A Final Farewell to a Tango Dancer

I originally wrote this article “Farewell to a Tango Dancer” in 2003 for a farewell dinner for Anni Nordmann before she left Penang, Malaysia where I first met her, and later published a revised version for Tropical Affairs.  Having learned that she had recently passed away due to cancer, I thought I would post the article as a final tribute to Anni.

                                                                   Joelle, Robert, Anni

If expats are good at one thing it’s saying goodbye because we do it so often—to expats leaving and those staying behind.  Expats come in two types:  those who come to a country for a year or two before moving onto the next country, and those who come to one country and stay put.  Anni Nordmann was both.  She had been an expat in eight countries—South Africa, Zimbabwe, Switzerland, Gabon, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Singa­pore—before arriving in Penang, Malaysia where she ended up staying for sixteen years.  

After being away from the United States for 28 years, she’s finally returning home.  Like other long-stayers-in-one-country expats like myself, I was wondering, how do you say goodbye to a fellow expat whom you thought would never leave?

Like Anni, when I came to Malaysia 20 years ago, the intention was never to stay for very long, but as years went by, I became settled.  Initially I was awed by those long-time expats who had been here for ten or twelve years, and thought, how do they stay that long?  Don’t they miss their families and friends back home?  But as the years went by, as we started our own families here, this becomes home,             

Although I moved to Penang in 1985, Anni came in 1987 with her Swiss husband and three-year old son, Chris.  Later we discovered that before we met, our paths had crossed several times.  Anni was living in Holiday Inn, where her husband was the general manager, and I had been to the Holiday Inn on many occasions, attending various func­tions, including a Thanks­giving dinner for Americans where she was also present.  My ex-wife and I were close to Stella, Holiday Inn’s guest relations officer, and attended her wedding, as did Anni.  In 1991, after four years, after Anni had already left Holiday Inn, after her husband had moved away to another hotel in another country, we finally met.

  

During the filming of Indochine, starring Catherine Deneuve and Vincent Perez, which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, the director decided to do a day shoot instead of a night shoot for the Christmas Dinner scene, thus several male expats had to back out as guests and tango dancers.  So the casting people called me as one of the replacements.

Before the actual filming of the scene, all eight tango dancers met in Hotel Equatorial with the film’s choreo­grapher.  In walked Anni, a classy looking Ameri­can who played polo and taught horseback riding.  Anni, however, was not fated to be my dancing partner.  Instead it was her good friend Joelle Saint-Arnoult, another longtime expat from France.  For one week we learned how to dance and turn and dip to perfection.

 

 

Our Christmas Dinner scene in the old Crag Hotel atop Penang Hill took four days to shoot.  Elegantly dressed in period outfits from the 1930s, Anni sat directly across from me, so we had plenty of time to get to know one another.  A few weeks later, Anni, Joelle and I were invited to take part in the racing boat scene in Parit, Perak.

with Lind Dan Pham 

After Indochine, all three of us were extras in Beyond Rangoon—also set in Penang—di­rected by John Boorman, starring Patricia Arquette and Francis McDormand, and Paradise Road, directed by Bruce Beresford, starring Glenn Close and Cate Blanchett.  In Beyond Rangoon, Anni and I worked a few days in wardrobe when they needed extra help to deal with 2000 extras, where we gained a whole new perspective into movie making.

In 1992, Anni, Joelle and I were asked by Angela Clark another tango dancer from Indochine, to help  revive Penang Players after a twelve years hiatus.  Our first play was Admirable Crichton where Joelle and Anni had small acting parts.  Anni’s big part was sound effects, and I was stage manager.  Our behind-the-scenes roles continued for several produc­tions including, Gosforth’s Fete, Between Mouthfuls, The Mousetrap, and Dick Whittington and Wonder Cat.  Joelle played the Wonder Cat and Anni’s son Chris, then age 10, played Dick Whittington.

During this time, Anni and I shared other adventures, too.  She helped to dress me up as Santa Claus for St. Christopher’s School, where her son Chris was attend­ing.  Thanks to Indochine, we became models for Hotel Equatorial, City Bayview, and Bacchus, a French restaurant owned by Joelle and her husband.  We were then hired to dress up as Colonial Officers and their spouses at the E & O Hotel for 200 French Lotto winners. 

For the Penang Heritage Trust’s Twenties Revival at the former Runnymede Hotel, we were asked to reprise our roles as tango dancers from Indochine and put on a performance.  By then, the eight tango dancers in Penang had dwindled to five.

          

Anni and I shared a penchant for visiting places where we didn’t belong, like the remnants of a house in Batu Ferringhi where another long-term expat-cum hermit named Bill McVeigh was still living out the remainder of his life before he passed away.  We snuck into several abandoned bungalows, including one where we were chased by bats, and another time, I tore my shirt slipping through a hole in a fence. 

