Dance!

Dance! opens with a virtuoso modern ballet sequence filmed in misty blue accompanied by a modern soundtrack. After a bit, the lights come up, the dancers stop dancing, and someone speaks. It's an abrupt shift: one moment we're watching the human body as poetry in motion, the next we're listening to non-actors struggle through a soap opera script. And so it goes. Luke (Johann Renvall) and Julie (Ellen Troy) are your basic Ken and Barbie couple who are trying to land leads in a showcase performance for talent scouts. When a new choreographer is brought in to whip the troops at the ballet school into shape, Luke and the instructress go head to head (and later bed to bed), as Luke adamantly refuses to change his flamboyant dance style, and the choreographer tries to break his spirit (while inside admiring his strong will). Meanwhile, poor Julie is left darning her ballet slippers. The dance sections, which roughly comprise half the film, are quite good, but the rest of the movie makes Days of Our Lives seem like Masterpiece Theater. Terrible script, terrible acting, beautiful dancing. But there are already a number of great performing art tapes on the market in pure rather than diluted form. Choose those instead. Not recommended. (R. Pitman)