I am the best goddamn dancer in the American Ballet Academy.

April 23, 2020 11:29 AM

To celebrate the release of Center Stage 20 years ago, Dance Spirit Magazine interviewed 5 of its stars about the making of the movie.

The way you make me feel - If I was the one - Canned heat

Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet balcony scene: Ethan Stiefel and Julie Kent, from the movie - Angel Corella and Alessandra Ferri, Royal Ballet

Jazz dance - Just dance the shit out of it!

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Why Center Stage is the greatest dance movie ever made

What, you think that headline is hyperbolic? My original impulse was to call Center Stage the greatest movie ever made, period—so consider this a compromise.

In all seriousness: Nicholas Hytner’s 2000 masterpiece(!), an irresistable mélange of teen movie, dance drama, and clog-stuffed ’00s-era time capsule, turns 15 years old this week. (It’s almost old enough to join the American Ballet Company!) Is it a quote-unquote “good” movie? Maybe not, judging by traditional definitions of the word “good.” As EW’s Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, in her C-grade review, “Gay boy and straight boy, black street girl with an attitude and white bulimic girl with a demented stage mother—there’s no cliche left untwirled.” She has a point.

Center Stage is, however, a great movie, where “great” is defined as “A thing you loved when you were 12 that’s still entertaining once you reach adulthood, despite how much of it is about feet.” Why? For a whole bunch of reasons, which I’m only too happy to lay out.

posted by ChuraChura (12 comments total)

One of the only things I miss about not having cable TV is the lack of opportunity to stumble across certain movies while flicking channels thus being forced by fate to watch them until the end. This is 100% one of them.

(That said, Dirty Dancing is a better dance movie, and I will fight you.)
posted by jacquilynne at 11:55 AM on April 23, 2020 [4 favorites]

This movie is famous in our house for every reason laid out in the last link and also very much for the "jangley balls dance" that Cooper does right at 1:39 during "The Way You Make Me Feel". It's just one or two beats in the song but I wait the whole movie just to see that one move.
posted by VTX at 12:34 PM on April 23, 2020

It's streaming on Netflix, if you find you need a rewatch!
posted by ChuraChura at 12:41 PM on April 23, 2020 [3 favorites]

[Amanda Schull:] Also, seeing Ethan's feet up close for the first time—I was totally gobsmacked.

Wait, so ballet artists really do constantly grade each other's feet?
posted by Iridic at 12:42 PM on April 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Now I have to go seek out and watch those other Center Stage movies.
posted by Constance Mirabella at 1:39 PM on April 23, 2020

Sascha Rudetsky has certainly turned into a stubbly mountaineer, which I appreciate.

Ethan Stiefel is... well, he sure is wearing a plaid shirt. I have opinions about that mustache and hair but I’m not his wife (Gillian Murphy, who is a principal with ABT as well, soon to retire, and was the gal Cooper took off with after Stars and Stripes, forever breaking Jodie’s heart).

Anyway I love this movie a lot and rewatch it frequently so yeah, I think it’s great!
posted by angeline at 2:07 PM on April 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

I love this movie with all my heart.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:39 PM on April 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

I love this movie beyond all reason, much to my poor husband’s chagrin. (Though he often quotes the line from the end: “As a boyfriend, you kinda suck.”)

I can’t let a discussion of Center Stage go by without dropping a link to this recap of the movie from a writer at the defunct Television Without Pity. It is marvelous.
posted by timestep at 9:02 PM on April 23, 2020 [2 favorites]

I am someone else who has this film in her Top Ten Films I Must Watch To The End When Discovered While Channel-Surfing. Also, I totally remember that recap from TWOP in the days before it jumped the shark! Ah, good times.
posted by TwoStride at 10:53 AM on April 24, 2020

Mod note: A few deleted; let's skip the whole hot-or-not type evaluations, please.
posted by taz (staff) at 12:57 AM on April 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

And today Vulture posted "An Oral History of Center Stage." Must be the season…
posted by pmdboi at 11:43 AM on May 12, 2020

Today is the actual 20th anniversary of its release.
posted by ChuraChura at 12:05 PM on May 12, 2020