Tonight, under sprog pressure, we watched and quite enjoyed Step Up 3D, a sort of soppy West Side Story without Bernstein, Shakespeare or violence but with one huge redeeming feature; the dancing. The basic plot is a battle to the finals of the World Jam dance contest by two dance crews composed of low-lifers and misfits who would otherwise be on New York meanstreets. Forget about the story, though, and just concentrate on the stupendous dancing. In fact, the film reminded me of a film I saw yonks ago (1985), White Nights, which was supposedly a Cold War thriller but was in reality a shaggily-plotted excuse to allow two prodigious dancers from different genres, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines, to dance together and, my!, how they danced. Here, thanks to You Tube , are a few examples: here, and here (Hines’s tap solo), and here (Baryshnikov’s eleven pirouettes!). And here’s a little somethinhg from Step Up.
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