When I was doing my reviews leading up to the Oscars I thought about watching CENTER STAGE, the ballet movie that was the big screen debut of Zoe Saldaña, who ended up winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for EMILIA PÉREZ (where she also danced). But I decided not to rush it because I knew myself and that I would end up wanting to watch both of its straight-to-cable sequels. Now I have done that and I present to you my review of the entire CENTER STAGE trilogy.

CENTER STAGE (2000)
Directed by Nicholas Hytner (THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE)
Written by Carol Heikkinen (EMPIRE RECORDS)
Choreographer: Susan Stroman (Director/choreographer of THE PRODUCERS [2005])

The first CENTER STAGE picture introduces us to the American Ballet Academy, an elite (fictional) New York City ballet school run by revered stick-up-his-ass choreographer/director Jonathan Reeves (Peter Gallagher, SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE), who turns each year into a cutthroat competition between the students. Their education culminates in their performances in workshops that will help the faculty decide which three boys and three girls will be invited to join Jonathan’s very prestigious American Ballet Company. From the speech he gives on day one it kind of sounds like this school will be the golden ticket to dance stardom for a handful of students, and a miserable, torturous waste of time, energy and money for everybody else. Most of them. Almost all of them. And they should all be ashamed of themselves. Okay, good talk!

The movie is an ensemble, but I’d say the protagonist is Jody Sawyer (Amanda Schull, I AM WRATH), small town underdog who’s intimidated by her much more skilled roommate Maureen (Susan May Pratt, THE SUBSTITUTE 2: SCHOOL’S OUT) but welcomed by her smartass don’t-give-a-fuck roommate Eva (Saldaña). Jody is looked down upon by many and then causes jealousy when celebrity dancer Cooper Nielson (Ethan Stiefel), who’s choreographing a workshop at the school, shows interest in her. The actor is only five years older than Jody, but he’s instructing the students, and treated as something of a peer to Jonathan (who stole his girlfriend Kathleen [Julie Kent] and married her), so it’s crazy that he dates and has sex with (then ghosts) Jody, but is not treated as an all-out villain. Mostly just a bad boyfriend. I don’t think you’d see that today.

Poor Jody gets put in a terrible situation because Cooper chooses her as the lead in his edgy rock ballet, so she doesn’t know if he just chose her because she had sex with him, and does know that other people think that. Plus the ballet is a thinly veiled fantasy about being wronged by his ex. And it gets worse. The Jonathan character is played by Charlie (Sascha Radetsky), who has a crush on Jody, and Cooper is Erik (Shakiem Evans, Tito Jackson Age 10-14, The Jacksons: An American Dream), her gay friend. But Erik gets injured so Cooper takes over the role of himself, dancing sexily with Jody as Kathleen. The dude has problems.

Stiefel is a real ballet star from the school and company the movie is inspired by, and they worked his real life love of motorcycles into his character, having him drive one out onto stage during the performance. Jody’s hook up with him happens because she runs into him when she gets too stressed by school to enjoy dancing and seeks out a modern dance class that’s not so stuffy. He’s so cool that the instructor (Broadway star Priscilla Lopez) treats him as an old friend and celebrity guest.

The instructor tells them “Just forget about the steps, just dance the shit out of it!” and the energy is conveyed filmatistically by emphasizing the sounds of their feet hitting the floor, their clapping, chattering and raucous laughter as everyone is enjoying themselves. There’s a documentary feel to the shots of the dancers on the side watching with huge smiles as we observe them from across the room, people and limbs flashing past in the foreground. I love this scene because as I’m watching part of me is amused by the corniness of acting like taking a class dancing to the Red Hot Chili Peppers version of “Higher Ground” is the greatest feeling they’ve ever had in their lives, and part of me is unable to deny how effective it is. That’s the magic of this whole dance movie genre encapsulated right there.

Maureen is kind of a cool character because she seems to be the snob but turns out to mostly be nice and have her own problems (including bulimia). She becomes happier when she dates a dude who is supportive but doesn’t really care if she’s good at dancing or not (even though she is).

