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Dancing in the street
STOMP THE YARD
Directed by Sylvain White
Certificate 12A
THEY line up in ranks like old-style troops preparing for a pitched battle, line upon line of them in bright red or orange combat jackets ready for the fray.
Except that there are no weapons, the battlefield is a university campus in the Deep South, and the only serious damage will be if one of them trips over his own feet with exertion.
This is street dancing, as ferocious and threatening as a mob riot, with 30-strong gangs squaring up and eye-balling one another in a ritual of testosterone and acrobatics. Enter 19-year-old DJ (Columbus Short), a freestyle dance ace who is given a chance at the all-black Truth University in Atlanta after the death of his young brother brings him into trouble with the law. To avoid juvenile detention he must become a model pupil – not easy when rival gangs at the college spot his dancing talent. They’re playing for the annual national competition, and need the newcomer to bolster their chances.
“It’s a fraternity, and we’re a brotherhood,” one leader informs him menacingly. “We own this place, and we own you!”
Not quite. Our boy has steel in his veins as well as rubber springs in his heels, and he makes a stand. Apart from his studies, he has his eye on a sassy fellow student (Meagan Good) who is equally diverting.
The story line is paper-thin. But director Sylvain White keeps the action in overdrive with pounding dance numbers – some set in woods around the college, and back-lit to give the effect of ghoulish shadows gyrating through the trees – which will knock your socks off.
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