Center Stage: On Pointe Knows All The Dance Movie Tropes; It's Just Not Sure How To Work Them

There are two kinds of Center Stage fans: the ones who were excited to learn that this summer would see Lifetime's sequel Center Stage: On Pointe, and the ones who've seen Center Stage: Turn It Up. Those of us in the latter camp know that Oxygen already tarnished the Center Stage brand back in 2008. Sure, a couple of key cast members -- Peter Gallagher, as American Ballet Company director Jonathan Reeves; and Ethan Stiefel, as rebellious choreographer Cooper Nielsen -- actually reprised their roles for the story of another "she's not a traditional ballerina but I can't take my eyes off her" type, and the challenges of entering the competitive world of dance. But its actual protagonists could barely act (other than Gallagher, no one of a Susan May Pratt or Eion Bailey calibre got anywhere near this thing), and the gap between budgets on a feature film as opposed to an Oxygen original was impossible to ignore.

And yet, because Turn It Up was so little seen, On Pointe could have been a total reset for the franchise, crafted with the kind of care that only someone who watched and got bummed out by Turn It Up could have brought to the project. I regret to say that is not what occurred. Instead, On Pointe includes many classic dance movie plot tropes, but uses them in a way that makes it seem like whoever made it hadn't actually ever watched a dance movie so much as heard a couple described, possibly by a non-native English speaker. Here is our list of all the dance movie plot mainstays you definitely will find in Center Stage: On Pointe, counted down from least egregiously abused to most.

1. A Traditional Ballet Dancer Needs To Loosen Up

   But it's not the tight-assed blonde ballerina! ...Well, actually, there is one of those, and we'll get to her, but the main sufferer on this front is Damon (played by an obvious ringer dancer with the hilariously fancy name of Barton Cowperthwaite). This year, ABC is shaking up its program and incorporating modern dance, which means it's also shaking up its six-week intensive training course: ballet dancer Damon is partnered with our heroine, Bella (Nicole Muñoz, reprising her fairly small role in Turn It Up), who has minimal ballet experience but is a marvel (or so we're informed, frequently) as a modern dancer. They're auditioning as a pair and therefore will get in or wash out together. Can he teach her technique -- but, more importantly, can she teach him how to relax and improvise?! (Spoiler: yes and yes.) Anyway: I'm ranking this last on the screw-up list because it's rare that the male dancers are portrayed as lacking confidence in any regard; this update gives Damon vulnerability that would probably be more compelling if Cowperthwaite were able to act as well as he dances.

2. There's Money At Stake

   If you were reared on the (superior) Step Up franchise, you probably think this means the ballet crew is about to lose its practice space/warehouse/rec center and needs to win a competition with a purse that's exactly the amount of money they need to pay their back rent/make needed improvements/deal with a loan shark. But no: the issue is just that ABC is entering its fourth quarter in the red, and one of its donors wants Jonathan to adopt a less snooty performance program, or else she's going to invest her charitable money elsewhere. Four bad quarters seems like not that many? In this economy? This is also extremely abstract and Jonathan's (spoiler) victory amounts to an approving nod and a "bravo" from this benefactress at the first show of ABC's "modern night." BFD.

3. A Traditional Ballerina Is A Snob, But Has Her Own Secret Problems

   This would be Allegra, the aforementioned tight-assed blonde. Bella's been jumped into this audition process by Tommy (Kenny Wormald), Turn It Up's male lead and love interest for protagonist Kate (Rachele Brooke Smith), Bella's sister. Tommy is leading the modern instruction at the training camp and has made it clear to the hopefuls that their success or failure in being asked to join the company depends not only on their dancing talent, but on their interpersonal skills. Bella, of course, has lots of both, so she tries to make a connection at breakfast by joining Allegra and striking up a conversation. But Allegra is either extremely shy, very rude, or just poorly socialized, because she barely answers Bella's small-talky questions before wandering off. Later, we find out she's so tightly wound because she previously auditioned for a company in Dallas, where another candidate spread damaging but false rumours about her, and since she left that situation with a bad reputation, ABC is...the last company in the country she has a shot at joining? SEEMS UNLIKELY, BUT OKAY. At least Maureen in the original had her mother's outsized expectations, her first sexual relationship, and bulimia to deal with. "A girl said some shit and I freaked out" doesn't really do it for me.

4. Figures From Past Franchise Installments Appear

   In addition to Cooper, Jonathan, and (pfft) Tommy and Bella, Charlie (Sascha Radetsky) returns as ABC's ballet master; we're told he's married to Jodi, the protagonist of the original film, but also that she's "conquered the European dance world," and as we all know, on TV the planes to Europe only go one way. (Why, then, the writer or more likely writers of this thing felt it necessary to bring her up at all is unclear; Amanda Schull's not going to come back for Center Stage: Pas De Quatre or whatever the fuck, so you don't have to keep her character in the mix.) The illustrious (pfffffffft) Kate shows up for her sister Bella's big ABC début (late, btw -- rude). But I guess the production tried and failed to get Donna Murphy because Lorenza, the new pinch-faced ballet instructor with the center part in her hair, is a total Juliette manquée. And other than Tommy, who plays a medium-sized role, everyone else was clearly only on set for two days, max, to give the production the barest right to the once-noble Center Stage name.

