"Excellent!" is a word I've heard applied to this film by so many different viewers from so many different backgrounds; one prominent New York critic refers to it as "slight and charming;" I rather think of it as "monumental and utterly mesmerizing." We observe a batch of disparate kids from various ethnicities come together as they are exposed to art, in this case the art of dancing; this is not a sugarcoated look at childhood, but a fascinating examination of what happens when dedicated teachers are able to interact with love and discipline and give kids honest self-esteem which they earn by active participation. This film is the best argument I've seen for increasing the Federal Arts Education Budget and perhaps spending a little less on bombs and already obsolete armaments; your contacts with many of the kids will leave you with a pleasant feeling, instead of feeling assaulted with car explosions, torrents of expletives and noisy special effects--this is excellent entertainment at a high level--and without condescension or sugar coating!

This is exhilarating! It's uplifting and life-affirming! I am not a dance fan movie and if I have any dance moves they are the opposite of Fred Astaire. But this documentary on teaching 10 year olds' to dance just grabbed me.It's about 10 year olds' in public school in New York who are taking dance lessons – as in learning tango, swing, meringue, rumba… They practise and practise and then face a competition where sadly some will be eliminated. It is really worth it to just look at the expressions of these young children as they are learning and dancing. Credit really must also go to the teachers who are so dedicated.

This is amateurish, camcorder-level shooting. The content is essentially an argument by teachers for why the program should be funded, and would have been better off used for this purpose with the NYC Board of Education.I was sorely disappointed by this film, as I am originally from NYC, went to a "P.S." grade school, and was charmed by the idea of reminiscing a little watching the opening credits.It is a boring documentary with a few cute moments when the kids are dancing, and a few interesting comments by two children -- one a 10 y.o. girl, who is a sort of philosopher, and one a 10-y.o. boy, who is quite talkative. The reasons for my rating of 2 and not 1.The cutting is terrible. I enjoy dance, and some of the kids were good dancers, but the photography tries to capture faces (poorly), and jumps, as in an action movie, every 3 seconds. The included announcements of winners is trying to sit through, slow and trite.A minor complaint: It was also annoying to see that although this is about 5th grade, the winners of the "contest" seem to be kids who are at least 13 years old. They therefore are able to manage "Cuban" motion better, as they are apparently already postpubertal. Although the teachers seem to struggle with making the competition fair, and with not hurting any child's feelings (although sensitive, this also got repetitive), the entire contest actually seemed unfair to many, who were only about 10 years old.

OK, so it took me 3 attempts before finally being able to watch this - the first was free, but aborted because of timing. The second attempt, only the first 3 rows were available for a weekday evening, and I'm not too keen on craning my neck. The third and successful attempt had me walk all the way from Orchard Cineleisure to Shaw Lido, in 10 minutes flat on a crowded weekend afternoon. But the mad rush was well worth it.New York City elementary schools have a 10 week long co-curricular activity (CCA) for its students, where they learn ballroom dancing, and then compete in a city wide dance competition. How cool is that? Finally, a CCA from which you can actually learn something useful, a skill that stays with you for life. Imagine learning from young, the steps to the Tango, Foxtrot, Swing, Merengue, etc. Wow.But there's a much higher cause in teaching ballroom dancing to the students. And that is to inculcate in them from young, a sense of hope, responsibility - to themselves in mastering a skill, to their partners in performing well, and being a team player to the entire class/school, and a setting of an achievable goal if they were to work hard at it. Most students in the public schools come from the lower spectra of society, and as the movie goes, based on statistics, many may end up on the streets, probably living in the hood of crime or other vices like drugs. This programme allows the students to dream a little dream, work hard towards a common goal, build their self-confidence and esteem, and have them thinking about the kind of future they want to pursue.So we follow different classes, and their trainings with the teachers, where we see them learning the basics of the different kinds of dances. It's pretty raw at first, but by the time the movie progresses, from the quarters to the finals, you'd see a marked improvement in the slickness of their paces. Their moves might still not be as polished, but bear in mind that these are only 11 year olds, not your already established dancers, or make believe actors.The downside of competition is that for every winner, there'll be more losers, and the movie takes stock of this, and feature the losing teams as well, and how the lost affected the students, and the dread that the teachers have to go through to explain that it's part and parcel of competition, and life.The movie is interspersed with various interviews and candid discussions amongst the students, and teachers, and it makes it compelling each time as you actually see that despite their little age, they demonstrate much innocent maturity, listening to them talk about boys, girls, relationships, dreams, etc. There's this pudgy looking boy whom I thought was pretty natural in getting himself into weird situations, and taking it all in his stride, and providing some of the laughs too. The teachers have their work cut out, having to teach their class, and then selecting only a handful to compete, and also to prep them up for the competition, and potential failure of not being emerging champions.Before long, you'll find yourself tapping along to the various dances, making you want to get up there and move to the groove too - hey if 11 year olds can do it, and be good at it, why not give it a try? On the downside though, since the moves are done by students, they're taught really basic steps, and it does get repetitive, but hey, it's all in the name of fun.Do catch Mad Hot Ballroom! If I have a recommendation to make for movies this week, watch this before it gets pulled out from the theatres! Stay throughout the end credits as they'll be more discussion snippets from the tots.