Pop and Lock and Jam and Break

When you think of dance in film, what do you see? The ‘Dirty Dancing’ lift? Hoedown Throwdown from ‘Hannah Montana: The Movie’? Or maybe nothing really comes to mind anymore. I am an avid fan of the dance movie, so when it came to this month’s topic of genres that should return, I have decided to make this blog a serious, heartfelt plea for their return.

Movie musicals of the early 20th century had amazing singing AND dancing. Even though we’re going to focus on strictly dance movies, I would be remiss if I didn’t quickly mention the musical choreographers that made dance a centrepiece. 

1. Busby Berkeley and almost everything he did from 1930 – 1962. His use of moving cameras, showgirls and kaleidoscopic overhead shots of dancers solidified his legacy of a groundbreaking choreographer and filmmaker in the industry.
2. Gene Kelly was an actor, singer and choreographer who created amazing, athletic dance numbers, putting a 17 minute dance sequence at the end of ‘An American in Paris’ (1951) for example.
3. Jerome Robbins choreographed the movie musical, ’West Side Story’ (1961), giving us iconic sequences and a fusion of classical and contemporary dance styles. 
4. Bob Fosse introduced a unique, theatrical yet sleek form of dance in ‘Cabaret’ (1972) and ‘All That Jazz’ (1979) to name a few.

Development of Dancing Fever

Now that that’s out of my system, we can move on to dance films specifically, and the first film that honed in on dance was  ‘The Red Shoes’ (1948). It focused on a woman choosing between her love or her ballet career. It was the first of its kind to truly show that dancing wasn’t just used for dancing sake, but as a narrative device to show psychological struggle. Gene Kelly did something similar in ‘Invitation to the Dance’ (1956) that only consisted of dance and mime. But, apart from the odd ballet opera, there was a bit of a lull in the dance movie after this, and the themes to this film were quite dark, making it unique to the other ones that we will explore.

As we enter the 1970s, there was a rise in teen and music culture and how life’s problems could be escaped through dance, which inspired ‘Saturday Night Fever’ (1977). John Travolta gyrating in skinny trousers – the epidemic began. Because the Bee Gees did the soundtrack for it, consisting of killer songs like “Stayin’ Alive”, “How Deep Is Your Love” and “More Than a Woman”, film studios started collaborating with record labels. The movie inspired other dance films that came out and focused on gritty youth rebellion, dance as self expression, romance and a signature soundtrack. We had ’Footloose’ (1984) and the song “Footloose”, ‘Flashdance’ (1983) with the songs “Maniac” and “Flashdance…What a Feeling” and ‘Dirty Dancing’ (1987) with “I’ve Had The Time of My Life”. Many movies followed this and each one explored different dance styles to show how dancing could fight against social norms and form romance.

I Might Be a Busboy, but You just Got Served

Dancing was also key is fighting against stereotypes and prejudice against the dance styles themselves. Before, movies like ‘Center Stage’ (2000) about ballet would be a completely different world to breakdancing films like ‘Breakin’ or ‘Beat Street’ (both 1984). But suddenly, we are seeing the struggles of balancing class, race and gender across all styles, like a working class boy doing ballet in ‘Billy Elliot’ (2000), a white girl doing hip-hop in ‘Save the Last Dance’ (2001) or a girl wanting to be a hip-hop choreographer instead of teaching ballet in ‘Honey’ (2003). But no franchise did this better than ‘Step Up’.

Just for the record, the order of the best ‘Step Up’ movies from best to worst are as follows: 3,2,1,5,4. Thank you.

‘Step Up’ rocked my world a little bit. I was mesmerised by the dancing and the music. Hoodlums expressing themselves through dance? Stunning. I definitely tried to replicate some moves in my living room. I also fell victim to ‘StreetDance’, ‘Stomp The Yard’ and ‘You Got Served’ and I started krumping at my year 6 end of year disco. I really thought I was hitting it as well.

Unfortunately, we don’t see dance films as much. ‘Footloose’ did a reboot in 2011 but it didn’t do well. Some suggest that the dance film era is gone because young people don’t go out dancing anymore. I agree in part, but I think it’s also the dance exposure that we have now. Dancing is less about freedom and love and more about the monetisation from it. Think ‘Dance Moms’ and all of the dance competition shows; we see the world of dance in a new way and it has sucked a lot of the romance and mystique out of it. Also, through social media, we are more accustomed to great choreography on a regular basis, so it’s hard for dance movies to really shine.

But I say bring them back! The balance just has to be right to fit today’s culture. I understand that  dance movies are a bit cringey. I tried to watch the big final dance in ‘Save The Last Dance’ for blog research and in all honesty, I couldn’t press play. But dance movies encourage freedom and a lack of inhibitions that we need to be reminded of. In the original ‘Footloose’, they banned dancing and rock music so Kevin Bacon literally danced the oppression away. Where is that vim today?!

And to people who say that dance movies are formulaic, so are most movie franchises, and yet, they continue.

We live in a world where the ‘Step Up’ series stopped at 6 but the 11th ‘Fast and Furious’ movie is in production. 

What have we done?

Let’s Circle Back

If dance movies were released, would they sell well? Are people still interested?

I am still interested. 

I don’t care about anybody else.

The problem now is practical. Who would star in it – a TikTok star? Never. It has to be a fresh face. And I am sure that there’s a way to reduce the cringe a bit. In fact, even if the same story is recycled, let me see the underdog from the hood beat the odds on the big stage !! Who is the Lin-Manuel Miranda of dance movies? Whoever you are, arise, the time is now. We need a dance revolution.