Weird Wednesday: Dance Dammit! Or, The Dancin’: It’s On Review

This screening was part of the Alamo Drafthouse’s Weird Wednesday series. For upcoming shows, click here.

“Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order.” – Samuel Beckett

“Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.” – Charles Baudelaire

“You can play baseball. You can play football. But you can’t play dance!” – some old guy who lives in a hotel in Panama City, Florida

Mankind has brought upon the world destructive and ugly things. However, for all of humanity’s blunders, we’ve occasionally created some beauty. Two of those are the art of dancin’ and the mystical city of Panama City, Florida. David Winters’ 2015 film Dancin’: It’s On acts as a love letter to both of those creations. It’s also a tale of star-crossed lovers, dead sons, jacked dads, and pliable bellhops. In other words, it could be everything audiences in 2023 need.

Indeed, the announcer at the latest edition of Alamo Drafthouse’s Weird Wednesday series noted before the showing of this movie that he found solace in this film during the height of the pandemic. After watching it, I can see his point. Despite its many, many faults, there’s a sense of genuine care that emits from the screen. Yes, it’s a story you’ve seen a million times before, and yes, the acting ranges from bad to wooden as a plank, and yeah, the film’s visual style rivals only that of my family’s vacation camcorder recordings, but still…there’s an undeniable passion working here. 

That starts with David Winters, who directed and co-wrote this with David A. Prior. Despite the end result of Dancin’, Winters’ background is hard to scoff at once you dive into it. An original member of the Broadway musical West Side Story, Winters also ended up acting and performing in the 1961 film adaptation as A-Rab. Cue a career of choreographing and acting in various other projects and Winters could’ve easily retired off that impressive resume. But artists keep it movin’—or uhh, dancin’ in this case. 

Lots of dancin’, in fact. Like, lots and lots of dancin’. Seriously, it would be a problem if the dancin’ on screen wasn’t pretty damn impressive. It helps that the bulk of the main cast are in fact dancers, specifically our main characters, Jennifer (So You Think You Can Dance contestant Witney Carson) and Ken (Chehon Wespi-Teschopp, another So You Think You Can Dance contestant). 

Winters’ tale begins with Jennifer, a high school student essentially forced by her mother (Ava Fabian) to travel to the mystical realm of Panama City to stay with her estranged hotel-owning father, Jerry (Gary Daniels). Also, very important to note (because Jerry goes out of his way to mention it) is that Jerry is a former “fighting champion,” which apparently is something that leads a man to leave his wife and kid. 

For what’s it worth, Jennifer seems to forgive this abandonment pretty quickly thanks to the fact that Jerry is now some sort of hotel tycoon. Hard to blame her, I guess. Still, it doesn’t take long for Jennifer to take to the city. How could you not, when the likes of a mime and a song espousing the awesomeness of Panama City are the first two things you run into when landing in the city. It also doesn’t hurt that she immediately catches the eye of local teen Ken, a sleeveless-hoodie dancin’ machine looking for love and a dance partner. 

While Winters and Prior’s script could rest on the laurels of a simple story of dancin’ girl meeting a dancin’ boy, the two know audiences want more. It’s in the little details where Dancin’ shines, for better or worse. To add a little more spice to Jen and Ken’s romance, two other characters, Shotsy (Jordan Clark) and Danny (Matt Marr), pop in to try and create a sort of love parallelogram. To add even more emotional weight, we eventually meet Winters’ character of Hal, the apparently welcomed hermit at Jerry’s hotel with sick dancin’ skills and tragic secrets of his own. When not teaching Ken the true art of dance, he spends his days either watching YouTube clips of dancin’ or forlornly caressing an image of his dead son (which is hilariously just his son doing a thumbs up in front of a helicopter). 

No matter the story’s turns and twists (there aren’t many but bear with my lead-up, please), what sticks out through it all is the dancin’. Like I said earlier, the choreography here is pretty impressive, right up there with the Step-Ups and Magic Mikes. What the main actors lack in believable or energetic line deliveries, they more than make up for in their impressive moves with particular shouts to Mr. Wespi-Tschopp, whose moves say more than his stilted words ever could. Winters’ also seems to agree based on one show-stopping sequence where, in an empty resort pool area, Ken dances his anger and frustration away all while Winters’ hotel hermit has a nightmare of his son blowing up in a helicopter. When the film connects these two struggling men grappling with their respective pains in one subtle edit, Dancin’, for a moment, reaches the heavens of cinema’s potential.

Outside of grandiose moments like that, Dancin’ comes across like a humble little production made by friends. Whether it was due to budget or artistic vision, the film’s digital camcorder look somehow doesn’t sink the film. There are definitely parts where it really does feel like you’re just watching someone’s Panama City vacation reel. But at the same time, that rough and humble look adds a bit of personality to everything. 

As a former visitor to the city myself, I can say that the film expertly captures the weird, slightly beautiful energy to be found in the tacky swim shops and tasteless teen clubs (which are, in fact, a real, and very weird thing). All that said, cinematographer Alan Roberts does get to flex his digital aesthetic in some of the dance sequences. Opting for a sort of gritty, handheld method, Roberts’ camera floats in the personal space of our dancin’ heroes as they strut in kitchens or on street overpasses. It isn’t always a pretty sight, but the rough digital look captures these dancin’ moments in visual ways that I haven’t quite seen in any other dance films.

In its faults that also occasionally work like unique approaches, Dancin’ makes a case for its existence. Like I said, there is some kind of passion pulsing through this thing. And that’s the most important thing any movie can try to have. Is it good at the end of the day? No, not really. Is it fun to watch with a theater audience? Hell yeah! Would I recommend it for you and your friends to watch one day? Sure, go for it. Is Panama City worth a visit? I don’t know, does a mime speak with their mouth?