The Dancer – Ballet Meets The Avengers by Elizabeth Sparrow

#Ballet
#TheAvengers
#MyalgicEncephalomyelitis
#ChronicIllness
#Housebound
#Tribute

[Video Description: The video, in honour of the late Merryn Alice Crofts, who would be twenty-six today and is pictured in a joyous colour photograph, taken at a trip to see Billy Elliot, begins with how she and Elizabeth met: ‘In spring 2015, I collapsed with a catastrophic B12 deficiency – a consequence to over two brutal decades of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. Paralysed throughout my entire body with acute parasthesia, I was incredibly, indescribably ill. During this very trying time, I met the inimitable Merryn Alice Crofts, and using my one working finger to type, we soon became fast friends. I was fortunate to eventually stabilise. Merryn was not. On the 23rd of May 2017, my darling friend tragically died of ME just ten days after her twenty-first birthday. Her last words to me, not long before she passed, were that I made her laugh. I hope I still do.’ After this, the black title card is briefly displayed, written in a white font similar to the Sixties’ classic television series The Avengers, and fades into the video itself, which is filtered in black-and-white and shows Elizabeth’s empty hallway, comprising white walls, a wooden floor, carpeted staircase in the background and two opposite open doorways. To the beat of the music, on the facing right Elizabeth’s black-sleeved arm shoots out, holding a banana like a gun. After a fleeting aim towards the camera and back, Elizabeth peeks around the corner and emerges, dressed in a black long-sleeved catsuit, bobbed auburn hair side-parted and flicked outwards, akin to Dame Diana Rigg’s legendary Emma Peel, light make-up and peach pointe shoes (because the red-painted ones are too stiff to pull these moves in!). Darting into the centre of the screen, Elizabeth toys with the banana, patently unimpressed, and flings it beyond the facing left doorway, then, dusting her hands off, semi-leaps after it. What follows is a series of scenes, each filmed separately over a few hours and compiled together (as well as speeded up for better effect), during which Elizabeth re-emerges several times, looking now and then with intent at the camera. First comes a high forwards kick whilst she grips the door frame (for dear life!), then she dives surreptitiously across and through the opposite doorway with a squeegee-ended window pole, immediately after which a pair of (faux) suede boots, striped sofa cushion and hairbrush fly from within back through the other doorway. Elizabeth reappears, walking en pointe backwards and brandishing a whip (actually a multicoloured teaser stick belonging to her cat, but needs must) at an unseen assailant. Disappearing into the room behind her once more, she throws back one of the boots, then reappears again with another window-cleaning pole and stops in the centre to twirl it between her hands like a large majorette baton, landing the now fabric-covered end between her feet and using it to pop herself up en pointe, pausing to neaten her hair before hurrying to finish the job. The boot is flung back and Elizabeth follows, dusting her hands, satisfied with herself. She then saunters back across en pointe, the whip swishing over her shoulder and is (seemingly) eating the banana, breaking the fourth wall once again midway with a quirk of her eyebrow. A brief aftermath headshot is shown of Elizabeth in bed, looking (and feeling!) thoroughly ghastly and heavy-eyed with severe pain and obliterating exhaustion, which she points out is (entirely!) worth it, the video ending with her grateful thanks, as always.]