NEW YORK (AP) — Fifty years in the past, “Jaws” unlocked dread in thousands and thousands about man-eating sharks. This summer time, that worry could also be considerably lowered as they turn out to be contestants on a TV dance present.
Former “Dancing With the Stars” host Tom Bergeron steps up for a advertising and marketing masterstroke by Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week” — “Dancing with Sharks,” the place people and 20-foot-long hammerhead sharks do some mambo.
“I had a decade and a half experience of hosting a dance show, but this one was different,” Bergeron tells The Related Press. “I’d often thought on ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ wouldn’t it be great if we could incorporate another species? And here I’ve finally got my dream come true.”
Within the present, 5 scuba-diving shark handlers use bait to twirl and information numerous sharks into mini-waltzes, in what’s being billed as “the world’s most dangerous dance competition.”
One contestant wraps his arms round a nerf shark and spoons it. One other takes off her air tank and does a double backflip. A 3rd — a hip-hop loving shark handler — does an old-fashioned head spin on the ocean ground as sharks swirl.
“These are some of the best shark handlers in the world. These are people who know the nuances of sharks, know how they move, know how to behave, know how to safely move with them, and they’re guiding these sharks along as you would a partner,” says Kinga Philipps, a TV correspondent and one of many three judges. “It is so fluid and beautiful, all they really had to do is put a little bit of music to it and they’re actually dancing.”
It’s a shark-a-thon
“Dancing with Sharks” kicks off the week of programing, which incorporates reveals on methods to survive a shark assault, why New Smyrna Seaside in Florida has earned the title of “The Shark Attack Capital of the World” and whether or not a mysterious dark-skinned shark off the coast of California is a mako, mutant or presumably a mako-and-great white hybrid.
The seven nights of recent reveals — and a associated podcast — ends off the Mozambique coast with a once-a-year feeding frenzy that turns right into a showdown between the sharks and their huge prey, the enormous trevally.
One spotlight is Paul de Gelder’s “How to Survive a Shark Attack,” which he has intimate data about. He misplaced his proper hand and leg in 2009 throughout an assault by a bull shark in Sydney Harbor.
“If you’re in the jaws of a shark, you want to fight for all of your life. You want to go for the soft parts. You want go for the eyeball. You want to go for the gills,” he says. “But if you’re not being attacked by a shark and you’re just encountering a shark, then you just want to remain calm.”
De Gelder debunks one fable: Punching a charging shark will cease its assault. “If you really want to hurt your own hand, go ahead,” he says. A greater strategy is to not thrash about and gently redirect the animal. “The secret I got taught many years ago was don’t act like food and they won’t treat you like food.”
“Shark Week” has turn out to be a key a part of the summer time vacation TV schedule, a spot the place people secure on land can see historic apex predators unnervingly glide into view and snap open their jaws.
This 12 months’s highlights additionally embody the hunt for a 20-foot nice white that may leap into the air — “Air Jaws: The Hunt for Colossus” — and a present about female and male nice whites competing in a sequence of challenges to find out which intercourse is the superior predator, naturally known as “Great White Sex Battle.”
Joseph Schneier, senior vice chairman of manufacturing and growth at Discovery, says the reveals are born from listening to what the diving and science group is seeing, like professional divers shifting artistically with the sharks as they fed them, resulting in “Dancing With Sharks.”
“We realized, well, there’s something here that we can go further with,” he says. “We’re lucky that sharks continue to surprise us. Which helps us get kind of new stories and new things to focus on. That’s been the mantra for us — the sharks are the stars, not the humans.”
As at all times, there’s a deep respect for the creatures and powerful science beneath the amusing titles, sharky puns, dramatic music and racy titles like “Frankenshark” and “Alien Sharks: Death Down Under.”
“It’s like putting your vegetables in a dessert,” says Bergeron. “You get all the allure of a ‘Dancing With Sharks’ or other specific shows, but in the midst of that you do learn a lot about sharks and ecology and the importance of sharks in the ecosystem. It’s all in your strawberry sundae.”
Discovery’s “Shark Week” has a rival — Nationwide Geographic’s “SharkFest,” which additionally has hours of sharky content material. There’s additionally the unconnected shark horror comedy “Hot Spring Shark Attack” and a film earlier this summer time that added a serial killer to a shark film — “Dangerous Animals.”
Born from ‘Jaws’
“Shark Week” was born as a counterpoint for individuals who developed a worry of sharks after seeing “Jaws.” It has emerged as a vacation spot for scientists keen to guard an animal older than timber.
“’Jaws’ helped introduce this country and this world to a predator we’re all fascinated with,” says Schneier. “But we also feel ‘Jaws’ went too far. These are not creatures that are out to hurt humans by any means, but they have had 50-plus million years of evolution to get to this place where they are just excellent predators. It’s fun to celebrate just how good they are at their job.”
Kendyl Berna, who co-founded the ecology group Past the Reef, and is a veteran on “Shark Week,” says learning the traditional beasts can educate people about modifications to the planet.
“So much of the programming this year speaks to what’s happening with the rest of the world — climate change and how much that affects where sharks are and when they’re there and what they’re eating,” she says. “As a keystone apex predator, sharks do set the tone for what’s happening.”
Bergeron says being part of “Shark Week” for the primary time and assembly among the divers who work together with sharks has really made him braver.
“I don’t think I’m at a point where I could go down there with them and have the sharks swirling around me without a cage. But with a cage, I think I am ready to do that,” he says. “Just don’t tell my wife.”
