Ballroom Dance Music - Swiss Ballroom Orchestra

Advantages: Perceptive, real, fascinating
Disadvantages: maybe follows too many groups at the start

...Mad Hot Ballroom is a feature-length documentary that follows the progress of the ballroom dancing program at several public schools and their acheivements at city-wide competition. The schools are in the more disadvantaged areas of the city: the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan (a disadvantaged bit), and Queens. The program began in 1994 and has grown to around 6000 kids in different schools. At first the film is quite difficult to follow, as it follows at least three groups of children and it's hard to keep track of who's in which school group. As the competition progresses to the later stages, the field is narrowed till it focuses on one school in the final, competing for the challenge cup. The film is fascinating on many levels - watching how one teacher and her class deal with losing a particular round is a real insight into... Read review

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Advantages: All in op.
Disadvantages: All in op.

...Camden's Electric Ballroom, plays host to all manner of events throughout the week, and an indoor market on a Sunday, but for the purposes of this review the main event is Friday night's Full Tilt club night. Best summarized as 'The Devil's Ibiza' Full Tilt is a great mixed 'alternative' night - two dance floors, the smaller upstairs room playing punk and metal based sounds, the main downstairs focusing more on the dirty electro side of things - EBM, 'industrial', segueing into electro, dance, and generally ending up somewhere in the full on gabba corner. The sets are also incredibly boring - when I was going regularly it felt as though the main floor DJ's had 'will change only one track each week' written into their contracts! However for an occasional night out, it's generaly good fun. The major attraction is less the music than... Read review

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Advantages: Classic fairy story set to the outrageous backdrop of ballroom dancing
Disadvantages: Cliched, trite, predictable.

...This perceptive and well-executed film still after nearly 15 years since its release comes over as one of the most original films I've ever watched. The storyline is nothing more than a re-working of a classic fairy tale of handsome princes and ugly frogs (or dance partners) and yet the magical retelling make this film the success it is. Scott Hastings is the ballroom dance prodigy who since being groomed to win the all important Pan-Pacific Grand Prix championship from the age of 6 looks like he could be throwing it all away by continuing to use un-registered and therefore illegal dance steps in his routine. His mother is shocked and dismayed that Scott could throw his chance of the title, his dance coach, Les Kendell is similarly gob smacked but most effected of all is Scott dance partner, who quits dancing with Scott and takes up... Read review

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