As with the very lively documentary about spelling bees and children’s competitions, Spellbound, Mad Hot Ballroom follows the training and preparations of several schools in vastly differing neighbourhoods of Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn.

You know how it is going to be. We visit the schools, meet the teachers and children, see them in action. We are given explanations of the social difficulties, of the problem children. We listen in to the kids discussing all kinds of topics (especially eagerness or awkwardness with the opposite sex). We do get glimpses of some of the parents but this is an area that could have been more strongly developed. Without the same kind of input from the parents, we do not understand the children as much as we would like. The children themselves, from multi-racial backgrounds, do reveal a lot of how they think and feel.
What of contests? Looking at the disappointed faces of the losers, we wonder at the value of such competitiveness and its effect. The compensating factor is that the children have learned a skill, learned to relate and work as a team and take responsibility.

For those who love the dancing there is plenty, much of it skilled (and some of it not!). Since I lived for a year just down the street in upper Manhattan, Washington Heights, from one of the schools, I knew whom I was supporting: the Indigo team. And they were very good.

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