The Rise of the Dance Movie

07 August 2008

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No matter how many dance movies make it onto the big screen they still do well at the box office as fans flock to see them time after time making the dance movie a successful genre of it's own.

While Step Up, Save the Last Dance and How She Move have all hit cinema screens in recent years but this genre found success in the mid fifties as Gene Kelly and Ginger Rogers brought a more refined style of dance to cinema audiences.

However it was the seventies and eighties where this genre really took off and found an audience kicking off with John Travolta's thrusting hips in Saturday Night Fever.

The 1977 launched the career of the young actor and clubs were ringing to the sound of Stayin' Alive as hordes of fans tried to reproduce Travolta's now classic look and moves.

Flashdance and Footloose followed in the early part of the eighties both going on to do well, in terms of gross, at the box office.

Despite this success of these films it was 1987's Dirty Dancing that became the template for so many movies that followed.

Set in the summer of 1963 the film follows baby, played by Jennifer Grey, as she crosses from a teenager to a young woman, both emotionally and physically, through a relationship with a dance instructor.

The film is one of the most popular pictures in this genre and lines like 'No one puts Baby in a corner' are as popular now as they were when it was first released. It became a massive box office hit spawning two hit albums and, more recently, a stage show.

Over the last few years the dance movie has enjoyed a resurgence at the box office, and leading the pack has been the unexpected hit from Disney High School Musical.

The soon to be three movie franchise has launched the careers of it's cast, especially leading man Zac Efron, and has become the 21st Century Grease.

Movies of the past may have been all about umbrella twirling and disco dancing but today these movies have taken on a new for of dance - that of the street and the crew.

Movies such as Step Up, Step Up 2: The Streets and How She Move have all shown off the art of street dancing to a an up-to-date soundtrack that has proved popular with cinema audiences.

And this Make It Happen joins the ranks of the movies that have gone before it. Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead the film follows a young woman who goes to Chicago in search of her dancing dream however she must discover herself first before she can realise her full potential.

Make It Happen is released 8th August

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw

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