“La La Land,” an odds-on favorite to win best picture and a whole batch of other categories at Sunday’s Academy Awards, opens with a brief pan through gridlocked L.A. traffic, landing focus on a woman in a yellow dress. She gets out of her car and begins a dance that quickly inspires everyone else on the freeway to join in for a spontaneous production number featuring talented dancers who jump, kick, turn, and even break dance with the aplomb of professionals who have dedicated years to their craft.
That opening signals director Damien Chazelle’s intention to hark back to Hollywood’s “golden age” musicals such as “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Swing Time” and “An American in Paris.” But then the film’s focus shifts to leads Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, two virtually untrained dancers who aren’t likely to make anyone forget Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
For members of Southern California’s dance community, “La La Land” is a mixed blessing – giving their art form the kind of big-screen exposure it hasn’t enjoyed in decades while not exactly showcasing the best technique the discipline has to offer. But despite a few qualms, they’re happy to see a movie that uses dance as a medium to tell a story to audiences.
“You have to look at it through the lens that these are normal people dancing,” says Patrick Corbin, professor of dance at the University of Southern California’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. “The dances are more of inner monologue instead of show pieces. (The characters) don’t talk about falling in love, instead it all happens in the dancing.”
Choreographer and former dancer Nigel Lythgoe, who produces the TV show “So You Think You Can Dance,” views the film’s acclaim as a potential boon to dance. And while “La La Land” doesn’t quite compare to his favorite movie musical, “West Side Story,” Lythgoe does appreciate the bravery of Hollywood studio Lionsgate to produce what he calls as the first musical aimed at an adult audience in years.
“We haven’t seen something like this in some time and it fulfills expectations in many different areas – not just dance, but acting, performance and heart.,” he said. “While movies like this bring dance to the forefront, people feel like they can dance again.”
Lythgoe partners with Turnaround Arts, a program of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, to bring dance to students at Willard Intermediate School in Santa Ana. He said the newly formed dance club is inspiring the whole school.
“When anyone dances it puts a smile on their face and we need that right now,” said Lythgoe. “The time is wonderful for music, dancing and the arts and we’re educating kids from what we know about the past.”
In a way, “La La Land” is introducing a new generation to the kind of movies that often have been relegated to classic movie channels. Chazelle applies simple, romantic film conventions to a modern day love story and shows today’s audiences that a story about dreamers who risk all they have to do what they love still resonates.
The film’s choreographer, Mandy Moore, said that Chazelle specifically wanted the stars to look like ordinary, relatable people. These people just happen to dance from one plot point to the next.
“The choreographer and directors were smart to rely on an innocent ‘boy meets girl’ romantic soft shoe duet,” said Linda Sohl-Ellison, artistic director of L.A.-based tap company Rhapsody in Taps and professor of dance at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. “(It) did not require any real tap dancing, but still paid homage to romance partner dances in Hollywood movie musicals.”
Although Sohl-Ellison thinks there would have been opportunity to include a strong tap number with actual tap dancers, she said overall she was able to put aside her dance expectations and enjoy the story.
When Corbin first saw “La La Land” he too was critical of the way dance was presented, but after re-watching he applauded Moore for her smart construction of the dance numbers.
“All the stuff we look for in concert dance was there – things like counterpoint and call/response – and she highlighted what the performers could do best,” Corbin said.
For the thousands of people who have seen “La La Land,” (it has grossed over $300 million worldwide since opening) maybe “good enough” really is good enough. Especially considering only a small percentage of moviegoers are trained dancers and would be none the wiser about Gosling and Stone’s imperfect technique.
“I think anytime you get people to see dance it’s great and if that takes star power then so be it,” said Moore, who also choreographed stars Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in the Oscar-nominated “Silver Linings Playbook.” “I think people are starting to understand dance again and that’s huge for the dance community.”
Initial reservations aside, dance professionals see “La La Land” as ushering a hopefully bright future for dance. Talk of Moore receiving an honorary Oscar for outstanding choreography, a category that has never existed, is evidence enough that dance is gaining popularity.
“The idea of winning an Oscar is a huge pipe dream, but it could be a catalyst for a bigger conversation,” Moore said. “If ‘La La Land’ could do that for dance, that would be amazing.”
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