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Imagine scrolling down your social media timeline, bored out of your mind, and then you come across a dance video that is hard to resist. You sit there looking at the clip for several minutes, and it lightens up your mood. Why is dance so appealing that it is hard for people to resist? While dancers practice hard to perform gracefully on stage, documentary producers try their best to capture these moments through the camera. Watching dance documentaries is not meant for dancers or the dancing audience alone, but an experience that anyone should have in their lifetime. Watching dance documentaries should be on everyone’s list of things to do because it teaches so much about life and dancing.
Art of dance is calling. Each dancer has an innate passion and drive to want to move to the rhythm of the music. Dancing as an occupation takes on entirely different aspects of the art form. You need grit, courage, perseverance, dedication and guts to be a professional dancer. Dance documentaries that focus more on professional dance explores some of the challenges that those who chose to make a career out of the vocation encounter on their rise to the top.
Unlike YouTube videos and dance presentations on stage, which are polished and presented as final productions are choreographed dance, documentaries exploring the behind the scene activities of those in the dance profession. The final presentation that the audience watches usually consists of around 10% of the work, while behind the scene make up the remaining 90%. An important part of dance documentaries are the interviews with the dancers during rehearsals, showing their mental and emotional states, exposing the dedication they experience and possess, and examining all the hardships that they encounter on their rise to the top.
For those who are ready to dive into the world of dance, here’s a list of several top documentaries for you!
Dancers (DANZANTES)
Director: Juan V.te Chulia
County: Spain
A full length documentary about dance, but it’s also an emotional journey into the world of those who practice it. Without barriers nor judgments: Dance as a universal, transversal expression view through the eyes of its leads, even beyond its artistic values; as a useful social, inclusive and pedagogical resource.
Ballet Russes
Director: Daniel geller, Dayna Goldfine
Country: France
The film is an intimate portrait of a group of pioneering artists — now in their 70s, 80s and 90s — who gave birth to modern ballet. The revolutionary 20th-century dance troupe known as the Ballets Russes began as a group of Russian refugees, who never danced in Russia, and became not one but two rival dance troupes.
La Danse: The Paris Opera
Director: Frederick Wiseman
Country: France
This fascinating film follows the new director of the Paris Opera, Stephane Lissner, as he adjusts this new role in 2014 and during the terrorist attacks in the city in November 2015.
Mr. Gaga: A True Story of Love and Dance
Director: Tomer Heymann
Country: United States
World-renowned choreographer Ohad Naharin created the movement style, Gaga, which has influenced an entire generation of dancers. The film explores his work with the Batsheva Dance Company and the rest of the modern dance world.
Planet B-Boy
Director: Benson Lee
Country: United States
Jumping continents and crossing cultures, Planet B-Boy looks at the history of breakdancing and its vibrant resurgence in urban cultures around the world.
Pina
Director: Wim Wenders
Country: United States
A tribute to the late German Choreographer, Pina Bausch, as her dancers perform her most famous creations. During the preparation of the documentary, Pina Bausch passed away unexpectedly. This film showcases other dancers as they talk about Pina and perform some of her best-known pieces.
Fame High
Director: Scott Hamilton Kennedy
Country: United States
Fame High captures the in-class and at-home drama, competition, heartbreak, and triumph during one school year at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA), also known as Fame High. Talented teenagers reach for their dreams of becoming actors, singers, dancers, and musicians.
Ballet Now
Director: Steven Cantor
Country: United States
Featuring New York City Ballet’s Prima Ballerina Tiler Peck – the first ever woman to be asked to curate The Music Center’s famed BalletNOW program – and a diverse cast of world-class dancers from around the globe, the film follows Tiler as she tries to execute her groundbreaking vision of mashing together the worlds of tap, hip-hop, ballet and even clown artistry.
