DANCE DRAMA; 1hr 38min
STARRING: Nichola Burley, Richard Winsor, Ukweli Roach, Charlotte Rampling
Cool cat in a hat: Burley
Adversity can breed winners. But five weeks out from the London Street Dance Championship finals, Carly (Burley) isn’t feeling it after her boyfriend and dance-crew boss (Roach) calls time-out, leaving her in clueless charge.
Born in the clubs, street dance pairs rubbery physicality with a gymnast’s whiplash timing and gravity-flouting nerve. So when classical-dance mistress Helena (queenly stringbean Rampling) offers cash-poor Carly the gratis use of her school for rehearsal space on the proviso that a group of her students are included in the performance, Carly has grave doubts.
We don’t, though; not for a second: convention dictates that they’ll be off to a rocky start, just as surely as that when the two teams click, the stylistically fused moves will be supersonic — especially fleshed out in comin’atcha 3-D. The plot and performances won’t start any fires but the demon dancing is a blast of life that gathers steam to a final, foundation-shaking showdown. All this and abs to crack ice on? That’s what I call a workout.
