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Kam
04-13-2009, 09:57 AM
No, I'm not going to start a thread on dancing paperwork (although once Lost is over I might) but wanted to start a thread on the documentaries out there covering all sorts of dance.

the three that i've seen and loved have been:

Mad Hot Ballroom - about a ballroom dance program introduced into the city of New York and follows a few of the Public School teams as they compete in their regions and try and make it to the finals.

Rize - the David LaChapelle documentary about the crumping/clowning phenomenon rising out of los angeles inner city.

Planet B-Boy - a documentary following five teams (2 from korea, 1 from japan, america, and france) that compete in their regions and then win to go on to the Breakdancing world championships.

In each of the documentaries, i was surprised by the intensity of the emotions (especially in Rize) that came out from the dancers and their family and friends. In retrospect, to be that good of a dancer, there has to be emotion that is driving the performance, but to have them articulate it and have it come across so cleanly in the documentary was just beautiful. To hear the kids (in Rize) understand how dancing has saved them from a life in gangs, and literally saved them from jail and probably death as well, was incredible. And then to see the power and beauty of their movements, (which lachapelle states that no shot has been sped up in post, but the movements are all seen at their actual speed, other than the shots that are actually slowed down in post, to see the poetry in motion).

To see the kids from Korea (in Planet B-Boy), facing their mandatory service into the korean army as their last gasp chance for success in a sport (as they say, they can't start up again after their service, at least not at the pro-level, since, like any other athlete, when you take two years off, you lose a LOT of your skills). especially in a sport that is so fluidly dynamic and changing all the time.

If anyone has any other dance related docs they want to add, please do! i'm looking for more to watch, and highly reccomend all three of these!

peace
k2

Worf101
04-19-2009, 06:50 AM
I loved MHB and Rize because they were/are less about dance as they are about class and societal expectations and stereotypes. Great movies that I wish I'd seen on the screen but then again not.. Because some of the extra features on each were priceless. One scene which affected my family and I the most was when in "Rize" they cut between scenes of African men painting their faces to do battle by wrestling and dancers in L.A. painting their faces to do battle by dancing. Amazing stuff... sent chills through me...

Da Worfster