Mad Hot Ballroom
Follows a ten week period in which fifth graders from New York City's public schools learn ballroom dancing for a competition, erasing gender, race, and socio-economic boundaries in the process.
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Mad Hot Ballroom follows students at three schools in the neighborhoods of Tribeca, Bensonhurst and Washington Heights, with director Marilyn Agrelo training her cameras on the kids' lives both inside and outside of the classroom. The students are united by a zeal for the ballroom dancing lessons, which build over a 10-week period and culminate in a competition to find the school that has produced the best dancers in the city. As the teachers gently cajole their students to learn the intricacies of the various disciplines, Agrelo intersperses classroom footage with the students' musings on life; many of these reveal a remarkable maturity. One of Agrelo's cameramen is caught grinning in an affectionate, almost paternal manner as he accidentally wanders into the frame while filming.
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