 There were sad moments too, like giving blood to a fellow Penang Player who later died of cancer; although he was from Penang, he was a long-term expat in France.  Anni, at her own personal risk, once helped another expat flee Penang from an abusive husband. 

In the last five years, Anni devoted herself to “The Farm” at Lone Pine Hotel, where she taught horseback riding, resurfacing now and then to do the sound for yet another Penang Players’ production.  Meanwhile I settled to a life teaching creative writing at USM, went through a divorce, and eventually met someone wonderful from Sarawak and remarried. 

While I concen­trated on teaching and my own writing, Anni offered to read an early draft of my novel and gave helpful feedback.  Over the years she had edited two more of my novels and some short stories.  Extreme­ly supportive of my writing, she, Joelle and others from Penang Players volunteered to launch my collection of Malaysian-set short stories, Lovers and Strangers.  Later they did again for the revised version, Lovers and Strangers Revisited.  By then Anni had left, although I acknowledged her in the book.

When Joelle first told me that Anni was leaving Penang, I contacted her and we quickly caught up with each other’s lives, reminiscing about all the adventures we had shared in Penang, as well as airing each other’s concerns about her returning to the US and her future life as a former expat whose heart will always be in Malaysia where she had spent a third of her life.  When I was going through a difficult custody battle for my son, she gave me the timely advice to “keep your head high”.  I know she will be do the same no matter what happens in the US where many fellow Americans have never traveled out of the US, other than weekend trips to Mexico or Canada, and have no desire to do so.

Like many other short- and long-term expats in Penang, as well as hordes of local friends, especially those in Penang Players or from The Lone Pine—we will miss Anni, particularly Joelle and I, who will remain behind in Penang as the last two tango dancers.

*Later, in 2006, I left Penang for Sarawak on the island of Borneo in East Malaysia where I still reside as an expat. Joelle remains in Penang.

Beheaded on the Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I

Robert Raymer and actors,  Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed 

  

Last year I was in a French documentary discussing Somerset Maugham in Sarawak, but this year I found myself getting beheaded in the Malaysian documentary Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Re­claimed.  The documentary, a Rack Focus Films production, is the Third Season in the highly suc­cess­­ful Road to Nationhood series, and originally scheduled to be aired 16 September 2018—on Malay­sia National Day—on the National Geographic channel, Astro.  Because of some unexpected delays, it would more likely be aired sometime in October.

Malaysia was formed when Singapore, North Borneo (Sabah) and the Sarawak Crown Colonies joined the Federation of Malaya on 16 September, 1963; however, two years later,  Singapore separated to become an independent republic.

Thirty years later, I was an extra in several notable Hollywood films, such an Anna and the King, Paradise Road, Beyond Rangoon, and the French film Indo­chine.  It was on the set of Indochine—Oscar winner in 1993 for Best Foreign Lang­uage Film plus an Oscar nomination for Catherine Deneuve for Best Act­ress—where I met Rob Nevis

Christmas Party scene, Indochine 

Catherine Deneuve and Linh Dan Pham, Indochine 

Rob Nevis, center, on the set of Paradise Road

Back then, Rob worked with Film Lo­ca­tion Services, but now he was a pro­ducer with Rack Focus Films.  A few months ago, Rob and I met in Kuching where he told me about the project and asked if I would be interested to take on a role, possibly Charles Brooke, the second of three White Rajahs—who ruled Sara­wak for one hundred years from 1841 to 1946.

Charles Brooke and author

James Brooke

The first White Rajah was an Englishman James Brooke.  After help­ing the Sultanate of Brunei fight piracy and an insurgency among the Dayaks, he was rewarded the city of Kuch­ing.  The third and last White Rajah, Charles Vyner Brooke, was mostly an absentee ruler.  Following the Japanese Oc­cu­pation, he con­troversially ceded Sarawak to Great Britain at a time when they were shedding their British Empire.

Giovanni and Ivan at center

Giovanni as James Brooke

After finding Ivan, a Hungarian friend who is more muscular and younger, to play Charles Brooke, and Giovanni, an Italian who is taller and younger to play James Brooke, I was asked to portray various colonial officers and officials.  My first role would be Alan Lee, a colonial officer, who unfortun­ate­ly was killed during a battle with Rentap’s Iban warriors.

Alan Lee’s beheading proved to be a turning point in the Rajah Brooke’s deter­mination to cap­ture or kill Rentap (which he never did—his famous translated quote was “still alive, still fighting”) and defeat the Saribas and Skrang Ibans, notorious head­hunt­ers who routinely attacked Bidayuh settlements throughout Sarawak including Quop, where my wife is from—deci­mating the population.

