Mad Hot Ballroom

Mad Hot Ballroom
Mad Hot Ballroom
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Marilyn Agrelo
Written by	Amy Sewell
Produced by	Marilyn Agrelo; Amy Sewell; Brian David Cange; Wilder Knight II;
Starring	Madeleine Hackney
Cinematography	Claudia Raschke-Robinson
Edited by	Sabine Krayenbuhl
Music by	Joseph Baker; Steven Lutvak;
Production; companies	Paramount Classics; Nickelodeon Movies; Just One Productions
Distributed by	Paramount Classics
Release date	May 13, 2005;
Running time	106 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$500,000
Box office	$9.4 million

Mad Hot Ballroom is a 2005 American documentary film directed and co-produced by Marilyn Agrelo and written and co-produced by Amy Sewell, about a ballroom dance program in the New York City Department of Education, the New York City public school system for fifth graders. Several styles of dance are shown in the film, such as tango, foxtrot, swing, rumba and merengue.^[2]

Synopsis

Based on a feature article written by Sewell, Mad Hot Ballroom looks inside the lives of 11-year-old New York City public school kids who journey into the world of ballroom dancing and reveal pieces of themselves along the way. Told from the students' perspectives as the children strive toward the final citywide competition, the film chronicles the experiences of students at three schools in the neighborhoods of Tribeca, Bensonhurst and Washington Heights. The students are united by an interest in the ballroom dancing lessons, which builds over a 10-week period and culminates in a competition to find the school that has produced the best dancers in the city. As the teachers cajole their students to learn the intricacies of the various disciplines, Agrelo intersperses classroom footage with the students' musings on life; many of these reveal an underlying maturity.^[2]

Release

The documentary premiered at the 2005 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah and was purchased by Paramount Classics and Nickelodeon Movies. It had a limited theatrical release in the United States on May 13, 2005. Mad Hot Ballroom was the second highest grossing documentary in 2005 after March of the Penguins.^[3] As of February 7, 2012, it had earned over $8.1 million, making it the sixteenth-highest-grossing documentary film in the United States (in nominal dollars, from 1982 to the present).^[4]

Reception

Critical reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an 84% approval rating, based on 121 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "This heartwarming documentary will win audiences over, as the sheer charm of precocious, enthusiastic children learning to dance resonates from the screen."^[2]