Ballroom with a difference: Freedman's "Hot to Trot"

Ernesto Palma and Nikolai Shpakov,
ballroom competition dancers,
appear in Gail Freedman's Hot to Trot.
(photo: Curt Worden)

Emily Coles and Kieren Jameson
(photo: Robert Cortlandt)

The international ballroom dance competition scene was largely unfamiliar to me when I sat down to watch Gail Freedman's documentary Hot to Trot. If you asked what I thought of same-sex competitive ballroom dancing, I would have cheered because hooray, I'm a lesbian! There was no way to anticipate that, by the end of nearly 90 minutes, I'd find tears pooling in my eyes and realize I cared deeply about the people Freedman had so gently, carefully introduced to me. A lesson in a niche of a niche of the dance world offers a space to think about what it means to be human.

The film follows the twists, turns, dips and changing partnerships in the lives of same-sex ballroom dancers--like the charismatic, creatively ambitious Ernesto Palma, raised in poverty in Costa Rica, a former meth addict for whom dancing is emotional self-care; the Russian Nikolais Shpakov who blossoms as a performer as he grows more confident in his gay identity; and Emily Coles, battling diabetes as she strives to create beauty. "It's Fred and Fred and Ginger and Ginger," quips a judge at California's annual April Follies competition. But it's more than that: It's people you might know. The personal is political, as we used to say, and the intimacy--enhanced by Freedman's team of cinematographers and her editor--makes for compelling viewing.

Cinematography: Joel Shapiro, Diana Wilmar, John Cummings, Vanessa Carr
Editing: Dina Potocki

Opens Friday, August 24 at Quad Cinema (New York) and Friday, September 14 at Laemmle Music Hall Theater (Los Angeles)

Quad Cinema
34 West 13th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Augie Rodriguez, 86

Augie Rodriguez, 86, Half of a Mambo Team, Dies
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, July 26, 2014

Senior ballroom dancers star in new indie documentary

Ballroom Confidential
(2014, USA; 85 minutes)
directed by Brian Lilla and produced by JoAnn Lilla

reviewed by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

Filmmaker Brian Lilla's mother, JoAnn Lilla, a real estate agent, took up ballroom dancing after losing her husband of 45 years. The vibrant changes he saw in her moved him to make a documentary about other Florida seniors, many of them widows, discovering new life and direction through taking ballroom dance classes with instructor Caleb Young.

Young--once a singer-songwriter and drag performer in New York--returned home to Florida after 9/11 and the breakup of a relationship. On the urging of his mother, he became a ballroom instructor, later opening the Absolutely Ballroom studio, a quick success. Lilla's Ballroom Confidential introduces us to the caring, sensitive Young, his choreographer Joe Mounts and several of their resourceful students, aged 60s through 90s, as they prepare for the annual studio show.

Some came with at least a little background in dancing; others, none. One shows off her closet-load of fancy dresses and accessories expressly for ballroom. But all seem transformed by the grace and glamour of the dance and the way Young and Mounts appeal to their innate sense of theater and role-playing. Ballroom even manages to win over Young's motorcycle-riding dad who overcomes his initial discomfort--"It's too feminine for me"--and becomes not only a student and sought-after male partner but the studio's lighting-and-sound guy.

Shirley Kirth, a stroke survivor with regal bearing and a penchant for cussing, doesn't want to be like other women in her retirement home, doing nothing but playing Bingo and dominoes in the balmy weather. "It seems like anyone over 60 just wants to sit on the couch, and I'm horrified," she says. Class fees can add up fast for these retirees, even at ethical businesses like Absolutely Ballroom, but Margaret Russo calls her lessons "an investment in my well-being." Lila's film shows that as a way to improve confidence and mood, enhance brain function and keep alive human touch and connection as one ages, ballroom dancing has much to recommend it.

*****

Ballroom Confidential will be released on February 11 through Amazon and Vimeo and later through iTunes and Hulu. To order a DVD now or to learn more about Lilla's documentary, click here.

