I want to wish you all a Happy New Year by catching up with the dance movies of 2010. First up, Step Up 3D is an entertaining hip hop flick with dazzling choreography while lacking a heart in the story and characters department. The story follows a young NYU freshman meeting up with the handsome leader of a street crew after an unexpected and cheeky battle in Washington Square Park. The handsome leader so happens to own a large building which is a club and also houses random ragtag dancers who've come to New York from around the world. In order to save his property, the handsome dancer enlists the freshman to be part of the crew for a battle of their life with eye-popping numbers.
To be honest, none of the story and characters bear much reality to the contemporary global dance community or the historical roots of hip hop. Step Up 3D is more of a Hollywood hip hop fairy tale.
After Step Up 3D, I became curious and wanted to check out the unreleased UK counterpart Street Dance that generated some buzz and business abroad. When I received my DVD from Amazon.co.uk, I tore the wrapper open and popped it into my DVD player at once.
I have to say that Street Dance is a step down from Step Up 3D. I was introduced to the various characters of the crew in freeze frames in the first ten minutes but I barely knew anything about them at the end. The main character Isabella has to deal with her leader boyfriend leaving her and her crew to join a better crew. Isabella then becomes the leader and must battle her ex-boyfriend's crew in the grand finale. The embarrasingly trite twist of Street Dance is having Isabella teach a few snobby ballet students to "street dance" and battle as part of her crew in exchange for using the ballet studio to rehearse. Well, guess what their final battle piece is about—a fusion of ballet and hip hop. How much more cheesy could that be?
The fact is that professional dancers now train for all genres of dance from ballet to Jazz to hip hop. And hip hop draws from all genres of dance and sports from basketball to martial arts. That's what makes hip hop the now and future of dance.
By far, the year's best dance movie is The Black Swan which is entirely wrapped in the psychological framework and exploration of a dancer who must deal with issues of competition, family, passion and technique in preparing for the performance of her life. It also deals with the fear of failure that all artists face so dearly. What makes The Black Swan powerful is its rigorous and realistic portrayal of a dancer's psychology that is obviously lacking in both Step Up 3 and Street Dance.
I look forward to a hip hop dance movie that's both real and fun. For now, let's dance tonight away!
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