STRICTLY BALLROOM

Strictly Ballroom is the first of Baz Luhrmann's the red curtain trilogy, where the movies open and close with a red curtain, and each movies involves theatrical elements on the ways the story being told and how the characters being portrayed. In this movie, Baz Luhrmann took dance as a center idea on how the stories developed and how these characters use dancing as a form of communications and also rebellion towards what is a norm in the community. Baz Luhrmann managed to get our attention by using many colourful scenes, making them embedded in our minds. In the opening scene, Baz Luhrmann cleverly put the dancers on one dance floor and make all of them twirling, the glamour and the glitter of the dancers' dress caught my attention. They way he shot it, making the camera going in the circle with the dancers, as an audience, I felt the chaos, I understand the pressure the dancers must have felt on wanting to win the title. They forced themselves to smile in this great pressure and I felt what Scott feel when he decided to dance a little different than usual, dance to what he feels right to do. This movie also shows the irony of the dance world where we should feel happy and free while dancing, instead of being deadly serious about winning and following orders which creates the dissonance and the sense of irony in the movie.

Dance is one form of language in this movie. Scott Hasting is one of the characters that use dancing as a form of expression. Early on the movie we see how he use dance movement to convince Liz not to leave him, and also how he use dancing to convince Fran to dance with him again right before the competition. This shows Scott is more comfortable using body language and dance steps to persuade people, to show them his true feelings on things. Maybe because people around him tend not to listen to him when he speaks up, or maybe growing up as dancer, this is the only way he could express whatever is buried deep inside of his chest. At the beginning we could see he is unhappy with the dance that everyone expect him to do. He is searching for the true meaning of satisfaction of self expression through dancing different steps than usual. He is truly happy when he is dancing with Fran, with the steps he wants to dance not anyone else. He struggles to choose between winning the title or being free with his self-expression by dancing "Pasodoble" with Fran. In the end he choose to break through the fear and go against the system set by the corrupted dance Federation. While dancing, both he and Fran feel the sense of belonging (Fiske, 2004), when the crowd starts to show their approval to them by clapping their hands.

I can relate to them, having the need to belong. When I looked back to my old self, I used to struggle on getting people's approval in everything I do. I felt the need to make others happy with my decisions instead of checking with my own self, "Am I happy with this option?". For years I felt constricted, suffocated without being able to really express my own creativity on the things I wanted. It was varies from the way I presenting myself, my hair, my clothes even my walk. People always have opinion. I can understand why Scott is unhappy to dance the way other people want him to dance, its restricting his own freedom. One day I just realised I do not need other people constant approval on the things I do in life, so I go with whatever option I feel happy to do and yes, it works. I feel so much better, living a better, positive life. Maybe going against the tide will make us feel rebellious, but doing something you truly love and having other people to appreciate them makes it ten times better. For that, I'm happy to see Scott and Fran dance freely at the end, while the whole audience clapping showing they also think the dance is beautiful.


Reference

Fiske, S.T. (2004). Social beings: A core motives approach to social psychology. United States of America: Wiley.