Customer Reviews

Mad Hot Ballroom

5 star:		(70)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Ten years ago, two New York City public schools introduced a new program providing professional instruction in ballroom dancing to fifth graders. Now, American Ballroom Theater's Dancing Classrooms are found in over sixty schools. During the intensive ten-week curriculum, the students learn the fox trot, merengue, rumba, tango, and swing dancing. The children put their practice to work in a dance competition with ribbons and a gigantic trophy for the grand prize winning school.

"Mad Hot Ballroom" is a wonderful documentary about this creative and inspiring program. Director Marilyn Agrelo follows a bunch of kids and their teachers as they prepare for the big competition. There are also colorful vignettes of everyday life in the children's neighborhoods, which range from Bensonhurst in Brooklyn to Washington Heights in Manhattan. In addition, Agrelo captures the students chatting among themselves in their homes, at school, or outside playing; their candid comments are poignant, hilarious, and sometimes heartbreaking.

A documentary like this works for the same reason that "Spellbound," the documentary about spelling bee competitors, worked so well. The filmmakers personalize their subjects. For instance, Yomaira, a passionate dance instructor, pushes her students hard and demands excellence from them. She hopes that the lessons her kids learn in dance class will carry over into their personal lives. Alex is a Russian-born teacher whose elegance and soft-spoken manner is very different from Yomaira's style. He uses honey rather than vinegar. Tara is an intense child who practices in front of a mirror and buys a special dress for the competition; she has her heart set on winning. A precocious little girl named Emma speaks about life with world-weary wisdom. Wilson and Karina are two gorgeous kids whose effortless and joyous dancing will make your heart sing.

The editor does a marvelous job of paring down what must have been a mountain of footage into a film that is just under two hours long. "Mad Hot Ballroom" is fast-paced and fun to watch. However, it has a serious side as well, posing such thought-provoking questions, such as "How can we energize bored and disaffected children?" and "Is there a way to give kids with low self-esteem a chance to believe that they are special?" The ballroom dancing program featured in this film is one way to teach young people grace, good manners, goal setting, competitiveness, and teamwork.

When all is said and done, go see "Mad Hot Ballroom" because it will make you laugh, cry, tap your feet, and feel good about life. If that isn't a good reason to see a movie, I don't know what is.

This documentary provides a fascinating "slice of life" glimpse into a not widely known program to provide instruction in ballroom dancing to fifth graders in the NYC public school system. Since the program's introduction on an experimental basis several years ago it has been gradually expanded into several schools throughout the city and encompasses students with a broad range of nationalities and socioeconomic backgrounds. As you might guess and the documentary makes clear, it is by definition a "labor of love" for everyone involved: the instructors who volunteer their time, the school faculty and administration, and the kids and their parents. This is one of several programs which have proved immensely successful, others involve musical instructional, other forms of dance, theater and finally sports, including one overseen by the NY Road Runners Club with which I am very familiar involving organized running activities and races. Their scope is limited only by the time constraints faced by their organizers and volunteers and their usually meager financial resources. The kids not only enjoy themselves and develop a sense of self-worth and much better self-image, but learn many of the "lessons-of-life" imparted by such activities. These include the value of training, discipline and hard work, the necessity for teamwork and of course, "the joy of victory and the agony of defeat". This film poignantly demonstrates how tough a lesson it is for many of them to accept the truth of Grantland Rice's immortal summary, "when the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name, he marks - not that you won or lost - but how you played the game".

The film follows in detail the progress of students from three different schools, and uses the camera as the moviegoers' window into how the program affects everyone involved. It is almost entirely composed of film clips of the kids in class and interacting with their friends in other social situations and with their teachers; there are also a few brief supplemental commentaries from interviews with the kids, their parents and primarily the teachers. We then follow them through the stages of the competition including the finals held at the World Financial Center in downtown Manhattan. During the competition we also briefly meet several of the other teams, including the previous year's champions. One of the interesting juxtapositions is the team from Washington Heights (one of the poorest neighborhoods in NYC and a section where many of the kids come from one- parent families and who have to take the subway to the competition and buy their outfits at the local bargain store) competing on a par with the kids from a much more upscale neighborhoods and whose team gets private transportation to the finals.

