Five Dances

All dance pays homage to Eros. There are other gods it may invoke. But no art is as carnal as dance. Its meanings, no matter how abstract, must be incarnate. And they must be musical,at the very least rhythmic, responsive to the human pulse, just as the measures of poetry are.Five Dances is an original, innovative, beautiful, and above all lyric film. At its heart is its invocation to love through the body's movement, if by 'love' is meant many things in addition to the sexual: for example, the carefulness of touch, the suggestions of glance, the movements of arms and legs, and so on, in response to others' movements and touches and looks. It is lyric because as much of the story is told through those movements, through dance, as by words. In fact, the fundamental narrative of the film is in its choreography. I don't mean just the five dances isolated by the number titles, but throughout the movie as the choreography is tested, rehearsed, changed, prepared for performance.It is therefore a mistake to separate the "plot" of the film from the dance. Rather, they weave in and out of one another, as the dancers do so often in their dancing. How the dancers dance is affected by what has just happened or is about to happen in their lives. Their lives are part of the continuity of the dance. In the dance numbered three, for example, Chip is most isolated; he dances his solo. In the one numbered five, Chip and Theo dance together and how they dance is now transformed by their having been together in other ways shortly before.This way of living in and through dance is true for all four dancers, five if one counts the choreographer Anthony who is also part of his piece. The movie shows not only the dances, of course, but all the other dancers watching one another. The mirrors found in any dance studio play an obviously important part in this seeing. The dancers see each other but also themselves. This is perhaps most poignantly visualized at the movie's end when Chip and Theo happily, almost giddily dance for each other and for the mirror, seeing each other and being seen in a sense as the other sees him. At this moment, they are dancing freely, with no choreography, yet the fullest expression of their new love for one another might be found in this rhapsodic bodily freedom.The glimpses one sees in the movie of its dancers' lives are what their dancing expresses in other ways. Look, for instance, how Theo and Chip lean back to back, as they have done several times previously, at the last realization of this passage in the piece. But now the stance, the pressure, differ. It is expressive in a new way. Or note, earlier, after Cynthia and Anthony have had sex the previous night, how their bodies change. It is not just her little mistake. It is as much a matter of posture, of how the body is carried. It is full of erotic expression, even in its failures, its errors, its disappointments.Chip has a funny voice, a little man who talks when his mouth is closed. At one point, he pretends to have swallowed him. The voice is incorporated into him. What one eats and drinks matters a lot, though it would appear superficially almost insignificant and off hand. Twice Chip lays out a place on a counter top with spoon, knife, and fork. One thinks of that gesture as an expression of a longing for a place at the table, which his whole life has lacked. After he and Theo have been together, have become boyfriends, he celebrates with what looks very much like votive candles and a bottle of wine. Life in this movie, in these superficially small ways, is ritualized.This is, of course, how dance transfigures the body. It makes it part of a rite of sorts, of art. Love is similar in the way it turns the carnal into the sublime. Such transformation is what any form of lyricism aspires to. The movie takes place in winter, after Christmas. Cynthia brings in her and her husband's Christmas tree lights. They appear in the movie, wrapped around the dancers' bodies at night, in the darkened studio. Once Chip is seen alone, his own body so lit. In a way, this might be seen as a figure for how dance works in this film (and outside of it, too). It is that illuminated body in a darkened room.Chip begins alone, unsmiling, more than a bit diffident. He has no place to live. What the film stresses over and over, even while Chip, say, is dancing his solo, is how dance is itself always communal, the body never just the body alone. Chip's discovery of happiness toward the film's end, therefore, is not just his alone either. It is part of the dance. It enters into it, as the dance has entered into him, the abstract (for the dance itself is an abstract piece, not a narrative one) united with the deeply personal. It is an expression of the joy of no longer being alone.Most films about dance have let the story, the narrative predominate. In this way, they fail dancing. But in Five Dances the story, the bits and snippets of plot and character that we see of the five people in it, are inextricably woven into the dances themselves. This movie is not about life here and art over there. It is about their simultaneity. Save for a few documentaries, I think it is perhaps the best film ever made about dance. As seriously it is a stunningly touching film, generous and compassionate, about how through art one comes to love and, perhaps for a while, perhaps for longer than a while, a human joy.

