Dance with Me
USA 1998
Reviewed by Kay Dickinson
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Santiago, Cuba, the present. After his mother's death Rafael takes up a job offer from John, one of his mother's old friends, as a handy-man in John's friendly, ramshackle dance studio in Texas. Here he meets Ruby, a professional dancer who has a son by her arrogant former dance partner Julian. Ruby and Rafael gradually build a relationship, Rafael slowly coaxing from Ruby a warmth and naturalness lacking in her emotional life and her choreography. Rafael's temperament also benefits the studio's other dancers, one of whom he agrees to partner in a Las Vegas dance competition they have all been working towards.
In a last-ditch attempt to provide her son with a father and to further her dance career, Ruby teams up with Julian again for the contest. While the dance school's competitors enjoy performing in Las Vegas and even carry off a few trophies, Ruby finds her and Julian's eventual victory hollow. She declines a job offer in Chicago to return to John's studio, which is transformed under her and Rafael's influence. John finally admits that he is Rafael's mysterious absentee father.
Review
By now the word 'salsa' is as likely to conjure images of a night on the town with a gaggle of British librarians as it is to make us think of ballroom dancing's glitzy pizazz. Dance with Me hawks the 'see the movie, buy the soundtrack, learn the steps' experience of this burgeoning middle-class craze. The spangled campness of its most obvious precedent, Strictly Ballroom, is replaced by a sweet earnestness that caters particularly for Latin-dance neophytes.
The film's coy romantic protagonists - US-born Ruby and Cuban Rafael - with their reticent approach to sex, make for a tale of dancing far from dirty, though surface salaciousness is not altogether banished. The camera lingers on Ruby's legs and, in an egalitarian spirit, delectably frames Rafael's naked torso in a mirror, but these characters are too self-evidently nice to provoke any truly naughty thoughts. This is where the movie's charm lies: it recognises that the pleasures of dance are communal rather than sexual. Regardless of a faint attempt to construct a nuclear-family-centred happy-ever-after, the supportive surrogate community which the dance studio provides for its clients is Dance with Me's real joy. The other community Rafael leaves behind in Cuba is embodied by the colourful dancing extras in his scruffy local courtyard bar which the studio begins to resemble faintly once Rafael tarts it up for a party with an abundance of fairy lights and holiday decorations. The political reasons for emigration from Cuba are casually softpedalled. There is no acknowledgement of how salsa's growth in popularity is linked to the US blockade that bans both Cuban music and cigars. The blockade stimulated the formation of US-based salsa bands to meet local Hispanic demand, and from there salsa caught on with non-Hispanic consumers.
The narrative pivot of a relationship between a Cuban and an American brings to mind director Randa Haines' earlier feature Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, though Dance with Me's own Cuban iconography - all dominoes and burritos - is markedly more clichéd. As with Strictly Ballroom, the championing of the maverick over the conventional is played out through a plea for 'instinctive' style, an elusive characteristic which both films firmly root in Hispanic culture. Rafael's supposedly intuitive approach - "the music tells me how to dance," he says, and later: "I'm Cuban, of course I know how to dance" - weaves itself into a 'natural-rhythm' stereotype, which is, thankfully, more risible than blatantly offensive.
However, these weak narrative themes - in the best Busby Berkeley tradition - are merely the humble supports holding the spotlight on the film's true star: its choreography. Exquisitely rendered, this is of such high quality you forgive and forget Dance with Me's obvious conservatism. Neither leering, nor queasily vertiginous, the lengthy dance sequences strive for a clarity rare in recent dance films. Unlike the disruptive approach of, say, Flashdance, giddy thrills are induced not through editing, but through longer takes which capture the dancers' gyrations. Dance with Me may insensitively step on a few toes, but its footwork is otherwise exhilarating.