This is a film which will appeal to a wide range of individuals, especially those who are captivated by kids and dancing. It is a human interest documentary that captures some truly inspirational stories. It was fascinating to meet the girls who became so excited they decided they want to pursue dancing as their careers, and heartwarming to hear one of the immigrant mothers discuss her aspirations for her daughter as follows (paraphrase) " My hope is that she will become a doctor, but if she decides she wants to become a dancer when she grows up, then I will totally support her in realizing her dreams".

The obvious comparison to this movie is another sleeper hit documentary involving competition among schoolkids, SPELLBOUND. This film is much more fun, but at least for me was not as totally engrossing. In some ways this is a combination of SPELLBOUND and the underappreciated 2004 version of SHALL WE DANCE, starring Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, Susan Sarandon, Anita Gillette and Stanley Tucci. Of course, MAD HOT BALLROOM is not a fictional story but instead involves the real life impact of dancing on kids at a vulnerable and formative age; however, SHALL WE DANCE also uses dance as a metaphor for life and examines its power to change and inspire individuals while also simply showcasing the beautiful experience that dance can become for both the participants and the audience.

The tension in SPELLBOUND built more slowly and was more sustained and the in depth interviews with several of those students and additional background information about the competition involved me much more in that story and made it more interesting to me. Thus, while this movie did not quite rise to the level of five stars for me, it was certainly a close call; dance fans who love to swing, meringue, and tango will undoubtedly be even more captivated than I was. In summary, if you are fortunate enough that this movie is shown in a theater near you, I strongly recommend it if you are looking for interesting story that you can just sit back and enjoy which has the added advantage of being even more appealing because it is true.

Tucker Andersen

I saw this movie in the theater, and I can't wait to get my own copy as soon as it is released. This is a movie for the whole family, and leaves you wanting to dance your way home. It follows ballroom dancing classes and then competition for New York City Public School children in about 4th grade. Put the camera on a whole bunch of 9 and 10 year olds, and you are bound to get some very funny footage, which is exactly what happened. But it is heartwarming and inspiring in addition to the humor. Must see for all ages.

This documentary about New York's citywide ballroom dancing competition among public school 5th-graders has frequently been compared to the recent documentary "Spellbound" (about a spelling competition). And, in fact, "Mad Hot Ballroom" has a great deal of Spellbound's charm. There is something really engaging about seeing a 10 or 11-year-old come into his/her own. An adult may stand a bit outside himself (a bit of concern about "am I silly" or "what are you thinking about me while I dance"), but a kid is just DANCING - an entirely earnest and genuine experience unmediated by an adults self-consciousness.

The filmmakers, likes Spellbound's, follow a "one from Column A, one from Column B" formula for choosing dance teams to follow. At the first round, there is an upscale school in Tribeca, a melting-pot group of Brooklynites, and an energetic and wholly Dominican team from upper Manhattan's Washington Heights. The kids from all schools are engaging and winsome, although the filmmakers indulge in a little stereotyping via editing (a wealthy Tribeca girl is very confident before the competition (in a sweet way) but the Tribeca team cries and complains afterwards, whereas the down-to-earth Brooklynites look endearingly dorky and take their loss with a them's-the-break attitude).

The film's real energy, however, comes directly from the Dominican team, whose authentically wonderful and instinctive dancing allows us to combine the drama of kids competing with the reward of watching some mad hot dancing.

It's not a kid's movie, however; it's pretty long. Actual fifth-grade boys will recoil at the idea of watching a movie that involves dancing with real girls. Younger girls (my six-year-old) will find it hard to sit still that long - the dancing will appeal to them, but the interviews less so. Adults will love it, though: watching the winning team will make you wanna mambo!