Jonathan and Cooper have a rivalry not only over Kathleen but over traditional ballet vs. the type where you drive a motorcycle onto the stage and dance the shit out of it or whatever. In the end Cooper gets funding to start his own more envelope-pushing dance company and invites Jody to be the principle dancer. When she goes in to be told whether or not she got accepted into the ABC she tells Jonathan not to even tell her, because she’s taking another offer. So she might’ve achieved what she set out to but she found her own path anyway. Fortunately she also has the wisdom to rebuff Cooper’s attempt to get back together with her. (Maybe not that smart to work with him, but she’s a grown woman, it’s not my place to tell her that.)

The soundtrack had the single “I Wanna Be with You,” which was Mandy Moore’s highest charting song in the US. It also includes “Canned Heat” by Jamiroquai, but don’t complain because it’s way better than what they get on the sequels with clearly lower music budgets.

As far as I can tell this is the beginning of the 21st century style of dance film. It’s different from later ones in that it doesn’t have a “street” or b-boying element, and obviously it’s preceded by FLASHDANCE, BREAKIN’ and others. But it establishes a modern version of the form with an outsider underdog trying to make it in a highly competitive subculture, having a romance, trying to prove herself worthy of the tradition but also bring her own unique voice to it, etc.

It didn’t do very well in theaters, but I would guess it sold many DVDs. Or maybe a sequel just seemed like a good idea after similar movies SAVE THE LAST DANCE (2001), YOU GOT SERVED (2004) and STEP UP (2006) were hugely successful. When they did get around to a followup it came out about nine months after STEP UP 2 THE STREETS, with a poster and star more reminiscent of that series than of CENTER STAGE. It was only released in theaters in Australia, though – here it went straight to the Oxygen channel.

CENTER STAGE: TURN IT UP (2008)
Directed by Steven Jacobson (second unit director of DREAMGIRLS)
Written by Karen Bloch Morse (ICE CASTLES)
Choreographer: Aakomon ‘AJ’ Jones (COLLATERAL, GET ON UP, BLACK PANTHER)
Ballet choreographer: Odessa Munroe (Played Heather, the camp counselor Jason kills in a dream at the beginning of FREDDY VS. JASON!)

The first sequel is about Kate Parker (Rachele Brooke Smith, BRING IT ON: FIGHT TO THE FINISH), who packs up to leave her unhappy life in Detroit and heads to New York City (just like I pictured it, skyscrapers and everything) to follow her dream of attending the ABA. She impresses them in the audition even though she’s forced to admit she has no schooling, just taught herself by studying videos. (We see her watching instructional DVDs by Gillian Murphy, who in real life was Ethan Stiefel’s girlfriend, now wife.)

Jonathan still runs the school, and Cooper’s company ran out of funding so he came back to work as an instructor, but they still have clashing philosophies. Cooper fights for Kate because she “has something,” but Jonathan picks Suzanne Von Stroh (Sarah Jayne Jensen, HAIRSPRAY, ACROSS THE UNIVERSE), a pretty blond girl from a wealthy ballet-supporting family.

Kate chooses homelessness over going back to Michigan with her tail between her legs. Still hanging around the school she runs into Tommy Anderson (Kenny Wormald, later the lead in Craig Brewer’s FOOTLOOSE remake), who at first assumes she’s a fellow student. He drops some flyers for his friend’s club The Foundry and then gives her some “nah, it’s not for you, you wouldn’t be interested” type talk.

I wish that meant it’s a freaky S&M place, but I assumed it meant it’s a rowdy dance battle hub like we see in the aforemented STEP UP 2 THE STREETS. Maybe that’s the idea (in fact the credits say Harry Shum Jr. is one of the club dancers, so he’s in both) but on this budget it’s just a mellow bar with a small dance floor. She stops by and says hi to Tommy, then requests a song from the DJ and does a routine that involves flipping over a railing, getting everyone in the club cheering for her. The owner, Sal (Christopher Russell, LAND OF THE DEAD, Reacher’s brother Joe in Reacher Season 1) is so impressed he hires her. As a waitress. But he lets her sleep in the office.

I think this is a clever premise for a CENTER STAGE sequel: Kate doesn’t actually achieve her dream of going to the ABA, but Tommy does, and feels she has an energy that’s missing in his dancing, so she tutors him at the bar to help him keep up with his dance partner, Suzanne, the one who got her spot. Kate and Tommy’s sexy dancing turns into actual sex and love that is thwarted when Kate sees and misinterprets Suzanne also making moves on him.