Several days before filming began the cast were called to Kayu Malam Productions, opposite of Crown Square, for wardrobe fitting and briefing by the director, Fendi, and Rob, our executive producer.  This was the first time that the Kuching group would be meet­ing the Kuala Lumpur group (Rack Focus Production) and those they brought in from KL to assist them, like Johnny Goh, Prop Master.

Bani making adjustments

Johnny Goh and Rob Nevis

Bani, Wardrobe

Bani, in charge of Wardrobe, separated us by groups:  Iban warriors, Chinese miners, Istana people, Malay extras, and a handful of Caucasians portraying Colonial Officers, Captains and Fort Guards.  We took photos of one another in various costumes.  The heavy wool coat that I tried on looked good; however, it was a little long in the sleeve and rather im­practical for the tropical Sarawak climate.

Robert and Giovanni

During the briefing we were told that, unlike feature films, the budget for documentaries was minuscule, so compromises had to be made—there wouldn’t be endless takes from all angles.  Also Season Three of the series would be the most difficult to film.  Road to Nation­hood: Journey to Independence  Part I (1945-1957) and Part II (1957-1965) in Season One were largely made from historical archives, but since there were very little archives for early Sarawak, scenes had to be re-enacted, hence the need for actors and extras.  I was told we would not be speaking (only perceived to be speaking or having a dis­cuss­ion) while a narrator pointed out the historical significance of what was being viewed.

Filming was originally scheduled to begin near the end of July but had to be pushed back a month because the produc­tion permits for filming in Sarawak were held up.  The French crew had the same problem.  For this project, it would be a big problem, which meant the time for post-production was being compressed.  The moment all of the footage was shot for a par­ticu­lar scene, it had to be sent, without delay, to post production to work on and be pieced into the docu­men­tary.  Unfortunately, films or documentaries were rarely, if ever, shot se­quentially.

Jimmy, one of the extras, set up a WhatsApp Group so we would all be in the loop, which made it easier for Prisca, Unit Production Manager, to find someone, or for Mark, Transport Manager, to clarify who needed transportation to Sarawak Cultural Village, where most of the shooting would take place.

Jimmy

Prisca and escorts

Al­though shooting began on 28 August 2018, I wasn’t called in until two days later on Thurs­day, 30 August, for my first scene.  Thanks to all of the photos from the shooting posted on the Whats­App Group by Jimmy, Prisca and others, I could keep up with the filming.  Since it was a re­latively small cast, about 30 of us, with everyone play­ing mul­ti­­ple roles, I recognized many of the faces from our pre­­vious meeting.

We were told to be at Kayu Malam Productions by 7 am, so I was up at 5 am to avoid all of the school traffic.  En route to Damai, three otters ran across the road in front of our van, which I took as a good sign.  Not long after we arrived at the Iban Longhouse in the Sarawak Cultural Village, our base of opera­tions, Bani and Sheila from Wardrobe outfitted the Iban Warriors and then the makeup crew and the tattoo specialist led by Dedek, got to work, creating some elaborate Borneo tattoo pat­terns all over their bodies including the exposed parts on their upper thighs and buttocks.  Others tried on wigs.

As we sat there waiting for our turn, extras in their respective native outfits would walk by carrying shields and spears and swords or rifles.  All of the Chinese characters, I noticed from the photos taken on the first two days, had the front half of their heads shaved and a long queue added to their hair, fitting the Manchu style back in the 1840’s.  Some of the Ibans had their hair cut as if someone had used a bowl; more likely they were wearing wigs.

Johnny showed me my head that he made and asked, “Does this look familiar?”

At the briefing we were told to expect a lot of wait­ing, something I had experienced on pre­vious productions.  I had brought a book; however, I mostly talked with others in the cast and the crew, getting to know them.  We were also free to roam around the set and watch other scenes being shot, which I gladly did.

Ivan Evetovics as Charles Brooke

“Can you see the camera?” the director called out to Ivan, who was portraying Charles Brooke, surrounded by extras.  “If you can see the camera, then the camera can see you.”

During the previous meeting, I met the actor who would portray Rentap, the leader of the Skrang Ibans, who was quite large like the real Rentap, but then he was replaced by Ernesto Kalum, a world-renown tattoo specialist with a London law degree, who looked a whole lot more fierce….Later, when I was intro­duced to Ernesto on the set, I was told, “This is the man who is going to behead you.”

Ernesto Kalum as Rentap

I was unaware that my scene was a night shoot, so I could’ve come a lot later.  Several others like me had to wait all day long, not that we minded….Twelve hours would pass before I was finally asked to get into my costume—white shirt, blue trousers, gray cap.  I was asked to bring my own black leather shoes, which I did.  Giovanni forgot, so they had to cut a new pair of shoes in back for his size 13 feet.