Conclusion: 5 for adults, 4 for girls, boys - your mileage will vary.

There is a scene about one third of the way into this brilliant documentary about the more than sixty New York City elementary and middle schools that have organized programs and competitions for salsa, merengue and other ballroom dancing where a young female teacher can no longer hold back her emotions. She speaks directly into the camera while students talk amongst themselves in her classroom. She puts her best, most professional foot forward for the camera, to best express the importance of what she is doing in an honest but demure and educated fashion. But when she thinks about what she is witnessing, more than what she is doing for these children, her heart becomes full and overflows before our eyes. She knows what she has to say is the most important thing for people to get about what she is doing and the entire movie--and maybe her life's work--but she tries to say it without crying, until she realizes she cannot.

She finally loses her polite smile as her lips begin to tremble and says something to the effect of "I'm watching them become ladies and gentlemen..." and the tears begin rolling down her cheeks.

Not to mention mine.

If you ever find a movie that can make you believe in the redemptive power of art, the joyful majesty of dance, the culturally kaleidescopic beauty of New York City and the fact that "the children" really are "the future" simultaneously better or moreso than this film, please e-mail me and tell me the title so I can go and buy it. I had an apatrment in Manhattan about a twenty minute walk uptown from the first school showcased in this documentary MAD HOT BALLROOM, but I can tell you, a person in Des Moine or Chicago--or Beijing, for that matter--will be as deeply touched by this movie as any native New Yorker. Other reviewers have wisely revealed that part of the magic exists in the documentarists making you care about the lives of specific children involved in this. You really have to see the film to see how true that is. But that serves as the vehicle through which we are led to discover how incredible the dance competition is, and how important it is as a cultural phenomenon.

I walked away from this movie feeling this: if the Constitution were set to music, the music would be jazz. But the dance would be merengue!

It is impossible not to see this movie and feel good about life afterwards.

I am one of the judges for the Heartland Film Festival that screens films for their Truly Moving Picture Award. A Truly Moving Picture "...explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life." Heartland gave that award to this film.

This is a documentary that plays out like a story. Three fifth grade classes of different schools in diverse NYC learn ballroom dancing in order to compete in a citywide dance contest in downtown Manhatten. You watch the kids evolve from clumsy to close-to-graceful and from hesitant to confident.

The best part was that the kids ignored the camera. They didn't play to the camera at all. And ten year old kids are beautiful as they bounce back-and-forth from juvenile to young adult and back to juvenile in a matter of seconds.

The camera work and directing are interesting because you don't notice them. You feel you are the observer and not the camera. The movie simply looks honest and truthful.

FYI - There is a Truly Moving Picture web site where there is a listing of past winners going back 70 years.

I got this on a whim, intending to help my 6th grader, and ended up loving it. There are some unusually good reviews by others, so I will not repeat them. The bottom line is that this movie is for grade school what E.O. Wilson's book "Consilience" is for adults. In that book he answers the questions, "why are the humanities vital to the sciences" and concluded that science out of context is not helpful to humanity.

Watching this movie, I found myself really admiring New York City for understanding how dancing could contribute to social IQ and to human interactions. As my own teen-ager (145+ IQ) rejects rote learning in high school, I am compelled to believe that we need to drastically change education, and do more of this social interaction, learning to learn, learning to find people who know, learning to exchange ideas rather than memorize old ideas, etcetera.

As a suburban New Yorker from the 1960's, I also found that this movie considerably enhanced my appreciation for New York, and the school system, in the aftermath of 9-11. Over-all this movie is a credit to kids at their best, to the idea that dancing matters, to the NYC school systems and its teachers, and to the "Big Apple" itself.

Super, worthy of any adults time, and a definite pick for family nights in over pizza.

Superlatives are not enough for the real-life participants in Mad Hot Ballroom! This movie is a delightful affirmation of life, art, and our youth. Academics are vacuous without art. Mad Hot Ballroom is an essential for every educator, for every parent, for every adult, and for every child. It shows the potential of the human spirit; and it shows how the spirit develops. This is truly "no child left behind."

