10 Great Dance Movies

(originally published at the now-defunct www.poweredbymovies.com)

I have been quoted as saying, in previous writings, that “there is nothing more exciting, energetic and erotic than a great dance sequence. They get you pumped and feeling alive. They get you to move to the rhythm of life, which is indeed a powerful beat. And if done right, they get you the girl, figuratively speaking (or literally, depending on your circumstances and skills).”


In the spirit of tonight’s first competition week of FOX’s “So You Think You Can Dance,” I give you an assortment of 10 great films (in chronological order) either about dance or heavily featuring the art form.


Film: 42nd Street (1933)
Director: Lloyd Bacon

The mother of all backstage musicals was the first film since the introduction of sound in American films four years earlier to truly show how a movie musical could improve upon one in a live theatre. With dance sequences staged by the master choreographer Busby Berkeley, it paved the way for glorious, overdone and uncompromisingly optimistic rags-to-riches stories for years to come. Look for a pre-Astaire Ginger Rogers as a feisty chorus girl.

Film: Shall We Dance (1937)
Director: Mark Sandrich
The seventh and greatest teaming of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers doesn’t have the cultural impact of “Top Hat,” but it is certainly the freshest movie e’er they shared. He, a famous ballet dancer, falls in love with she, a chanteuse, and while their romance builds slowly, the gossip-hungry world of the socialites fabricate a rumor that the couple are secretly married. Watch not only for Astaire’s “Slap That Bass” number, where he glides around a trans-Atlantic ship’s engine room egged on by the largely African-American crew, but for the show-stopping roller skate number set to “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.”

Film: An American in Paris (1951)
Director: Vincente Minnelli

While technically only a musical and mostly unconcerned with dance as a plot point, this Oscar winner for Best Picture nevertheless boasts a climactic 17-minute dance sequence with star Gene Kelly and the grand ensemble, retelling the entire story up to that point in a feverish, frenzied fashion. The sequence cost over half a million (a pretty penny in 1951) and took an entire month to film. While the “Broadway Melody” section of Kelly’s follow-up film “Singin’ in the Rain” is equally as dazzling, it has little to do with the story itself, hence this inclusion of this film over one more beloved.

Film: Invitation to the Dance (1957)
Director: Gene Kelly


This oft-forgotten masterpiece, about three unrelated stories told entirely through dance and pantomime, was shelved for five years after poor test screening. It’s a pity, because it holds one of the greatest dance sequences in American film history, in which Kelly plays a lovelorn French clown unable to attain his true love. The third part, wherein Kelly interacts with Hanna/Barbera cartoons in a retelling of “Sinbad the Sailor,” is way too silly for its own good, but if you can be like me and find this rare gem on VHS (it is unavailable on DVD) grab a hold of it immediately.

Film: Fame (1980)
Director: Alan Parker

I am unfamiliar with the revered television show, but this Alan Parker film (one of the great modern musical directors who deserves a place among the pantheon of the likes of Stanley Donen, Bob Fosse and Minnelli himself) is an explosion of youthful energy. At a New York high school for the performing arts, angst-ridden teenagers bounce off each other both emotionally and literally, hitting a fever pitch in the title track from Irene Cara. If only all high schools were this expressive.

Film: Xanadu (1980)
Director: Robert Greenwald

Say what you want, but I’m including it. Okay, fine, admittedly it’s a pretty terrible movie on the surface, but the infectious spirit of Olivia Newton-John as a muse sent to Earth in order to inspire Michael Beck to open a roller disco, you could do a lot worse.



Film: Footloose (1984)
Director: Herbert Ross

No list of this sort would be complete without this satire of Middle American values about a town that has banned dancing. Kevin Bacon breaks out and becomes a star in one rollicking central number, and movie trivia games were never the same.

