance, after we'd do-si-do'd, we were supposed to do a heel, toe, heel, toe and gallop bit in the dance. MLDD routinely forgot what to do, so by the end of rehearsal as we do-si-do'd I'd quietly be saying, heel, toe, heel toe and gallop, we'd fumble a bit, giggle and pick it up.

The first of the two shows on performance night was the same. MLDD had a mental blank so right through the dance I kept having to either tell her what was next or point to where she needed to be. But we pulled it off and had a great time. Despite the fact that for some reason no-one ever assumes that just because you put your hand up to do something that you should have a body like Kylie - so the gingham shirt allocated to me - wouldn't do up it was so small - and the straw hat allocated was so big that I could hardly see!


So the 2nd show starts and we get organised to go on stage, still with me whispering to MLDD what comes first, and then next etc. It was a Beverley Hillbillies sketch, with the Pacific Sky entertainers dressed as various members of that family. During the dance they all weave in and out of the square dancers etc. Out we go, under the lights, a bit choppy weather, so we're all finding it a bit tricky staying upright - you just naturally all tilt in the direction that the ship is going.

Dancing away, giggling and being silly and then it happened. I'd said to MLDD through the do-si-do "heel, toe, heel, toe and gallop". She'd got a bit excited and was raring to go, and off she went, but unfortunately I wasn't quite ready, I'm heeling and toeing just as she started to gallop and disaster struck - I lost my footing and over I went.

Just as I did, the ship lurched, so not only did I have the pleasure of landing flat on my butt, but the momentum of the ship and MLDD's gallop had my legs going straight up in the air and I slid along the stage, almost taking out Grannie Clampett in the process, and causing some of the other people in our group of 8 to have to jump over me.

Talk about hysterical, the whole crowd including everyone on stage was laughing, as was I, except I couldn't get to my feet. I'm half lying on the stage floor, half bouncing up. Managed to get to my feet and jump straight back into the dancing, still with the sounds of everyone on stage laughing. MLDD was laughing so hard she wet her pants! And I wasn't that far behind her.

Once off stage one of the entertainers came over to check if I was ok. I wasn't, I'd actually landed pretty hard, and having to climb the stairs up to the dressing room was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But the show must go on, and when we all came out on stage at the end got a special clap from the audience.

The next two days saw me moaning and groaning every time I walked. Giant bruise on my right butt cheek, as well as across the top of my thighs. But dancing on the deck with most of the ship for 2 hours on Island night ironed out the kinks and I was ok.

Having survived the forgetting the steps on stage at the National Theatre 3 years earlier and making up a wildly interpretive dance that closely resembled a whirling dervish, all the time dressed as a gold tinselly sausage, I mean, showgirl, and now falling over on stage in front off close to 1000 people, I reckon I'm ready to take on anything. Jazz Ballet anyone?