The cloyingly sincere Pirate dance crew of NYC enters the World Jam dance-off against the evil Samurais in a last ditch effort to save their beloved, ramshackle dance studio. If you had to come up with a dance crew concept—evil or otherwise—what would it be? Mine would be the Grind-Haus, a collective dedicated to choreographing with a deconstructive eye and a post-modern existential tone. After all the teams have “brought it,” Grind-Haus will break it down for the suckers. Will we be evil? Well, yes, probably so, to the people who care deeply or just purely enjoy dance movies like the Step Up series. After all, what matters is the dancing, and it is spectacular. Step Up 3D at once lauds the dedication of the dancers to their art while short-changing their artistic struggles. Grind-Haus is, at once, a funhouse mirror reflection of dance-movie cliches and a bunch of joyless assholes.
This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2010.