Credits
- Producers
- Lauren C. Weissman
- Shinya Egawa
- Randa Haines
- Screenplay
- Daryl Matthews
- Director of Photography
- Fred Murphy
- Editor
- Lisa Fruchtman
- Production Designer
- Waldemar Kalinowski
- Music
- Michael Convertino
- ©Mandalay Entertainment
- Production Companies
- Mandalay Entertainment presents
- a Weissman/Egawa production
- Executive Producer
- Ted Zachary
- Associate Producers
- Aldric La'auli Porter
- Allan Wertheim
- Production Supervisor
- Houston:
- Howard Griffith
- Production Co-ordinator
- Yvonne Yaconelli
- Unit Production Manager
- Allan Wertheim
- Location Managers
- Jonathan Slator
- Houston:
- Virginia Diaz
- Post-production Supervisor
- Michael J. Harker
- Assistant Directors
- Aldric La'auli Porter
- William M. Connor
- David Hyman
- Script Supervisor
- Leslie Park
- Casting
- Lora Kennedy
- Additional:
- Yvonne Casas
- Heidi Levitt
- Dance:
- Carolyn Dyer
- ADR Voice:
- Barbara Harris
- Camera Operators
- Frank Perl
- John Nuler
- Steadicam Operator
- John Nuler
- Special Effects Supervisor
- Stan Parks
- Additional Editing
- Fabienne Rawley
- William Scharf
- Associate Editor
- Marta Evry
- Art Director
- Barry M. Kingston
- Set Decorator
- Florence Fellman
- Costume Designer
- Joe I. Tompkins
- Costume Supervisor
- Kimberly Guenther
- Key Make-up Artist
- Rick Sharp
- Key Hairstylist
- K.G. Ramsey
- Titles
- Pablo Ferro
- Main Titles Compositors
- Title House
- Main Titles Digital Effects
- John Allison
- Conductor
- Artie Kane
- Orchestrations
- Bobby Muzingo
- Associate Music Supervisors
- Tami Lester
- Marylou Eames
- Executive Music Producers
- Joel Sill
- Budd Carr
- Supervising Music Editor
- Daryl Kell
- Production Music Editor
- Carl Zittrer
- Supervising Music Engineer
- Robert Schaper
- Recordist/Mixers
- David Marquette
- Shawn Murphy
- Cuban Music Consultant
- Alan Geik
- Soundtrack
- "Arrolla cubano" by Ignacio Piñeiro, performed by Septeto Nacional; "Pregón santiaguero" by Lino Rengifo Isaac, performed by Cuarteto Patria; "Me gusta pero no puede ser" by César Pedroso, performed by Xiomara Laugart, César Pedroso; "Adios Santiago" by José 'Perrico' Hernández; "Teach Me Tonight" by Sammy Cahn, Gene De Paul, performed by Diana Krall; "If I Don't Dance" by/performed by Kelley Hunt; "Jibaro" by Léon Marín Vélez 'Nelson', Javier Marín Vélez 'Elkin', performed by Electra; "Esa triste guitarra" by Manuel Alejandro, Ana Magdalena, performed by Emmanuel; "Ritmo de bom bom" by Michele Violante, performed by Jubaba; "Dream Baby" by Cindy Walker, performed by Roy Orbison; "Let's Get Lost" by Frank Loesser, Jimmy McHugh, performed by Chet Baker; "Baby Workout" by Jackie Wilson, Alonzo Tucker, performed by Jackie Wilson; "España cani (embodied in Paso doble #3)" by Pascual Marquina, Mariano Marquina, performed by Columbia Ballroom Orchestra; "Mama kiyelele" by Ricardo Lemvo, performed by Makina Loca; "La receta" by Raul Ramos, performed by Johnny Polanco y Su Conjunto Amistad; "Atrevete (No puedes conmigo)" by Manny Benito, Sergio George, performed by DLG (Dark Latin Groove); "Tres deseos (Three Wishes)" 12" Remix" by Kike Santander, performed by Gloria Estefan; "Descarga cachao" by Israel López 'Cachao', performed by Cachao; "Patria" by/performed by Rubén Blades; "La bilirrubina" by/performed by Juan Luis Guerra; "Romántica mujer" by Israel López 'Cachao', Juanito Márquez, performed by Cachao; "Fiesta pa'los rumberos" by Emilio Estefan Jr, Robert Blades, performed by Albita; "Los tres golpes/The Three Beats" arranged by Israel López 'Cachao', performed by Cachao; "You Really Had Me Going" by Holly Dunn, Tom Shapiro, Chris Waters, performed by Holly Dunn; "Dream Dancing" by Cole Porter, performed by Jess Harnell; "Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)" by Louis Prima; "Bailtango" by Daniel Indart, performed by Pepe Mota Quartet; "Boy from New York City" by John Taylor, George Davis, performed by The Manhattan Transfer; "Sway" by Pablo Beltran Ruiz, Norman Gimbel,