FLASH MOB ALERT: For Sandy relief -- Today 12:12pm at Washington Square Park Arch

BALLROOM BASIX HOSTS RHUMBA FOR ROCKAWAY RELIEF

FLASH MOB

Tony Dovolani of Dancing With The Stars, Iveta Lukosiute, the 2009 World 10 Dance Champion, Radio City Rockettes and Flash Mob America Join Ballroom Basix to Raise Funds for Rockaway

TODAY, Wednesday, December 12, 2012 at 12:12 p.m.

Washington Square Park Arch, Manhattan
(map/directions)

More than 100 Ballroom and Latin dancers with Harlem schoolchildren from M.S. 45, 57 and 76 come together to raise thousands for Sancy victims.

Ballroom Basix, a not-for-profit, arts-in-education initiative that brings the etiquette and education of partner dancing to deter bullying and enhance peer relationships among schoolchildren, was serving over 120 students in PS 114 in the Rockaways before Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on the area. PS 114 was one of the most severly affected schools ­ so sever that all the children were relocated.

The flash mob will be danced to an original composition, a contemporary English/Spanish version of America, The Beautiful (featuring Grammy-nominated powerhouse Karina Pasian). The song is available on iTunes for $1 ­ all dowload proceeds will go towards helping the students of PS 114. A video of today¹s flash mob will post later today in hopes of viral recognition/downloads/fundraising.

Burn the beat around!

If, during Burn the Floor's first act, you keep wondering when the hell's this show gonna break for intermission, it's probably not because you're having a bad time. Most likely, it's because you're feeling an urgent need to get your blood pressure checked, your pacemaker readjusted or, at least, your sweaty brow mopped.

Australian director-choreographer Jason Gilkison has finally brought his decade-old success story--with its international cast of Latin and ballroom whiz kids--to Broadway's Longacre Theater. It belongs on Broadway. Though it will close on October 18, it should run here a much longer time.

Why? Well, simply because I could manually flip this show upside down like one of its fantastic dancers and turn it inside out and not find a single thing wrong with it. Staging, lighting, costuming, pacing, dancing, singing, and music playing--have I forgotten any other "ings"? Breathing? Being?--are all top notch. That's why.

I scoffed, at first, and avoided taking one of my serious concert dance friends or serious theater friends to see Burn the Floor, fearing their reaction to anything with the whiff of Dancing With the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance. (Indeed, most of Gilkison's champion performers--like charming Sasha Farber and sultry Peta Murgatroyd--have done time on those shows, and he was a SYTYCD guest choreographer.) So, I went alone. But I was wrong. If any of my friends could not enjoy themselves at Burn the Floor, I might have to rethink our friendship.

So, if you don't care for sexy and romantic dancing--or for Broadway musicals, for that matter--you might want to stay away. Or come with an open mind and give it a shot. If you do love ballroom and Latin, waste no time getting to the Longacre while there's still a floor left because, yes, they do burn it.

The title works because these dancers blaze. Curtain's up, they're ready to go and rarely ease off a driven pace. Samba, rumba, foxtrot, swing, tango, paso doble, even swoony Viennese Waltz get a fresh treatment and vigorous workout from imaginative Gilkison and his intrepid corps. Dance segments magically flow into one another and, in the absence of a narrative, the sweet-natured vocalizing of Ricky Rojas and hot-mama belting of Rebecca Tapia hold it all together.

And you're simply swept along without time to doubt or protest. At times, I definitely felt that I was dancing, too. When intermission arrived, a woman sitting behind me gasped, "I'm exhausted! I could collapse right now!" Kind of alarming, given the apparent average age of the audience!

Burn the Floor information
Tickets

omg!

Tom DeLay and Donny Osmond to Join ‘Dancing With the Stars’
by Bill Carter, The New York Times, August 17, 2009

Burning Broadway's floor

‘Burn the Floor’ Dance Theater Romps From Australia to Broadway
by Felicia R. Lee, The New York Times, July 29, 2009

Dance on Target!

Tonight: Dancing with the Arts at Brooklyn Museum's Target First Saturday

From 5-11pm, the museum's free events are devoted to Dancing with the Arts, featuring contra dance and West African dance circles; a performance, Q&A and book-signing with Lori Belilove's Isadora Duncan Dance Company; a screening of Mad Hot Ballroom and much more. For complete details, click here.