The dancing is stunning. The music for the dance sequences is wonderful. The five performers are all very personable. But the 'characters' and the 'story' are about as compelling as a blank sheet of paper. What you get is basically 5 days in a rehersal studio while 5 dancers prepare for a performance. Two of the young men find young lust/love in the duet the choreography gives them. It's sweet and lite like bottled green tea, a real contrast with the very muscular intense choreography/dancing. Without the dancing, the 5 days would have passed nearly without incidence, passing time with the idle activity of ordinary life. Even the young lust/love would have been ordinary without the dancing. Since this movie is essentially about dancing, it's too bad that the movie didn't follow on from the promise of the rehersals to a finale of its performance on stage. That, in a sense, was the promise of the story. It was all about the eventuality of the actual performance of the dance. THAT was what the 5 dancers were ostensibly working their asses off for: to perform the dance for an audience. THAT should have been the blow-out ending of the movie. Instead, what we got was two cute boys doing a 'cute' little duet of cute gay romantic fiddling around. Fine wine served with twinkies. It trivialized all the extraordinary dancing we were given before.With regards the dancing, there is one major aspect of the story that is too incredulous to be believed. (Although the dancing itself is so potent that this 'problem' escapes notice at first.) The Chip character is supposed to be 18 yrs. old, and is supposed to come from an extremely unsupportive family in Nebraska, one which obviously did NOT send him to dance class as a child, which DID send him to a military school where I have no doubt 'modern dance' was NOT an elective subject. Where then did Chip acquire the astondingly prodigious dance technique that Ryan Steele so obviously has? Technique is not an aspect of natural talent. No untrained 18 year old from Nebraska could, by any stretch of the imagination, dance like Ryan Steele can. With the dancing itself there is no need to suspend disbelief. The dancing is real. It was only after the dancing was over that I found myself considering the film as a 'movie', and disbelief came crashing in, and the movie broke down along all of its then obvious fault lines. It's too bad the director/writer had to clutter up the dancing with such a trivial over worked gay story line.I'm surprised that no other reviewer thought about BILLY ELLIOT as comparison with this film. In a sense, the main character Chip is a kind of an American Billy Elliot, but he lacked Elliot's fierce drive, his fire. That is what the film lacks; fierce drive and fire. Cute and sweet are poor substitutes. That the film 'goes nowhere' must, in the end, be seen as a commentary on the characters and their story. Fortunately that does not infect the fantastic dancing. See it for the dancing and forget the rest.If I could rate just the dancing, I would give it an enthusiastic 5 stars. But I can only give the movie a generous 3 stars at best.

Five Dances is the beautiful story of a naive but very gifted 18-year-old dancer named Chip. He came to New York from his troubled home in Kansas for a summer dance workshop and managed to stay on into the new year, when the story takes place.The movie begins as he joins four older dancers (two each, male and female) rehearsing for an upcoming performance. He slowly gets past his social awkwardness and begins to develop relationships with the others - especially with Katie, who becomes like an older sister to him, and later with Theo.His opening up is the key theme of the movie, which takes place almost entirely in the studio as the dancers rehearse. It has no other cast but the five dancers. (All of them are professional dancers, not actors, but they do both jobs brilliantly in this movie.)The movie itself is like a dance, gracefully and deliberately paced and choreographed, the characters weaving in and out of each other's lives as they do in the dance they're rehearsing. Anyone who hates classical modern dance, or who hates slow character development with very little irrelevant action or drama, will not enjoy this movie.However, it does not require any particular knowledge of or interest in dance. Indifference to dance should not be a handicap, but the viewer must be able to watch dancers without irritation.And it definitely is a gay movie. It's a sort of coming-out story - really more an opening-out story, because Chip is coming out of his shell as a person even more than as a gay man. It's also a sexy and tender and gratifying love story.Although it has those conventional gay-movie elements, the grace and discipline of dance permeate everything and make this an entirely original and unique - and unusually beautiful - gay movie. Alan Brown's earlier movie  Private Romeo  (also highly original) was my favorite gay movie for a long time, but Five Dances is even better. Private Romeo

Whereas Julian Hernandez's 'I Am Happiness on Earth' uses dance more as backdrop to a story here it is essential and impressively composed within the drama of the narrative so that the five original musical dance pieces become inseparable from the story without spoiling the drama. The story concerns rookie dancer Chip's (Ryan Steele's) joining his first professional dance group away from his clinging mother and charts his progress as a dancer along with a first love affair with a group mate. Steele is impressive in his big screen debut. In fact all the cast register strongly. The sex is tasteful and the acting open and honest. The soundtrack and dance sequences are both out of the top draw. I felt as if there was something missing but I can't put my finger on it so maybe it's just me. Anyway, I recommend Alan Brown's 'Five Dances' as an interesting, tender gay love story worth owning.

Almost documentary look into the world of dancing. In the spotlight is a very talented 18 year old, inexperienced in life and in love, troubled with complex family relationship. Other 4 dancers/actors have their own little dramas that are also very interesting. Film has a slow build up, not much dialogue and, of course, a lot of dancing. It is a beautiful ode to one of the most difficult job/sport there is, and cleverly directed with five dances that are the spine of the story.For me movie really shines when it is dealing with an electric romance/dance between two leading male actors. The love making scene is poetic, very engaging choreography. And after small amount of misunderstanding and insecurities, we are rewarded with a happy ending.

To be able to enjoy this film I think you should like ballet, in this case contemporary expressive dancing, as dancing dominates the film. The pace is quite slow, the music lovely and the dancing very easy to appreciate. Ryan Steele (Chip) is no doubt a very talented dancer and quite a good actor, too.At the beginning of the film Chip is very quiet, shy and not very social. But he changes in many ways when he falls in love with his male dancing-partner Theo. This transition is beautifully and emotionally depicted It is a memorable and emotional film to watch again and again. I highly recommend it.Finally I would like to recommend "Private Romeo" which is absolutely fantastic. It is also a film directed by Alan Brown.

A simple film simply told. No clever dialogue, no glittery sets or costumes. Very far from "very pretentious" as on reviewer called it. A film with lots of heart and charm from a small cast, who're obviously professional dancers, but one can totally believe in. The male leads are sensitively portrayed and I couldn't help but hope for a happy outcome. An additional plus is the fact that camera concentrates on the male dancers and not the female ones, which is very unusual when mixed dance sequences are normally filmed. If your idea of a gay film is something like the ' Eating out' series then maybe this not for you. But if you want a film where you care and relate to the characters then buy this!