Mad Hot Ballroom
Dec. 30th, 2006 12:28 amToday I watched the movie "Mad Hot Ballroom." It's a documentary about fifth graders who take a ten-week ballroom dance class at school and then compete with kids doing the same thing at other schools.
They learned five dances (want to guess?): merengue, foxtrot, tango, rumba, and club swing. The first thing that surprised me is that they learned a routine for each dance. Not only did everyone in the same school learn the same routine, but everyone in all the schools learned the same routine. It reminds me of when I was learning each letter of cursive alphabet without learning that the whole point is to connect the letters. I'm not sure these guys could do social ballroom dancing after the ten weeks.
Another thing that struck me is that virtually no one had ballroom dance shoes (I noticed only one person). At one of the schools, 97% of the kids were from families that were below the poverty level, so it makes sense. When they went to competition and dressed up, they had fancy shoes they'd perhaps never danced in before, which made me sad. But then I realized that the routines had no spinning. There weren't a lot of turns, and they were all either very gradual turns or otherwise possible to do in very sticky shoes. And since everyone was doing the same routine, the richer kids couldn't get an advantage by doing moves that are much easier with dance shoes. Awesome.
Another thing that struck me is that the kids were taught to look each other in the eye and smile while dancing. My instructor taught us to look over each other's shoulders; he says both ways are correct, but using his way you're less likely to line up your feet directly across from the other person's and thus less like to step on each other's feet.
I am very happy to not look at my partner, especially when I'm dancing with someone new or someone I suspect of sliminess. It would have been even worse in the fifth grade. But then one of the dancers said that having to look at her partner like that made her actually like him better. I'm thinking that after pretending you like the other person and acting like you're having fun, it starts to feel real.
At this age they still mostly hung with their own gender, though, even by the end of the movie. The competing couples would break up and run smiling to their same-gender friends for hugs.
I saw some moves I don't know, partly because I don't do much merengue and do virtually no club swing. But also there was an interesting tango move I've never learned.
The competition was kind of sad because dancing shouldn't be about winning. On the other hand, the possibility of winning seemed to inspire the kids more than just a straight dance class would have.
My main problem with what happened was the way the losers were treated. The thing with a competition is that by the end of it, most people are losers of some kind. The different teachers should have had some strategies in place. The best said they were proud of their kids and that their kids had done a good job, but they were crying at the same time. They themselves were just hoping their kids would win as much as their kids did.
Some of the kids said that just making the cut to be able to compete was an honor, and some kids said that they still had fun. But another big response was that the other people won because they were being judged on some things that they weren't doing. Also, some of the scores were very close. Most of the kids the filmmakers focussed on couldn't even understand how they could have lost. Because they did everything right. They did everything the way they were told. Only one person admitted that he could have done better or tried harder. No one seemed to notice that the winners were actually better at dancing the routines.
Overall, as with many documentaries, you're more likely to like it if you like documentaries and if you are curious about the subject matter, in this case ballroom dance and fifth-graders. Some documentaries are so good that you will get sucked in even if you think you have no interest in the subject matter. I don't think this is one of those. But then fifth-graders are pretty interesting.
They learned five dances (want to guess?): merengue, foxtrot, tango, rumba, and club swing. The first thing that surprised me is that they learned a routine for each dance. Not only did everyone in the same school learn the same routine, but everyone in all the schools learned the same routine. It reminds me of when I was learning each letter of cursive alphabet without learning that the whole point is to connect the letters. I'm not sure these guys could do social ballroom dancing after the ten weeks.
Another thing that struck me is that virtually no one had ballroom dance shoes (I noticed only one person). At one of the schools, 97% of the kids were from families that were below the poverty level, so it makes sense. When they went to competition and dressed up, they had fancy shoes they'd perhaps never danced in before, which made me sad. But then I realized that the routines had no spinning. There weren't a lot of turns, and they were all either very gradual turns or otherwise possible to do in very sticky shoes. And since everyone was doing the same routine, the richer kids couldn't get an advantage by doing moves that are much easier with dance shoes. Awesome.
Another thing that struck me is that the kids were taught to look each other in the eye and smile while dancing. My instructor taught us to look over each other's shoulders; he says both ways are correct, but using his way you're less likely to line up your feet directly across from the other person's and thus less like to step on each other's feet.
I am very happy to not look at my partner, especially when I'm dancing with someone new or someone I suspect of sliminess. It would have been even worse in the fifth grade. But then one of the dancers said that having to look at her partner like that made her actually like him better. I'm thinking that after pretending you like the other person and acting like you're having fun, it starts to feel real.
At this age they still mostly hung with their own gender, though, even by the end of the movie. The competing couples would break up and run smiling to their same-gender friends for hugs.
I saw some moves I don't know, partly because I don't do much merengue and do virtually no club swing. But also there was an interesting tango move I've never learned.
The competition was kind of sad because dancing shouldn't be about winning. On the other hand, the possibility of winning seemed to inspire the kids more than just a straight dance class would have.
My main problem with what happened was the way the losers were treated. The thing with a competition is that by the end of it, most people are losers of some kind. The different teachers should have had some strategies in place. The best said they were proud of their kids and that their kids had done a good job, but they were crying at the same time. They themselves were just hoping their kids would win as much as their kids did.
Some of the kids said that just making the cut to be able to compete was an honor, and some kids said that they still had fun. But another big response was that the other people won because they were being judged on some things that they weren't doing. Also, some of the scores were very close. Most of the kids the filmmakers focussed on couldn't even understand how they could have lost. Because they did everything right. They did everything the way they were told. Only one person admitted that he could have done better or tried harder. No one seemed to notice that the winners were actually better at dancing the routines.
Overall, as with many documentaries, you're more likely to like it if you like documentaries and if you are curious about the subject matter, in this case ballroom dance and fifth-graders. Some documentaries are so good that you will get sucked in even if you think you have no interest in the subject matter. I don't think this is one of those. But then fifth-graders are pretty interesting.