Flashdance (1983)

At the strongest point of the feminist movement, it was a principle that women could, and should, do anything that a man could do, as well as doing plenty of things that only women can do. Thereby equality was asserted. Flashdance was released just too late to capitalise on that philosophy fully, and it never realised the full potential of the message. The heroine, played by Jennifer Beals, is a welder by occupation (although we only ever see her gas-cutting up bits of scrap) and she is an, ahem, exotic dancer as a sideline. By sheer willpower she makes the big time as a serious dancer, in a highly implausible conversion of a serious ballet school's assessors to the marvels of hip-hop and disco dancing, in an audition.

Beals didn't do any of the dancing, and in the audition scene near the end of the film, her role was danced by Marine Jahan mostly (first pic). Sharon Shapiro did some of the springing moves, (this pic at the left).

The audition performance moved on to hip-hop, and the male dancer Richard Colon did that part. When Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers danced a scene, the whole sequence was done by them in a single take, without a cut to let them get their breath. But they don't make them like that any more.

HF January 2005

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