What It Takes

Ever been stunned by the sheer beauty of a dance performance and wonder how much sweat it took to get that person there?

Bess Kargman’s documentary, First Position, can give you some perspective on what it takes to make it to the world’s elite stages. The award-winning film, now showing at Cable Car Cinema in Providence, follows six young dancers as they compete to win in the Youth America Grand Prix and the chance to go to one of the best ballet schools in the world.

Beautifully shot, Kargman captures the dancers’ lives from stretching in their bedrooms, to leaping across their dance studios, to dazzling the audience on the stages of competition. One of the film’s many strengths is the range of stories and determination Kargman, a former dancer herself, captures.

Michaela DePrince, who was adopted from war-torn Sierra Leone, decided she wanted to be a dancer when she was inspired by a picture of a ballerina on a magazine cover. Joan Sebastian Zamora left his family behind in Colombia with the hopes of achieving a better life for himself and for them through his dancing.

No less fascinating are adorable Aran Bell, a precocious eleven-year-old whose military family has gotten special training for him in Italy, and Miko and Jules Jarvis Fogarty, a sister and brother whose parents decided to homeschool them so they would have more time for dancing.

Check it out, I guarantee their stories will inspire you:

First Position is playing at Cable Car Cinema today and tomorrow, 204 South Main St., Providence.