By MARK KENNEDY
NEW YORK (AP) — Fifty years ago, “Jaws” unlocked dread in millions about man-eating sharks. This summer, that fear may be somewhat reduced as they become contestants on a TV dance show.
Former “Dancing With the Stars” host Tom Bergeron steps up for a marketing masterstroke by Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week” — “Dancing with Sharks,” where humans and 20-foot-long hammerhead sharks do a little mambo.
“I had a decade and a half experience of hosting a dance show, but this one was different,” Bergeron tells The Associated 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.”
In the show, five scuba-diving shark handlers use bait to twirl and guide various sharks into mini-waltzes, in what’s being billed as “the world’s most dangerous dance competition.”
One contestant wraps his arms around a nerf shark and spoons it. Another takes off her air tank and does a double backflip. A third — a hip-hop loving shark handler — does an old school head spin on the ocean floor 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 the 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 includes shows on how to survive a shark attack, why New Smyrna Beach in Florida has earned the title of “The Shark Attack Capital of the World” and whether a mysterious dark-skinned shark off the coast of California is a mako, mutant or possibly a mako-and-great white hybrid.
The seven nights of new shows — and a related podcast — ends off the Mozambique coast with a once-a-year feeding frenzy that turns into a showdown between the sharks and their massive prey, the giant trevally.
One highlight is Paul de Gelder’s “How to Survive a Shark Attack,” which he has intimate knowledge about. He lost his right hand and leg in 2009 during an attack 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 myth: Punching a charging shark will stop its attack. “If you really want to hurt your own hand, go ahead,” he says. A better approach 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 become a key part of the summer holiday TV schedule, a place where humans safe on land can see ancient apex predators unnervingly glide into view and snap open their jaws.
This year’s highlights also include the hunt for a 20-foot great white that can leap into the air — “Air Jaws: The Hunt for Colossus” — and a show about male and female great whites competing in a series of challenges to determine which sex is the superior predator, naturally called “Great White Sex Battle.”
Joseph Schneier, senior vice president of production and development at Discovery, says the shows are born from listening to what the diving and science community is seeing, like pro divers moving artistically with the sharks as they fed them, leading to “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 always, there is a deep respect for the creatures and strong 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 — National Geographic’s “SharkFest,” which also has hours of sharky content. There’s also the unconnected shark horror comedy “Hot Spring Shark Attack” and a movie earlier this summer that added a serial killer to a shark movie — “Dangerous Animals.”
Born from ‘Jaws’
“Shark Week” was born as a counterpoint for those who developed a fear of sharks after seeing “Jaws.” It has emerged as a destination for scientists eager to protect an animal older than trees.
“’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 Beyond the Reef, and is a veteran on “Shark Week,” says studying the ancient beasts can teach humans about changes 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 a part of “Shark Week” for the first time and meeting some of the divers who interact with sharks has actually 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.”