We conclude our 6 part series, The Next Step, with SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER (1977)! The surprisingly harsh film that launched a #1 bestselling soundtrack by the Bee Gees and John Travolta to super stardom.

You'll easily be able to summon the sight of Travolta strutting down the street in the opening scene and hear that thumping beat of Stayin' Alive, but did you remember that he's actually a 19 year old kid on an errand to buy paint?  In this tale set in the end days of disco, Travolta's Tony Manero learns not to treat women like an accessory, breaks away from his oppressive catholic family and ultimately makes the journey across the Brooklyn Bridge...all through dance!

Justice for Annette!

Guest: Jennifer Goggans from the Merce Cunningham Trust

Emma will also do a quick wrap up our Coming of Age mini series by collating all the overlapping themes, so many are set in New York, so many daddy issues, but only one daisy tattoo!

Links

Vanity Fair article

The Rest Is History Ep on Disco

We’re making our entrance for this one running in with arms in bras bas! Was SAVE THE LAST DANCE (2001) the beginning of the dance movie craze of the noughts? With a bonus film that definitely hits right in the middle of that fad: STEP UP (2006)

It’s interesting revisiting STLD on the other side of the reckonings that happened around BLM. It earnestly explores some serious topics with Julia Stiles’s white ballerina becoming a fish out of water when she moves to a majority black neighbourhood in Chicago. Julia Stiles relied heavily on a body double for her ballet, but this box office hit made her a star. Watch out for Kerry Washington in her first film role. 

Sara may have learnt how to find her groove thanks to Derek, BUT WILL SHE GET INTO JULLIARD?!?!

Join us and Jack Webb and Isaac Bowry, virtual guests, but real-life friends!

LINKS

Cheryl Edwards on STLD script

Pierre-Émile on Instgram

5 years after first recorded, we're rereleasing this episode of our first dance flavoured mini series - Ballet for the 21st Century. We've chosen to revisit the last ep in that series, Boys Dance Too, because having just discussed the film Billy Elliot we thought it was worth digging into some themes that came up in more depth.

This episode has been shortened from its original length...

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Why is the bullying of boys who want to take ballet so persistent? Emma Lister seeks to answer this question and why their love of dance is often defended with the usual football comparison/"real men lift women" trope. 

In the final episode of of our mini-series, Ballet for the Twenty-first Century, we'll open up topics such as: body image, casting, role models, gendered ballet technique, The Billy Elliot Effect and homophobia.

Special guests: Denzil Bailey, Richard Bermange, James Forbat, Matthew Paluch and Mark Samaras.

REFERENCES:

M. Paluch. (2019). There's an elephant in the room and it's gay.... Dancing Times. October 2019, p29-31. www.dancing-times.co.uk

This mini-series  has been made possible by a grant  using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

We couldn't make The Next Step mini series without including BILLY ELLIOT. Is this the seminal dance coming of age film? How does it hold up a quarter of a century after it was released and became a cultural phenomenon? Bonus film: THE FITS (2015) starts eerily the same as Billy Elliot, but steers firmly away from the predictable halfway through...

I'm joined this episode by host of Drinks at the Bar podcast, Paul James Rooney...who apart from being a podcast host and experienced dancer has actually played older Billy Elliot in the very successful stage version! We muse over Thatcherism, homophobia, questionable "ballet" choreography and whether Billy would've realistically had a shot at getting into the Royal Ballet School.

LINKS

Drinks at the Barre Podcast on Apple

Drinks at the Barre Podcast on Spotify

Spice Girls, Stop Right Now

Indie Wire interview with Stephen Daldry

 Billy Elliot: Class Traitor  

FAME (1980) fed the world a version of performing arts schools where everyone is constantly jumping around dancing and singing. But how much truth is there in that? Our bonus film, GIRL (2018), has a very different take on the experience of dance training.

We talk about the enduring genius of Gene Anthony Ray, finding your tribe in school, why the cast demanded danger pay for one scene and...did we mention Gene?!

What happens in Rocky Horror stays in Rocky Horror!

Guest: Cordelia Braithwaite

LINKS

La Guardia Alumni

Sanjoy Roy review of Up From the Waist

Up next in our new mini-series, The Next Step, is DIRTY DANCING (1987)! With bonus film--FLASHDANCE (1983).

