Great Dancing! Great Dancing! Center Stage is Flash Dance at the ballet. Fame on points. Strictly Ballroom without the pimples.

A class is admitted to The American Ballet. Out of dozens of students only three will be chosen to enter the company. Love will bloom. Personalities will grow. Lecturers will cast knowing looks and exert discipline. Young worried dancers will learn to relax and enjoy their dancing. It will all turn out all right in the end.

Why aren't more of these types of films made? Optimism and trying for the moon hasn't gone out of fashion have they? The quest for excellence hasn't been completely placed out of bounds surely.

And what of the dancing? Center Stage cast real dancers from various companies to portray real dancers. There's no other way to do this sort of film because there's nothing fake about the dance routines.

Sure the camera cuts and pans and the angles are always advantageous but that serves to further highlight the wondrous abilities of in particular the male lead Ethan Steifel.

Anyone into the arts really should make an effort to make some sort of contact with Ethan Steifel before his career is over, at least by seeing Center Stage. He is showcased here repeatedly, in rehearsal and on the stage in traditional ballet form, modern dance and jazz ballet and, well you have to see this to see what I mean.

He's been repeatedly said to be probably the best living dancer in this medium and I don't doubt that. Add to that the fact that he's not a bad actor and you're in for a good time at the movies.

The plot does turn up one or two surprises, even if they lose their appeal in retrospect, but the time honoured boy meets girl, etc, routine gets a fine work out and why not. The dance world adds some additional plot lines.

Dancers are fine and very tough athletes, bulimia and severely damaged feet get a fine work out, but so will your optimism. So much so that I haven't left a cinema more pleased to be alive for ages.

4 Dancin' Flys