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Given the relatively small portion of the population that has the opportunity, much less the inclination, to attend world-class live dance performances, a movie about neophyte ballerinas seeking fame and pas de deux in New York would be a great mass-market vehicle for a woefully under-appreciated art form. Especially if the producers decided to attempt to coax real dancers to act, rather than vice versa. In theory, anyway.
Pity that so inconsequential an element as, say, the plot should get in the way. You could take the entire story of Center Stage, take out the dancers and plug in bowlers, hockey players, jockeys, or rocket scientists, and make a movie that would get you sued because somebody had already done something else like it. It’s got all the essential, overly broad archetypes: a fresh-scrubbed, doe-eyed Midwestern innocent Jodie Sawyer (who really is equal parts Jodie Foster and Tom Sawyer), played by unknown Amanda Schull; a tough, gifted black Latina (unknown Zoe Saldana); a physically impeccable, spiritually flawed proto-diva (Susan May Pratt, whose roles in Drive Me Crazy and 10 Things I Hate About You make her the veteran among contemporaries); a naïve Russian hunk (1998 Olympic gold medallist Ilya Kulik); a gay black artiste (Shakiem Evans) who apparently pays for his deviancy by spraining an ankle at an inopportune moment; an all-powerful stud with the world at his feet (first-time actor Ethan Stiefel); an imperious director (Peter Gallagher, looking very non-danceworthy); and a steel-eyed matriarch with a heart of gold (Broadway veteran and The Astronaut’s Wifeco-star Donna Murphy). While studying at the Manhattan academy for the fictional American Ballet Company, they fight, love, purge, worry, cry, purge a little more, and learn valuable lessons about life.
Fortunately, they also find at least a little time to dance. Center Stage is lensed by Nicholas Hytner (The Madness of King George), whose Tony Award-winning stage instincts (he was the original director for Miss Saigon) at least knew enough to have everybody shut up occasionally and show off their anti-gravity capabilities. Throughout the story we get tantalizing glimpses into class and rehearsal, leading up to a finale that almost too-late lets motion have reign over melodrama.
Because it’s got dance and a little sex, Center Stage will undoubtedly appeal to young girls; Kulik is known as – no kidding -- “The Leonardo DiCaprio of Figure Skating,” so, come on, you know they’ll be pirouetting across the parking lot on the way out. But adults will likely be moved both never to let a daughter move away to attend ballet academy, and to seek a more watchable dance vehicle such as the recently released video of Tango, a sultry, captivating Brazilian film scored by near-legendary “Mission: Impossible” composer Lalo Schifrin. C
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