Long a stalwart of slumber parties, Dirty Dancing can actually be a tougher watch than you remember, with a plot that revolves around an illegal abortion. We all know the famous line at the end of the film, but do you know who Baby's father was in real life? Or how to do that lift properly? And why Patrick Swayze isn't even the best dancer in this movie? 

Perhaps the ultimate 80s film about a female sexual awakening, a rewatch reveals canny representations of class struggles. WARNING: you'll be singing that f*cking Hula Song for days to come.

Guests: Zoë Ashe-Browne, Diarmaid O'Meara

LINKS

Abortion law timeline 

Jezebel interview with Eleanor Bergstein

Our first episode of the new mini series, The Next Step, is CENTER STAGE (2000)! Can you believe this dancer classic is celebrating 25 years since its release? With bonus film--DANCERS (1987).

We use Center Stage to discuss the delicate balance between dancer and sponsor, camisole tops, unequal power dynamics, the girl behind Degas's 'Little Dancer' sculpture and Ethan Steifel's dancing assets. 

Chock full of professional NYC dancers (not to mention future Oscar Winner Zoe Saldaña) Center Stage was the millennial go-to film for a soapy story with an all out dance number at the end. So, a quarter of century on, this film definitely has the feet...but does it have the heart?

Guests: Amber Hunt, Prof Rose Martin

LINKS 

NYTimes article 2004

About Marie van Goethem

The Spinoff article

Tiler Peck Center Stage solo

 Roger Ebert Dancers Review 1987

Our ballet horror movie mash up podcast, continues with BLACK SWAN (2010) and US (2019).

In this final instalment of Ballet Macabre we're looking at Duality. To start off, host Emma Lister and guests Amber Hunt and Rose Martin give their insights as professional dancers on what is likely the best known film in this mini genre, Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. Though the film won its star Natalie Portman an acting Oscar for her role as the dancer trying to master the dual roles of the white and black swan, how accurate is her portrayal? Do all top level ballerinas have disordered eating? Are all directors sexual predators? And what’s up with the 32 fouettés in this movie? (If you don’t know what those are, don’t worry, we’ll explain!)

The final film in our mini series is Jordan Peele’s Us, the most recent film we’re covering. With a story that highlights the privilege a portion of society enjoys at the expense of others, we ponder whether ballet is truly elitist. We also acknowledge the proximity to wealth and glamour being a ballet dancer provides while not necessarily paying above minimum wage. And finish off the mini series by asking a big question: must we split ourselves in two to be a great dancer?

Bonus reel:
Scary Movie 5

References:
Black Swan 32 fouettés
BBC Panorama doc

Sam Kench on Body Horror

Angela Trimbur Dance

This one is hot off the presses! Just as I was about to release the final episode in our mini series, Lucile Hadžihalilović 's award winning INNOCENCE (2004) was made available to stream. I had trouble tracking it down in my early research, and when I finally watched it I knew I had to include it. Its oblique plot follows a year at a mysterious all girls school where ballet is one of the few subjects taught. Though not an outright horror movie, it deals with so many themes from our mini series so far: the Chosen One, Pain and several puzzle pieces from our upcoming final instalment. Not only that, but I knew one of its stars...

Dancer Léa Bridarolli was just 11 when she was chosen to play 'Alice' in Hadžihalilović’s haunting coming of age film. She has many memories from filming, including the audition scene that underpins her character's tragic arc, a scene she was able to play by drawing on an early experience as a young dancer. She and Emma also discuss why ballet dancers (mostly women) so often portray children or young teenagers on stage, and why horror movies have a fixation with scary kids!

References
Mark Kermode's Scary Kids blog post

BONUS REEL
Cabin in the Woods

BALLET MACABRE continues with SUSPIRIA (1977) and AUDITION (1999) as Emma Lister, long time film lover, podcast host and ballet dancer guides us down the dark hallway that is the use of ballet in horror movies. In this, the second episode in our mini series, we have the theme of pain linking our film pairing:

Guests Richard Bermange and Nandita Shankardass join to give their insights on the original Suspiria directed by Dario Argento, which for all its baroque beauty, rocking Goblin score and undeniable influence on the genre leaves something to be desired in terms of accurate portrayals of ballet classes!

Next we explore the theme of pain, both mental and physical, in Takashi Miike's Audition, another influential horror film that arguably opened the door to the extreme depictions of gore and sadism in the 'torture porn' genre. But for our interviewees, more terrifying still is the eponymous audition scene...

Bonus Reel: RED SPARROW (2018)

References:
The Turning - Room of Mirrors