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Dateline: Aug 9

Dateline meets New Zealand's elderly hip hop troupe, Hip Op-eration, plus a report on Filipino call centre workers.

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This week on Dateline, meet New Zealand’s elderly hip hop troupe, Hip Op-eration, plus a report on Filipino call centre workers.

They’re called Hip Op-eration. The group’s average age is 79, and they’re New Zealand’s most unlikely celebrities.

However, this sprightly hip hop crew is not without some medical impairments. Between them there’s an artificial hip, a triple bypass, a stroke, open heart surgery and new knee – while one member is also legally blind and another is completely deaf.

On Tuesday’s Dateline, Amos Roberts travels to a retirement home in Waiheke, New Zealand, where he meets the enthusiastic, elderly dance crew and their choreographer, Billie Jordan.

Billie claims that she started the hip hop group several years ago when she realised that “everyone else in their lives had little or no expectations of them.” That’s when she decided to be the first person in their life since retirement that was going to have high expectations of them.

However, with an aging crew, Billie says she can’t always rely on having the same dancers all the time.

“We get quite a few requests that they want to do a booking about six months in advance, and we can’t do that because all of the whole crew could be dead!”

So what would happen if a crew member passed away while on stage? “If you fall over and die you die, don’t you? So we have a pact in the group that if anyone dies dancing you step over them and carry on dancing. I’ll drag the carcass off the stage if it’s in the way and we’ll deal with it later”, says Billie.

Amos also meets one of the oldest members of the crew, Kara Nelson – at 96, she’s got chronic arthritis, but it hasn’t stopped her doing what she loves. Initially against the idea, Kara is now one of the stars of the group.

Kara tells Amos, “Well, when I joined hip hop I was only 92.”

In 2013, the senior citizens Waiheke made it all the way to World Hip Hop championship in Las Vegas – and the journey was so extraordinary, it was turned into a movie. The group is now pinning their hopes on television talent scouts taking notice.

Also on Tuesday, Dateline reports on the secret lives of Filipino call centre workers. Who is on the receiving end of your calls? It’s a world of round the clock work where racism and abuse is common- but there are also rewards for those who are part of what is regarded by many as a Philippines success story.

Tuesday 9 August at 9.30pm on SBS.

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