Part of how they get back together is that Kate has been pretending in letters to her younger sister Bella (Nicole Muñoz, PATHFINDER), also an aspiring dancer, that everything is fine and she’s going to the school as planned. So Bella shows up unannounced and Tommy covers for his ex. The dancing and the romance intersect in the climax where all the characters audition for a Cinderella ballet and though Tommy as the prince is supposed to dance with Suzanne he instead goes to Kate, giving her a window to impress everybody.

There’s a missed opportunity for laughs in that they never call her “street” or make her clothes too ridiculous. I forget if she ever wears a hat sideways or anything like that. There is a little part where she joins some dancers on a sidewalk and I think maybe they didn’t want to pay for a song so they’re just doing a chant instead of blasting a boombox.

There are two character choices in this I got a kick out of. One is that Suzanne mostly seems not that bad, she’s privileged and wants the same boy as Kate but generally she seems well-intentioned, which is an interesting way to do it. But then there’s one scene where she’s a straight up bitch – she goes to the Foundry to taunt Kate about not getting into the school and being a waitress! I guess they wanted to give us a reason to hate her, but it’s funny to me that she seems to only be horrible on rare occasions. (At the end she has a nice “You’re alright Larusso” moment.)

The funniest touch, though, is how they bring back Cooper. At first he seems like he’s grown up in eight years. But when Tommy convinces him to come see Kate dance at the club the ol’ perv goes over and forbidden dances with her, then tries to bring her to his apartment on his motorcycle! He’s supposed to be potentially recruiting her as a student and this time there’s a 14 year age difference, but he’s definitely trying to fuck her. Fortunately she decides against it.

This one lacks the authenticity of the first CENTER STAGE, and isn’t nearly as good as STEP UP 2, but it has a bit of the appeal of both, and I enjoyed it.

CENTER STAGE: ON POINTE (2016)
Directed by Director X (the SUPERFLY remake)
Written by Nisha Ganatra (CHUTNEY POPCORN)
Choreographer: Monica Proenca (A CHRISTMAS PROPOSAL)

Since the second CENTER STAGE just played on TV I’m not sure it matters how many people saw it, but once again they weren’t in a rush to make the next installment. In between CENTER STAGE parts 2 and 3 there were three more STEP UP sequels, two HONEY sequels, two STREETDANCE movies, and FOOTLOOSE and FAME remakes, among others. Then we returned to the story of the American Ballet Company, still run by Jonathan, but Cooper is leaving, so ticket sales are dying, and they’re about to lose their funding. Fortunately the stick has miraculously fallen out of Jonathan’s ass, and he tries a hail mary pass at proving the ABC can give people something more than traditional ballet. The plan is to recruit some modern dancers to mix in with ballet students for a six week course at a training facility out in the woods. As usual it’s a high pressure competition for only a few slots.

Part 2 lead Tommy and part 1 supporting player Charlie are now instructors at the school, and Tommy tries to call up Kate Parker, now super famous on Youtube and living in Paris. She can’t do it but suggests her sister Bella.

This is a pretty impressive turn of events because the character of Bella was established as an aspiring dancer like her sister, but I doubt they planned for that kid to grow up and become the lead in a sequel, and yet she’s totally capable of stepping into that role. I thought at first it had to be a recast but no, it’s the same actress, Nicole Muñoz. Fortunately since Cooper is only in a couple scenes and she’s mostly isolated out in the woods he never tries to pick her up on his motorcycle to go to his apartment. I was halfway expecting Tommy to romance her, but he maintains the ethical teacher-student boundary and fills the role of the cool teacher who encourages people to be loose and have fun.

Instead the romance is with her dreamy dance partner Damon (Barton Cowperthwaite, 2 episodes of Girls5eva), who helps her with her ballet and she helps him loosen up. This one is innovative in having a boy snob character, Ivan (Kyle Toy, a background dancer in part 2), and skinny/perfect blond rival named Allegra (Maude Green, CHRISTMAS LOST AND FOUND) who gets to be fully nice and become close to Bella after an act of kindness (Bella sees her showing up to class late, opens the locked door for her and distracts the teacher).

