Center Stage

After watching a movie with your children or students, we encourage parents and teachers to look for education opportunities to teach with movies. Here are a few discussion topics that can help with lesson plans or teaching in the home.

Ethan Stiefel who plays Cooper Nielson is famous in his own right as a member of the American Ballet Theater. Amanda Schull who played Jody Sawyer is an apprentice with the San Francisco Ballet. Why is it generally easier to teach a dancer how to act than it is to teach an actor how to dance?

The character Maureen, the class prima ballerina, is played by actress (not dancer) Susan May Pratt. If you have seen the film, can you remember how the director creatively handled this dilemma? (For those who haven’t, Maureen does more “posing” than dancing.) Why did the director choose someone with acting abilities over dancing abilities for this role?