Dance Movie Features New York Stars - Brief Article

Dance Magazine, Nov, 1999

With Ethan Stiefel, San Francisco Ballet's Amanda Schull, Julie Kent, Sasha Radetsky, Gillian Murphy, and many other dancers from American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet, Columbia Pictures' new dance film has an array of talent not seen on the big screen since The Turning Point (1977) or Fame (1980). At press time, lacking a proper title, the film, which is directed by Nicholas Hytner, was simply being called "The Dance Movie." Susan Stroman and Christopher Wheeldon have choreographed for the project, and excerpts from Balanchine's Stars and Stripes and Theme and Variations, a pas de deux from Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet, and sections of Swan Lake have been filmed. The movie, which also features Peter Gallagher and Donna Murphy, will be released in the spring.

Written by Carol Hekkinen, Wendy Wasserstein, and Susannah Grant, the story concerns ballet students, the training and discipline needed to pursue a career in the professional dance world, and the difficulties in looking for love while pursuing a career in a highly competitive profession. Starring is Honolulu-born Schull, 21, who was granted a leave of absence from San Francisco Ballet for the project.

Filmed entirely in New York City, with locations at the New York State Theater, the Juilliard School, and on a local soundstage, the movie reveals aspects of dancers' lives rarely seen outside the business. On one steamy August afternoon, the cast and crew were crammed into the Paul Taylor studios to shoot a Broadway dance class scene. As rock music pounded, the dancers repeated a series of grands jetes over and over, with jazz dancers giving acrobatic versions, and Stiefel and Schull in classical positions. At one point Stiefel had to repeat the take because he had leapt so high he was out of the camera's frame.

Stroman's work mainly involved a scene where ballet dancers, out on the town, incorporate classical steps while dancing with a salsa group, and a ten-minute ballet (supposedly composed by Stiefel's character, Cooper, a young dancer and choreographer) featuring NYCB and ABT dancers. Wheeldon has choreographed a sweeping romantic ballet to Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2.

Other dancers in the film are Julio Agustin, Jim Borstelmann, Liam Burke, Chris Davis, Nina Goldman, Shannon Hammonds, Jack Hayes, Sean Hingston, Joanne Hunter, Violetta Klimczewka, Keri Lee, Stephanie Michels, Lisa Nafegar, Michael O'Donnel, Angela Piccini, Mimi Quillan, Scott Taylor, Endalyn Taylor, Rocker Verastique, Robert Wersinger, Warren Carlyle, and Priscilla Lopez.