Film: A Chorus Line (1985)
Director: Richard Attenborough

Though widely panned for not being even remotely as good as the seminal stage version (what can be?), this is still in my opinion a heartbreaking ode to the trials and tribulations of being merely part of a Broadway chorus. The film elected to take away the mid-show montage in favor of the terrible (and Oscar-nominated) song “Surprise, Surprise,” but the dancing is still spectacular and Mark’s monologue still hurts me deep within.

Film: Strictly Ballroom (1992)
Director: Baz Luhrmann

Before he was giving epileptic audience members seizures in the madcap musical “Moulin Rouge!”, Luhrmann told a small, sweet story about a competitive ballroom champion and the ugly duckling who loved him. Without too much of the hyperactive camerawork and editing style brought to his later films, he captured the true spirit and energy of perfect dancing I mentioned in the introduction. This is the film where mainstream audiences learned about how the Paso Doble is considered one of the hardest dances to master, information helpful to those who watch “So You Think You Can Dance” religiously.

Film: Center Stage (2000)
Director: Nicholas Hynter

The guiltiest pleasure of them all, I can tell you without embarrassment that my sister has watched this film at least 25 times. Following a year in the life of New York’s American Ballet Academy” through relationship troubles and professional complications, it’s one of the more accurate portrayals of how difficult the world of professional dance can be. (Robert Altman’s 2003 film “The Company” is, of course, far more accurate, but is needlessly solemn and wooden much of the time.) The final sequence, choreographed by Susan Stroman, is something to behold, as the world of ballet gets flipped on its head and brings in Michael Jackson and Jamiroquai songs.

What I Did For Nigel Lythgoe: Five Reasons Why "So You Think You Can Dance" is a Better Show than "American Idol"

Tomorrow night marks the premiere of the third season of Fox's runaway summer hit dance show "So You Think You Can Dance," an electric set of 22 episodes that, in a way, pulls you directly into the world that is Media Whore. I've made no secret of my love of musicals, and the show my circle dubs as "Dancey Dance" (or what Stevi calls "So You Think You Wear Pants") fits right into that equation.

I give you five reasons, among many, why "Dancey Dance" is a better show than "American Idol." This is assuming that the show stuck with the voting process of the second season, a vast improvement over the first season. True, in the past I've always mentioned that "American Idol" is a great show in the way that it truly affects our future as a pop culture nation and really rallies for a voting public, and those are ways that makes "AI" better than "Dancey Dance," but for the purposes of this article, it should be noted that each show is better than the other in different ways. I know, I'm crazy.

1. "Dancey Dance," after an audition process similar to "AI"--except Hollywood week becomes Vegas week--the dancers are whittled down into a final 20 to perform and compete at a soundstage at CBS Television City right around the corner from the "AI" stage. These 20 (10 male, 10 female) are then paired together by the judges after weighing their strengths and weaknesses. Catch is, you are stuck with your partner for the first five weeks. This means it is a constant struggle in the show to not only improve week-after-week upon yourself, but to also lift your partner along with you. Sometimes the pairing can be incredibly bizarre, and often times one contestant will have to carry a contestant into the next round with all the vigor they can muster up. This makes for a remarkable challenge, both for the contestant and for the viewer, as a talented individual who, say, doesn't work well with others, can find themselves going home.

Other times, it works out in a magnificent way. Contestants will start to grab bits and pieces of energy from their partners they never had before, making them better contestants. A bond forms. (And sometimes maybe a little romance, as I thought when it came to the pairing of Natalie and Mousa.) A perfect example would be the pairing of Allison, a trained jazz dancer from Utah who has a small appearance in "High School Musical," and Ivan, an Eastern Russian immigrant who was known more as a street dancer and "pop-and-lock'er." Judges gave Ivan a lot of crap early on, as he was struggling with the very difficult material that was way out of his league and seemed to be a leech on Allison's talent. After several weeks later, however, Ivan began to pick up this wonderful contemporary vibe from Allison he sorely lacked, and she finally got some flavor into her vanilla moves. The below YouTube clip signifies their best performance. (Keep in mind, all linked videos save for one were dances that made it to the "Dancey Dance" tour, which I caught in Oakland with my mom and sister.) *choreographed by Tyce Dioro*



