Center Stage (2000)

User Rating:

6.2/10   

Director:

Nicholas Hytner

Writer (WGA):

Carol Heikkinen (written by)

Release Date:

12 May 2000 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Music

Tagline:

Life doesn't hold tryouts.

Plot:

A group of 12 teenagers from various backgrounds enroll at the American Ballet Academy in New York to make it as ballet dancers and each one deals with the problems and stress of training and getting ahead in the world of dance.

Plot Keywords:

Ballet | Dancer | Dance | Dancing | Love

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Amanda Schull	...	Jody Sawyer
Zoe Saldana	...	Eva Rodriguez (as Zoë Saldana)
Susan May Pratt	...	Maureen Cummings
Peter Gallagher	...	Jonathan Reeves
Donna Murphy	...	Juliette Simone
Debra Monk	...	Nancy Cummings
Ethan Stiefel	...	Cooper Nielson
Sascha Radetsky	...	Charlie Sims
Julie Kent	...	Kathleen Donahue
Ilia Kulik	...	Sergei
Eion Bailey	...	Jim Gordon
Shakiem Evans	...	Erik Jones
Elizabeth Hubbard	...	Joan Miller
Victor Anthony	...	Thomas
Christine Dunham	...	Audition Teacher

Also Known As:

Centre Stage (Australia)
City Ballet (USA) (working title)
The Dance Movie (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for language and some sensuality.

Runtime:

115 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Iceland:L | Brazil:12 | Malaysia:U | Finland:S | South Korea:15 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Chile:14 | Denmark:A | France:U | Germany:12 (original rating) | Germany:o.Al. (video rating) | New Zealand:M | Norway:A | Singapore:PG | Spain:T | Sweden:Btl | UK:12 | USA:PG-13 (certificate #37228) | Philippines:G

Filming Locations:

Fordham University, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts - Columbus Avenue & 61st Street, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

Of the main characters who are dancers, five are professional ballet dancers or have had ballet training (Amanda Schull, Zoe Saldana, Ethan Stiefel, Sascha Radetsky, Julie Kent), one is a professional figure skater (Ilia Kulik), and two were actors (Susan May Pratt and Shakiem Evans). Body doubles were used for many of the major dance sequences.

Goofs:

Continuity: In the beginning of the film, when Jody and Eva leave to smoke, the number on their dorm door says 903C, later when Jody, Maureen, and Eva leave to celebrate Eric's birthday, their dorm door says 903A.

Quotes:

Maureen Cummings: Erik got injured today. And do you know the first thing I thought when I saw him go down?
Jim Gordon: What?
Maureen Cummings: "I wish that was me." So that made me think, you know, 'cause that's not a normal reaction. How much of what you liked about me was because I was a ballet dancer, and how much because I was me?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Getaway: (#13.3)" (2004)

Soundtrack:

Candy

The Dance is the Thing

The title comes from the dancer's center of gravity, which I'm told is used to explain the difference between Russian and American dance to us non-dancers. The Russian tradition is one of capturing and controlling it; the American (since Balanchine, whose work is employed here) is to understand it and let the center `go.' And insofar as it can, that is the point of the drama employed to tie together the dance segments of this film. It is a non-trivial point, underlined by employing not actors in the key roles, but dancers who `act.' These kids are surely endearing.

Two points seem worth mentioning.

The first is the matter of dance in film. Dance is intrinsically cinematic in terms of emotion as motion. But it is too personal, too directly a matter between humans, to convey well to the funnel of film: everything squashed into an image, then given indiscriminately and undifferentiatingly to all viewers. So the cinematographer has a tough choice: what to do with the camera to increase bodily intimacy.

One, unacceptable, extreme is to stay stationary at a few points, another is to choreograph the camera so the viewer is one of the dancers. In this case, at the end at least, we have a happy medium so far as camera involvement. The camera is stationary, but often within the field of dance, and it pans. The staging of the dance was partly to the audience pictured, and partly to us, which is very clever. But it would have been nice to be more adventurous in this regard, especially since there are several choreographers in NYC who are up to the challenge, and cheap!

The second point is a matter of self-reference, which I appreciate almost without qualification when I see it.

The filmmaker gives us a bunch of young actors (actually dancers) who surprise us by effectively showing us their souls in a little love triangle drama. And the matter of their story? A bunch of young dancers who surprise the audience in the film by effectively showing their souls in a little love triangle drama. The film as summarized in the dance is a very intelligent device which I appreciated. And you will too.