Lord of the dance

We were ushered into a large dark room with tiered seating at one end and a black curtain around three sides at the other end. I glanced down at the programme and discovered that the first performance we'd be watching was going to be Stomp! (people banging bin lids), my heart sank. Also featuring on the list of performances was some interpretative dance, my heart sank even further down than I thought it could.

You may wonder what on earth I was doing in such a place, given my obvious dislike of anything we'd be watching. Well, a few weeks ago my brother had left a message with Ian asking if we wanted to watch him dance. Upon further investigation I discovered that he'd refused to allow my step mum to go and so I felt duty bound to accept his invitation. He's dyspraxic which means he struggles with his co-ordination, so I had absolutely no idea what to expect from the evening but I left there feeling so proud and a little teary. I welled up as soon as he started dancing, sadly he was involved in the Stomp! performance but there were no bin lids, just some thigh and a bit of chest slapping. Seeing him, concentrating so hard, sometimes managing to get himself in time with the others made me want to weep. Not from sorrow but pride and a little sadness that our Dad wasn't there to see it. He would have been beaming, as any parent would I suppose but my brother is most certainly our Dad's son, he's outgoing, he knows everybody, you can't go anywhere with him without some saying hello, he's also a performer, as our Dad was. Dad loved to be on stage, singing or dancing - the stories I could tell... and so does my brother.

After the initial sense of dread (I mean, it was Stomp! after all) my heart was well and truly warmed. The way the dance group looked after the others, how they didn't appear to be judging any of the people with special needs they were leading, sometimes people are really lovely, aren't they? To be honest, the fact nobody told my brother to stop bloody singing (I could see him singing along) was a miracle in itself.