Movie Review: "Mad Hot Ballroom"
Category: Movies...
Posted Monday, December 05, 2005 at 07:37 AM [GMT-6]

Mad Hot Ballroom is a documentary released earlier this year. If it had a theatrical release, I missed it, but it's now available on DVD and we rented it from NetFlix last week...and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The movie follows several groups of public elementary school students -- 5th graders, I think -- in New York City as the kids prepare for the annual citywide ballroom dance competition. The groups are ethnically diverse, although many are first-generation Americans and most are what we euphemistically refer to as "underprivileged." The documentary is fast-paced, taking us from beginning dance lessons to the final competition in about 90 minutes, but some of the kids make an indelible impression on the viewer with the way they combine dedication and skill with the fun (and anxiety) of being 10 or 11 years old in a wonderfully strange world.

The dance teachers are just as impressive, simultaneously hardnosed and tender-hearted. There's something special about watching teachers becoming tearful as they share their hopes and dreams for their students, and rejoice in their victories and empathize with their defeats. The male teachers are true father or older-brother figures to boys who don't have fathers at home, and they take those responsibilities very seriously.

The movie is about much more than kids learning to dance -- although it's most entertaining when it focuses on that action. As beginning ballroom dancers, MLB and I were, by turns, humbled and encouraged by watching the children master the basics of the same dances we're still trying to learn. But the real lessons for the students fall into such lofty categories as discipline, tolerance, self-esteem, good manners and respect for others. Come to think of it, I suspect that we all could benefit from a refresher course in those areas.

Mad Hot Ballroom is truly a movie the whole family can enjoy together, especially if you have kids who show any interest in the fields of music or dance. Nickelodeon is one of the production companies involved in the distribution of the film, if that's meaningful to you.