Some of the drama comes from Bella’s choice to hide that she’s Kate’s sister. Kate is so famous that even though she was rejected from this school two of the kids show up wearing the same Kate Parker t-shirt, they have posters of her in their cabins and they talk about looking for “the next Kate Parker.” Then when the secret gets out people get mad because it looks like favoritism or nepotism. (Jonathan did actually figure out who she was during her audition and tell her he made a mistake by not accepting her sister and didn’t want to repeat it. Sorry Suzanne, he regrets choosing you.)

The first student to be nice to Bella is Gwen, a bubbly 15-year-old dance prodigy who lets her sit by her on the bus and then becomes her roommate. The blu-ray treats this actress Chloé Lukasiak as a big celebrity, giving her an extra where she does a tutorial on the choreography of one of her routines. It turns out that’s because she had been on the reality show Dance Moms since she was nine years old. (Not as one of the moms, hopefully.) This movie started her acting career, and since then she’s done both dance movies and secular ones.

The meanest character is the ballet teacher Lorenza (Sarah-Jane Redmond, DISTURBING BEHAVIOR, HELLRAISER: HELLSEEKER, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT: DARK DAYS), whose glorious career was cut short by an injury and now she bullies students for vengeance, with a particular animus toward “moderns” like Bella. One cruelty is to yell at her for not following the dress code that was given to them after they already arrived with whatever clothes they packed. And when Lorenza finds out the secret of Kate’s famous sister she gets even worse, telling her how she’ll never be as good as her. This lady is the worst.

Oh yeah, when Ivan is acting out in class she hectors him until he tries a difficult jump and then distracts him and he injures himself! She should absolutely be fired but that guy was a jerk so it gets him out of the way and just serves as a reason for Bella to doubt herself more.

I thought it would be funny if they treated this like a karate movie and had them out in the woods balancing on logs and shit. They do at least have a class outside and throw leaves around. I think the best dance scene is when she gets Damon to come out of his shell and do an improvised dance, because Cowperthwaite is clearly a real ballet dancer and is able to do some crazy contortions. But the funniest dance scene is when two students get in a fight and Tommy breaks it up by playing a song on his phone and doing a dance between them.

The climax is pretty amusing too, when our three main characters spontaneously break the rules by turning their duet audition into an improvised threesome dance. Lorenza is outraged but helpless to stop them because their dancing is so powerfully innovative or whatever.

The first two CENTER STAGEs were rated PG-13, this one is downgraded to PG and went straight to Lifetime. It’s weird for Director X, a music video director who later did the very stylish SUPERFLY remake, to have done something that looks like generic TV, but I guess it’s how you gotta do it for that channel. And oh shit, I guess Dance Moms was a Lifetime show. This is all starting to make more sense.

* * *

It’s crazy that each of the CENTER STAGEs are made eight years apart, and it’s a real bummer that they didn’t make a new one last year. It could’ve been like the 7 UP series. Oh well. I wish they pulled a BOYHOOD and did more to date them so we can see how much time has passed, but I don’t think they set out to have that theme, and maybe didn’t want to draw attention to it. There are little things, like in the first one Eva is frequently smoking, and nobody lectures her, it was just normal that people were smokers then (and I wondered if that was a common ballet thing?). In the third one much attention is paid to people pulling out their phones to select a song to dance to.

Since the dancing here is more based in ballet than in breakdancing it’s not as appealing to me as your STEP UPs and your YOU GOT SERVEDs and what not, but it’s always kind of cool to see people who are highly skilled at moving their bodies, and especially the first one seems pretty dedicated to showing things that are specific to the experiences of people in that world. They have a camaraderie from going through this school together, they sometimes go out and have fun together, and there are certain scenes you see repeatedly (taping their toes up together, nervously checking the list on the wall to see who made it) that give you a glimpse of their lives. The first one has some body shaming within the school (the movie is against it) and the sequels are more people worrying their bodies are not the right type but proving that it’s okay.

This is a solid little trilogy of dance movies. I think they descend in quality, but they’re all pretty satisfying in a formulaic way. I like that they all feature Jonathan and Cooper and have other characters connecting them, but they always have a new underdog lead who’s a little different from the last one, so they don’t feel too repetitive.