2. In the voting process introduced in the second season, the show differed greatly in its first half than the second half of the program's run. During the aforementioned rock-solid couplings, viewers voted for their favorite pairs. The bottom three pairs would then perform solo numbers, apart from each other, on the results show. However, the lowest scores didn't necessarily go home, as the home viewers never found out what that was. Instead, the judges would send home the couple they deemed necessary. That's right, the judges. This means that for every show between the top 20 and the top 10, there would be little chance of someone less talented eking by for weeks, or pretty much what happens every year on "AI." If they suffered, they suffered the consequences.

Better yet, the judges truly weighed that contestant's/couple's entire run of the show, going from auditions to now, so unlike "AI" a bad performance would perhaps not entirely destroy their chances of moving on in the competition. This is a breath of fresh air for those who mourn the loss of many an "AI" contestant who just had a bad week. Only one villain really existed in the second half of "Dancey Dance's" second season, Dmitriy, but he was still a very talented individual.

During the Top 10, the couples disintegrate and are randomly chosen, and the voting process turns to the viewers to eliminate individual dancers (one male, one female) each week, and at that point in the competition everyone should be at around the same level.

3. In "AI," producers and vocal coaches are indeed there to suggest songs to the contestants, but the final decision still belongs to the singer. Not so in "Dancey Dance." The judges themselves are the choreographers (save for Nigel, executive producer of both "Dancey Dance" and "AI," who is still a trained dancer), so they know what the hell they're talking about. While each has a wildly different sense of style--compare Mia Michaels' bizarre but beautiful contemporary repertoire to Mary Murphy's rigid ballroom protocals, or Dan Karaty's safe hip-pop boy band music video moves to Shane Sparks' wild and balls-out freedom that informed his choreography in "You Got Served"--they all respect each other's fields, and know how to discuss such things in detail.

4. Since the judges do the choreography (when they choreograph, they are not allowed to judge that week, but return in later weeks), they are given free reign to push the dancers to the limit. There is no pussyfooting around, and if you can't do the Cuban rumba that Alex da Silva is teaching you, you'd better believe you're going to look like a fool out there on the dance floor. This forces a contestant to not only break out of their comfort zone--true, that happens in "AI" sometimes, but even in country week singers find a way to bring it back to their strengths--but to put up or shut up. There is no lying back while your fans rally around you, because if you don't make that lift look spectacular, you're exposed. This makes for a constant flow of energy and pizzaz every single episode, and it's infectious. Admire what Ms. Michaels does to the top 10 dancers in this clip, having them find their inner spirits, make them trust that they don't look like clowns even with some borderline foolish-looking moves, and get them to connect their story to the audience.



5. I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is nothing more exciting, energetic and erotic than a great dance sequence. They get you pumped and feeling alive. They get you to move to the rhythm of life, which is indeed a powerful beat. And if done right, they get you the girl, figuratively speaking (or literally, depending on your circumstances and skills). "Dancey Dance" understands this, and isn't just a sort of reality television regurgitation for the masses. (Yes, I hate "Dancing with the Stars" with a passion.) It hits you on an emotional level on almost every occasion, something "AI" can only boast with a handful of contestants. Let's look at runner-up Travis' contemporary dance with third-place Heidi, using a song featured in one of the greatest modern movies most people have never seen, "Baghdad Cafe." *choreographed by Mia Michaels*



I've said so much about how great the show is without even mentioning the great first season the show had, or even the winner of season two, the supremely talented Benji. It's so good, I don't even have to. But I leave you with the final and unofficial sixth reason why "Dancey Dance" is better than "AI"--"AI" doesn't have zombies. *choreographed by Wade Robinson*