- performed by Dean Martin; "Why Don't You Do Right" by Joe McCoy, performed by Sinéad O'Connor; "Want You, Miss You, Love You" by Rob Mathes, performed by Jon Secada; "Miranda's Smile" by Ramón 'Bebo' Valdés, performed by Paquito D'Rivera; "Magalenha" by Carlinhos Brown, performed by Sergio Mendes; "Jazz Machine" by M. Percali, P. Landro, performed by Black Machine; "Echa pa'lante - Cha Cha Mix" by Emilio Estefan Jr, Robert Blades, Pablo Flores, Javier Garza, performed by Thalia; "Spanish Gypsy Dance (España cani)" by Pascual Marquina, Mariano Marquina, performed by Gipsy Kings; "Eres todo en mi (You're My Everything)" by Jean-Manuel de Scarano, Raymond Donnez, Leroy Gomes, performed by Ana Gabriel; "A Deeper Love" by David Cole, Robert Clivilles, performed by Aretha Franklin; "Lindo yambu" by Ignacio Piñeiro, performed by Cachao; "You Are My Home (Salsa)" by Diane Warren, performed by Vanessa L. Williams and Chayanne with Johnny Polanco y Su Conjunto Amistad; "Heaven's What I Feel" by Kike Santander, performed by Gloria Estefan; "You Are My Home" by Diane Warren, performed by Vanessa L. Williams and Chayanne
- Choreography
- Daryl Matthews
- Liz Curtis
- Choreography Co-ordinators
- Ty Donaldson
- Danika S. Kohler
- Dance Coaches
- Jose Mesa Benjamin
- Marylynn Benitez
- Cate Caplin
- Rudy Gonzalez
- Fred James
- Jaclyn Kuka
- Natalie Mavor
- Anne Noelle
- Murray Phillips
- Chantal Sagouspe
- Thomas A. Slater
- Albert Torres
- Steve Vasco
- Kristen Young
- Sound Mixer
- David Ronne
- Re-recording Mixers
- Mark Berger
- David Parker
- Michael Semanick
- Supervising Sound Editor
- John Nutt
- Dialogue Editors
- Richard Quinn
- David Franklin Bergad
- Mark Levinson
- Sound Effects Designer
- Kyrsten Mate Comoglio
- ADR
- Mixers:
- Greg Steele
- Charlene Richards
- Foley
- Artists:
- Margie O'Malley
- Marnie Moore
- Jennifer Myers
- Editor:
- Marilyn Zalkan
- Location Consultant
- Cuba:
- Alberto del Toro
- Cast
- Vanessa L. Williams
- Ruby Sinclair
- Chayanne
- Rafael Infante
- Kris Kristofferson
- John Burnett
- Jane Krakowski
- Patricia
- Beth Grant
- Lovejoy
- Harry Groener
- Michael
- William Marquez
- Stefano
- Scott Paetty
- Steve
- Joan Plowright
- Bea Johnson
- Rick Valenzuela
- Julian
- Chaz Oswill
- Peter
- Liz Curtis
- Kim
- Bill Applebaum
- Don Harrington
- Angelo Pagan
- Cuban mailman
- Victor Marcel
- Fernando
- Ana Sofia Pomales
- Fernando's daughter
- Nelson Marquez
- fiancé
- Mike Gomez
- bartender
- Charles Venturi
- waiter
- Maurice Schwartzman
- man in dance club
- Janette Valenzuela
- woman in dance club
- Jim Mapp
- fisherman on pier
- Robert Pike Daniel
- emcee
- Tony Meredith
- Jean Marc Genereux
- James Kunitz
- Giacomo Steccaglia
- Eric Thomas Robinson
- Melanie Lapatin
- France Mousseau
- Janna Kunitz
- Melissa Dexter
- Maria Torres O'Connor
- professional Latin finalist dancers
- Thomas A. Slater
- Carol Bentley
- Theater Arts dancers
- Jose Mesa Benjamin
- Harry Bowens
- Juan Carlos Cienfuegos
- Leila Flores
- Alicia Gomez
- Raul Gomez
- Monica Gonzalez
- Rudy Gonzalez
- Ana Hernandez
- Joel Hernandez
- Erika Landin
- Alyra Lennox
- Rojelio Moreno
- Anne Noelle
- Piper Orr
- Jacqueline Rios
- Chantal Sagouspe
- Marissa Soratorio
- Albert Torres
- Francisco Vazquez
- Joby Vazquez
- Luis Vazquez
- Roberto Villacorta
- Salsa Club dancers
- Certificate
- PG
- Distributor
- Entertainment Film Distributors Ltd
- 11,367 feet
- 126 minutes 18 seconds
- SDDS/Dolby digital
- Colour/Prints by
- CFI