5. Training Is Isolating

   Speaking of the set: after a show and an audition in "New York" (Vancouver), the successful auditioners are brought "upstate" (into the Okanagan Valley or something) to ABC's training facility -- a studio surrounded by cabins, so basically a fancy summer camp for adults. (Maybe the company could help solve some of its money problems by selling this joint?) When the pressure gets too much, can our aspiring ballerinas escape to take a class at a Broadway studio? NOPE. Once they arrive, we don't see anyone so much as go into town for cigarettes.

6. A Female Dancer's Body Is Wrong

   Bella mentions her non-traditional figure as a reason not to audition when Tommy recruits her, and in a partners class Damon drops her a couple of times doing lifts. It's not clear whether her supposedly massive bulk is the reason, and while I'm happy that Bella's perfectly fit and proportional body is a non-issue -- again, why mention it?

7. There's One Gay Guy

   But unlike the friendly, fun Erik of the original, this one -- Ivan -- is a total bitch whose only function onscreen is to talk shit about his fellow aspirants. Like Erik, however, he falls wrong on his ankle after a jump and exits the story before the end. Bye, Bitchy Gay! Keep that gay energy away from all the straight men in this dance camp!

8. Different Dance Styles Are Mixed Together

   But it's not ballet and hip hop, as has worked so well in the Step Up series. It's ballet and MODERN. The free-form experimental jazz of dance!

9. Just Before The Big Audition: Catastrophe!

   Allegra's partner Richard bails the morning of the audition because he's got a line, through his girlfriend (eye-roll), on a job in a company in Paris. Bella nobly gives Damon to Allegra for the audition performance, but only a few seconds into their performance, Allegra realizes she can't do it, Damon retrieves Bella, and the three -- on the fly -- turn their duet into a trio. The judges are entranced! Damon learned to improvise after all! The three of them plus two other dancers whose names we never heard, never mind put to faces, make it into the new and improved ABC! PHEW! This might be more effective if Richard had gotten more than ten lines before flaking, but as it is, his betrayal has no dramatic heft.

10. Naysayers Try To Undermine Our Protagonist's Confidence

    Bella spends a good deal of time trying to hide her connection to Kate in order not to be compared to her. Allegra and Jonathan separately figure it out, but agree with Bella's request that they keep it quiet. However, toward the end of the training camp, one of the modern dancers confronts Bella with the truth that Kate is her sister, and the rumour that Bella's participating in the audition process at all is a ruse, because Kate already struck a deal with the company to the effect that she would appear as a soloist in the next season as long as Jonathan passed Bella through to the company.

    So in the first place, as rumours go, this is pretty mild. There are still a bunch of other auditioners in the running, and if Bella didn't have to spend this time in a cabin in what looks like a freezing-cold B.C. spring if she didn't have to. Second, this gets back to Tommy and Lorenza, who immediately debunk it and demand to know who spread it, whereupon the by-now departed Ivan's partner, Candie, admits that she got it from him and shouldn't have believed it, and then just...volunteers to leave. And that's it. Bella is briefly paranoid about her friends' motives, but she gets over it almost immediately, as she should.

    Then there's Lorenza, who finds Bella practising her ballet after hours in the studio and tells her she doesn't have the talent to be a professional dancer. Bella fairly politely tells Lorenza that she shouldn't take her bitterness at her own career-ending injury out on her students. Lorenza sputters in shock and leaves...and we basically don't see her again until Bella's nailing her audition piece with Damon and Allegra. If Lorenza had shown any animosity toward or investment in Bella other than doubts at her original try-out in New York and an instance of scolding Bella for a non-standard black leotard (a straight repeat of a scene in the original film, btw), this might have worked as a devastating setback for Bella. But they barely have a relationship, and Lorenza's only one of five judges at the final performance of the training camp, so WHO CARES.

    Speaking of who cares: right after Bella is accepted into the training program, she has a run-in with Myron, a patron at the diner where she works as a waitress. This crusty old weirdo tells her she should give up on such a long shot of a dream, because one of her fellow waitresses also wanted to be a dancer but, twenty years later, both Myron and Bella's colleague are still there. Leaving aside the fact that twenty years waitressing in the same diner is a pretty impressive run of job security, this dude is just some old crank, and Bella was directly recruited by Tommy, an important figure at a world-class ballet company. This guy's warning is supposed to be a big deal? WELL IT'S BIG ENOUGH FOR BELLA TO RETURN AT THE END and tell Myron she made it.

    

    And instead of telling him to suck it, Bella and Myron enjoy a couple of pieces of pie. TAKE THAT, random jerk! That's how we serve up a comeuppance in New York! (Vancouver.)