BALLET DREAMS IN “FIRST POSITION”

BALLET DREAMS IN “FIRST POSITION”

For teens, summer is the time when dreams blossom. So it is entirely appropriate to find “First Position” playing at the Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway Blvd.  This documentary on the competition in 2010 among contestants at the Youth America Grand Prix, one of the most prestigious ballet competitions in the world for teens, is all about dreaming impossible dreams.

The filmmaker is Bess Kargman, a journalist and former dancer intimately familiar with this student world of ballet competitions. Hundreds of budding dancers spend all of their formative years training to win a handful of awards.

 All of them will know the pain and sacrifice of stretching their bodies far beyond normal limits. All will have exhaustion as their constant companion. But only a few will win the recognition that opens those ballet doors to push their careers forward.

Kargman has selected a politically correct list of six dancers, three males and three females, ranging in age from 11 to 17. Latins, Africans, Asians and a couple of All-Americans are represented.

Following a structure much like “Spellbound,” we meet each of the kids, get to know them on a personal level, then follow them through training and preliminary rounds of performances that lead up to the finals.

Applying her journalism instincts, Kargman doesn’t set up any artificial heroes and villains. She has chosen her candidates carefully. Each of them becomes an endearing individual, courageous for accepting this torturous performance path to achieve a few stage moments of soaring triumph.

Anyone who is a ballet dancer, who has spent many childhood years in ballet training or has been the parent of a dancer will relate to this gentle film (as compared to, say, “Black Swan”).

We learn about the insiders’ pain of discipline that stretches young feet to endure performing on tip-toe; stretching legs, backs and arms to reach a range of extensions unknown to normal youngsters. There are the expensive ballet shoes that last, literally, just a few days; the elaborate costumes whose cost spirals upward from hundreds of dollars.

Then we see all the hope, all the determination on those sweet innocent faces.

Who can resist that? It is impossible.