‘Ballroom’ will make you dance with joy

{LDQUO}Mad Hot Ballroom” is a delightful documentary about three

groups of fifth-graders from New York City public schools whose lives

gain class and dignity by their participation in a citywide ballroom

dancing competition.

Told in the spirit of “Spellbound,” last year’s charming

documentary of school youngsters in a national spelling bee, “Mad Hot

Ballroom” also examines the home lives of several of the children who

learn poise and the benefits of team participation, and the effect

this has on the process of growing up.

Sometimes touching and oft times hilarious, “Mad Hot Ballroom” is

as engaging for the audience as the dance competition is for the

young students. The children at first seem wary of the idea of

dancing, especially of getting so close to members of the opposite

sex, but soon they are enjoying themselves and they become less

awkward and not so prickly with one another.

They are, after all, only 10-year-olds.

The children are constantly reminded to focus and to “smile at one

another.” The boys are admonished about loose shirt tails, and the

youngsters grin and stumble across the dance floor to music they

otherwise never would have chosen to listen to.

While they are dancing and the judges are gauging their

performances, the teachers are anguishing over it all, cajoling the

youngsters, living and dying with every graceful twirl and clumsy

misstep. The audience at my screening became part of it, groaning

aloud and gasping in sympathy to an awkward turn of foot and cheering

openly for a graceful young couple as if the dance contests were

being held live on the stage instead of on film. The dance steps that

the youngsters are learning -- the foxtrot, rumba, meringue, tango

and swing -- can be challenging enough for many adults. And, of

course, the students, at first, dance woodenly.

Their arms are stiff and they stare at their own feet as they

shuffle along.

The dance course, though, lasts 10 weeks, and when the students

from all 60 schools assemble for the final competition, there are

some smooth dancers out there on the floor, ready to give Fred and

Ginger a run for their money.

Co-producer and director Marilyn Agrelo, a first-time filmmaker,

deftly transfers the timely dance music from the cavernous, echoing

ballrooms to the smooth soundtrack of the film. Old standards from

Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darrin, Peggy Lee and Glenn Miller have the

audience swinging and swaying along with the students on the dance

floor.

As soon as the credits rolled, my wife and I hurried home, put on

our dancing shoes and rushed off to one of our favorite salsa clubs

in Hollywood, a nice little joint on Fountain Avenue, where we

blistered the floor ourselves.

REEL FACTOID

The filmmakers of “Mad Hot Ballroom” scouted 20 of the 60 schools

to appear in the documentary. They considered many factors, like the

teachers, the facilities, the neighborhoods, the logistics of

shooting, etc., and eventually narrowed it down to three schools.

* JEFF KLEMZAK of La Crescenta has never met a dance film he

hasn’t enjoyed and finds dancing to be as good for the soul as it is

for the body.