A friend recommended this film to me, and I am very glad she did. It is a delightful documentary about some eleven-year-old elementary school kids in New York who are participating in a program that teaches them four ballroom dances. They then compete as a school team in a series of dance contests with one of the schools emerging as the champion dancing team.

The contest is important only insofar as it sparks the kids to focus and improve. The same is true of the film. Following the contest provides a structure to the film, but being a documentary, the outcome is pretty well determined and we see the outcome well in advance. However, the structure of the film is simply the road we take to see the real delights of this story.

We see very different teachers working with their classes. These kids a generally from impoverished areas of the city and many without a solid home environment backing them up. One of the great moments in the film for me was one wonderful girl talking about how she felt after not getting into the finals. She said that she felt so good about participating because it was the first time in her life that she felt that she could succeed, that someone was pulling for her. It was such a delight to see her get such a positive experience under any circumstance, but especially to take it away from a disappointment!

We follow another fine boy from that team and see him talking to the judge afterwards about why they lost. The kind judge discusses how close it was and that they were only three points behind the team going to the finals (this is from a score of hundreds of points). The boy says that he doesn't understand and is genuinely bewildered about why his dream isn't coming true. Later, in another interview with that team, the boy says that he realizes that if they could have all just done one thing a bit better it would have made the difference, that he realizes that he could have done a bit better than he did. Again, this is a marvelous lesson for anyone to learn at any stage in life, let alone as an eleven year old.

We also get to see kids learning to socialize, boys and girls learning about each other and becoming more comfortable with each other. That is also an important step in life. Ballroom dancing, where you actually have to touch each other, in a proper way of course, and coordinate steps and movements together, is a fabulous way to help kids make that important social breakthrough.

Yes, we are happy for the team that eventually does win, and we hurt for all the wonderful kids who do not win. These kids dance their merengues, tangos, rumbas, and swings so well that they are a delight to watch. It is marvelous. These teachers are to be commended and these children praised. Everyone who participates is better off. I am glad that they have a contest; kids should not be protected from all competition. But I am also glad that they have a rather gentle contest rather than making the separation of winning and losing as stark as it can be in real life. It is a learning experience and that is what should be emphasized.

Fine film, great educational program!

I had wanted to see "Mad Hot Ballroom" for quite sometime, since I heard about it. I was a child who was fortunate to have exposure to dance, and I am so glad it did, because it quite literally saved my life. This is actually a common experience, found very self-evident in "Mad Hot Ballroom," and in the eyes of the young stars we see blossom on the dance floor.

Only several years ago, a free, afterschool dance program was implemented into several New York City elementary schools. This offered an opportunity for children who normally didn't have access to dance, outside of school, the chance to gain exposure to the mambo, rumba, tango, merengue and jive, and also gain invaluable self confidence in the process. This film touched my heart and my soul, and made me laugh and cry, as I also found myself tapping my feet to the rhythm and joyfully cheering on the young and talented amature performers. We follow the footsteps of young, predominantly Dominican students, from Washington Heights (one of the poorest, predominantly Latino neighborhoods in New York City), as their hard-nosed teacher, Yomaira (also of Dominican ancestry), leads them through their regimented practices. You can tell this woman wants to win it as badly as her kids (if not more so). We also see Alex, a Russian dance instructor, at a neighboring school, lead his kids through the footwork. He has, by far, a more gentle touch with his young pupils.

What really makes the film special, is our glimpse, as the audience into the eyes, opinions and intelligent observations made by these young ladies and gentlemen. While the young group of Dominicana girls from the Washington Heights school, strive to rise above their circumstances (which include single parent homes, thug life and drug dealing), other children feel they were born to perform and that this dance program is a jumping up point for them to build their resumes!

This is a great, inspiring little film. It makes me want to go teach in New York City, and inspire the new generation. There is nothing more valuable than an exposure to the arts. The younger you have it, the more beneficial. I am so glad this film was made.