Although we were supposed to finish the day at 9:00 pm we didn’t finish shooting un­til 10:30 pm.  While waiting for the other scenes to finish, I posed for a few shots with Rentap and his Iban war party before they had a chance to behead me.

I could see the fort area where I would be killed.

Then I heard Fendi, our director, call out, “Bring the dying man.”

He was referring to me, but it sounded like I had some incurable disease….In position, we watched the Iban war party approach the makeshift fort.  One of the Fort Guards, Alex appeared, but then he went one way while the war party, who had been hiding, went the other.  Be­fore I was called in to be killed, they gave one of the warriors, Watt, a real Iban sword, and they had him swing down hard on what appeared to be a coconut, as if he were chopping off my head.  Once that segment was completed, they switched out the real sword for one made of plastic.

Watt and wife (real)

When it was my turn to come on, I removed my glasses, which made it difficult to see.  Pre­viously, I wore contacts.  The director told me to ditch my hat, so I tossed it aside.  Mean­while someone marked my position in front of the camera with an upturned leaf that I could not see without my glasses.  All the leaves seemed to blend in together, plus it was dark out­side.  An assistant and the cameraman kept telling me to stop “here” at a particular leaf for a close up shot of my being killed.  Without my glasses I couldn’t quite see which parti­cu­lar leaf they were pointing to.  For a close-up shot, an inch here or there made a huge difference.

“What seems to be the problem?” asked the director, and someone explained that I couldn’t see the leaf without my glasses. 

Finally someone set down a white folder just out of camera range and told me to stop just be­fore the folder.  No problem, I could see that.  The director then asked me to breathe heavily as if I feared for my life.  I was to stop at my spot, pivot, look right and then left….We ran through the se­quence several times.  When I turned to look right, and then left, the Iban warrior would come up from behind me and bring down his sword.

Before the actual filming began, I approached Watt and felt the sword to make sure he did in fact switch them, prompting laughs from everyone watching, about twenty-five people includ­ing the extras and technicians.  I de­finitely didn’t want any unto­ward mis­haps involving my head.

The first run through, Watt clipped my ear with his sword and it stung a little.  He duly apo­lo­gized.

Fendi asked me to fall to the ground the moment I got hit, which I did.  I thought I was pretty convincing.  Maybe too convincing because it suddenly hurt around the ribs; I must’ve landed on my elbow while trying to protect my glasses secured in a pouch inside my shirt, not want­ing to crush it.  We did two or three more takes and the last one, Watt got me pretty good on the side of the head.  It sounded really loud.  There was this startled hush when I collapsed as if I real­ly had been killed.  I stayed down a long time for dramatic effect, thinking perhaps Watt was a little too realistic on that last one, hoping there would be no more takes, not sure how many more blows my head could take.

This is not me, but you get the idea.

When the director called, “Cut!” everyone, no doubt, thought I really did get cut by that sword.  They all heard the im­pact on my head and saw me drop dead, again rather convincing if I don’t say so myself.  Watt kept apolo­giz­ing profusely.  He told me he couldn’t stop the mo­men­tum of his swing in time.  Luckily he was not using a real sword or I would not be writing this.

Several people rushed over to make sure I was in fact okay.  I kept assuring them I was fine.

“See, no blood,” I said.

The blood would come next.  Not mine, but the blood mixture meant for my substitute head.   The director took a closer look at that head.  Although the face did look like me, they got the hair wrong.  I tried to point it out earlier to Johnny before they attached the hair, but he as­sured me that the thick black hair didn’t matter because it would soon be covered with blood.  Still, I thought, it looked way too thick—blood or no blood.

The director didn’t like the way-too-thick black hair either and asked if it could be cut from the head.  Then they decided not to use the head in that scene, since it was pretty ob­vi­ous when Watt got me the last time, he had severed my head.  Not wanting to waste the head and the blood that they were applying, someone suggested it could be used for a scene with a crocodile at a nearby swamp.  So they carried away my former head and covered it with more blood and filmed it by the swamp.

In a later scene, Iban warriors were seen carrying away their heads in makeshift rattan holders.

As for me, as I walked off the set, I carried my own head exactly where it belonged—on top of my shoulders.

          —Borneo Expat Writer
                                                                            #  #  #

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part II 

         Joseph Conrad and Me 

         Somerset Maugham and Me—Part I-V 

See the trailers:  https://borneoexpatwriter.blogspot.com/2018/10/road-to-nationhood-sarawak.html

Road to Nation­hood: Journey to Independence part I(1945-1957)

Road to Nation­hood: Journey to Independence part II (1957-1965)