I <3 P.S. 115

Tonight, I watched this great documentary called Mad Hot Ballroom. It came out a couple years ago, but I liked the name and I'd heard it was good, so I picked it up at Blockbuster (yes, Netflixers... some people still do that. :)

This film is like So You Think You Can Dance: Elementary School Edition. I loved it. It was funny and charming and the kids were hilarious. There's no scary stage moms or little girls in scary outfits wearing tons of makeup. Just these 11 year old kids from various public schools around NYC who take this ballroom dancing class for 10 weeks as part of their PE curriculum and then compete against each other. It's adorable.

I can't get over how mature and well-spoken some of these 5th graders were. It really surprised me! And of course it's NY, so it's this beautiful melting pot of ethnicities. A LOT of the kids were Dominican, but there were Blacks, Italians, Asians, Indians, Puerto Ricans, Filipinos, Irish-- all together. So awesome. :)



There's this one little boy though, who COMPLETELY hijacked my heart the moment I laid eyes on him. His name is Wilson and I don't think he spoke a lick of English during the entire film. But when I saw him, I literally paused the movie and ran into Jo's room and was like, "Jo. My SON is in this movie. I'm serious. The boy I adopt one day? Might look exactly like him." He is the cutest thing ever. And he was SO good! He and Jatnna, one of my favorite girls, also happen to be on the cover of the film. But you can't see him very good on there, so here he is:

So. Freaking. Cute. And he was so into it! He danced the rumba and he was just awesome. They all were! They do such a good job, I loved the Indigo Team :) And their teacher, Ms. Reynso is awesome and so freaking proud of them the whole time. Its precious.


Anyway-- 105 minutes well spent. Add it to your Netflix queue, if you're into that sorta thing. Annnnnd here's Wilson and Jatnna again at the Tribeca Film Festival...

Next up? Spellbound.