Pluskylang Great Film overall

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Kirpianuscus a film about dance. or about a young man who has only the dance as the only gift. about friendship. and about self definition . about duty. and choices. about a new life. and about the pressure of the past. "Five Dances" is one of films who respires out of script or performance. because each is just a tool for a noble idea. it is a simple story told with admirable science to explore each detail. a film about vocation. about fears and protection. and about love. and this does it not easy to be defined. because, maybe, it could be a sort of porcelain doll. beautiful. but fragile. and this does Five Dances special. because it is not a lesson or a pledge. it is only a story about facts who transform. the rest remains silence.

Nick Duretta I was expecting a standard gay film and was quite surprised. This film is primarily about dance. The four performers are all superb dancers, and their dances are the main focus of the film, reflecting (to a degree) their relationships with one another and others in their lives (who are never seen). The main character is Chip, a somewhat naive 18-year-old Kansan, trying to cope in New York City without appearing too vulnerable. I did find it strange that these four dancers (and their choreographer) had very little personal or verbal interaction for most of the film; indeed, it wasn't until toward the end that they seemed to actually know one another. Chip's intimate relationship with the other male dancer is handled tenderly and realistically, but their story is secondary to the love and dedication all the characters have for their art.

jm10701 Five Dances is the beautiful story of a naive but very gifted 18-year-old dancer named Chip. He came to New York from his troubled home in Kansas for a summer dance workshop and managed to stay on into the new year, when the story takes place.The movie begins as he joins four older dancers (two each, male and female) rehearsing for an upcoming performance. He slowly gets past his social awkwardness and begins to develop relationships with the others - especially with Katie, who becomes like an older sister to him, and later with Theo.His opening up is the key theme of the movie, which takes place almost entirely in the studio as the dancers rehearse. It has no other cast but the five dancers. (All of them are professional dancers, not actors, but they do both jobs brilliantly in this movie.)The movie itself is like a dance, gracefully and deliberately paced and choreographed, the characters weaving in and out of each other's lives as they do in the dance they're rehearsing. Anyone who hates classical modern dance, or who hates slow character development with very little irrelevant action or drama, will not enjoy this movie.However, it does not require any particular knowledge of or interest in dance. Indifference to dance should not be a handicap, but the viewer must be able to watch dancers without irritation.And it definitely is a gay movie. It's a sort of coming-out story - really more an opening-out story, because Chip is coming out of his shell as a person even more than as a gay man. It's also a sexy and tender and gratifying love story.Although it has those conventional gay-movie elements, the grace and discipline of dance permeate everything and make this an entirely original and unique - and unusually beautiful - gay movie. Alan Brown's earlier movie Private Romeo (also highly original) was my favorite gay movie for a long time, but Five Dances is even better.

Red-125 Five Dances (2013) was written and directed by Alan Brown. This is a movie you see for the dancing, not the plot. Ryan Steele plays Chip Daniel, an extraordinarily gifted dancer, who has just arrived in NYC from Kansas.He's ready for the professional demands of dancing, but nothing else is working out for him. He has no money, no place to live, and no friends. His mother calls him endlessly demanding that he return, and telling him, "I know what you're doing there."Returning to Kansas is out of the question. However, Chip is going to need help to survive in New York so that he can do what he does better than anyone else--dance.Chip's encounters with the company choreographer and with the other dancers make up the plot. However, in a sense, the plot gets in the way of the dance sequences. My suggestion--don't worry about the plot; see this film for the dancing.We saw this movie at the Little Theatre as part of Image Out--the Rochester LGBT Film Festival. It probably works better on a large screen, but it's worth seeking out and watching on video if that's the only available option.