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[Video Description: The video begins with a black title screen, framed by a thin white rectangle, in which the top left corner features a white silhouette of pointe shoes and the bottom right corner a white cat, hanging playfully off a music note. Within the rectangle are the words, in fancy white font: ‘For every minute of pleasure, I must endure a thousand minutes of pain. – Elizabeth Sparrow, twenty-eight years unwell, and counting.’ The next screen boasts the title, ‘Care to Tango?’, and opens to show the hallway of Elizabeth’s house in an old-film style monochrome filter, the camera facing the staircase, wooden floor, and downstairs rooms either side. The facing left door is closed, as is the kitchen door beside it, and a white wicker screen is shielding the cellar door (and litter tray).

As the music begins, a single red rose is waved provocatively up and down from beyond the open right doorway four times. Then Elizabeth, as is now traditional with most of her dance videos, peeks out from behind the doorway, followed by her pointe-shoed right leg, which she slides around the doorway and pulls back. She then strolls out into the hall, dark auburn hair in an updo with her trusty faux tousled bun, a double red rose clip at the right side, elegant black-beaded clip-on earrings, V-shaped, black-lace beaded necklace and an off-the-shoulder long, straight black dress, with long attached shoulder-to-wrist arms and a high slit at either side. The dress is the same one she wore for an impromptu photoshoot earlier in the year, shortened by her own arthritic hands to ensure she didn’t break her neck, and adorned with invisible straps to stop the bugger falling off. Her make-up is modest, but lips deep in colour to match the roses. Looking pleasingly around the hall, she checks the time on her non-existent watch (as she neither wears one nor owns one) and, evidently stood up by her date, throws the single red rose she is holding in her hands to the side and practically bounces en double pointe and begins to tango-move back and forth on her toes, knees slightly bent for balance and arms at the front and back of her waist, as if dancing with a partner. She then throws one ballet-style curved arm up with the same foot movement, repeating it with the other, then opening both arms outwards and gradually moving around to the staircase, where she sits (the video blending into another take, as happens for each major sequence) down to wait (and get her breath). Waiting, and growing bored, she pulls a hidden nail file from between her cleavage and proceeds to file her nails, blowing on them and returning the file, then waves to someone she patently doesn’t like, checking her watch once more. Deciding her date isn’t coming, she eyes the solid banister base and looks at the camera with a quirk of eyebrow, standing en pointe and, with a quick drop-and-rise still en pointe, wraps her leg around the base as if it is her partner. Very carefully she leans back (so as not to jolt her insanely sensitive neck), repeating the move, before moving around the base, holding on (for dear life) and swishing her en pointe legs outwards and inwards, as done in the traditional tango. With two final one-handed leans in either direction, she finishes (rather gingerly by this point) with a bow come curtsey, winks at the camera and returns through the open door (to collapse in an ungainly heap of dizzied, tachycardic hypoxia).

The video continues the next day, where Elizabeth has filmed herself literally from the first moment she attempts to walk from bed into the other bedroom, following a (typically fitful) sleep. It is obvious she is in pain, ghastly pale and struggling greatly to move, in terrific contrast to her previous fluidity and perfectly straight back, as she explains to the camera and is highlighted by her slightly hunched reflection in a long mirror.

The outtakes then follow, where she is attempting to film (a third take, and never manages it, and the first two were spliced together to make one full take, thank goodness) similar moves as the main video, but is interrupted by her cat HRH and, after pulling back the screen when HRH debates using the litter tray but doesn’t, proceeds to pick her up and tango with the intrepid feline until the screen fades to black, with a message of thanks.]

#Ballerina
Once #RoyalBallet ‘material’
#Tango
#PorUnaCabeza
#ChronicallyIll withModerate/severe #MyalgicEncephalomyelitis 28 years today
#Housebound over 13 yearsBrutal
#Endometriosis for over 20 years
Advanced #Osteoporosis
Exceedingly trying #Perimenopause for over 6 years
At least a four-octave soprano #Singer
Fiction and non-fiction #Writer
Aspiring #Actress
Frequent photo/graphic #Artist
Interrupting #Cat mother
Always a #Dancer
#MillionsMissing
#ThankYou as always for your #Love and #Support

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