Dance 100 on Netflix: Turning Hot and Fresh into Limp and Boring
How The Creative Team Could Fire Up This Great Concept
Its got a hot soundtrack, hot choreography and ON FIRE dancers! Dance 100 on Netflix has everything necessary to make it a global smash! Creative Director Liam Luniss has worked with Dua Lipa, Shawn Mendes, Nicki Minaj AND Lionel Richie - that’s some real range! The show is a contest to find the best choreographer from eight massively talented hopefuls who create dances for 100 of the world’s best commercial dancers.
Each piece created is judged by the actual dancers who perform the piece as well as the rest of the 100 who are watching it. Another great concept with direct, unfiltered feedback. At the end of every episode one or two choreographers are eliminated in a brutal judging process: The 100 dancers have to line themselves up on stage behind their favourite choreographer - its the ultimate expression of playground favourites.
The remaining contestants then choreograph for an ever increasing number of dancers until the two finalists create pieces for fifty and then 100 dancers. This show is working with a dynamic, visual and bang on trend artform with a very healthy budget (100 dancers is LOTS!), and an amazing host, Ally Love. This show has potential, talent and energy to spare!
BUT….But…..but…
Dance 100 is that really attractive person that you see across a room. Physically this person has everything you have ever wanted. You see them and you are already falling in love, and planning the cool life you will have together. Dance 100 was the Netflix equivalent for me. I love dance, I have choreographed contemporary dance, cabaret, fashion shows and commercial work. I saw the trailer for this show and I was already in love. I was definitely going to watch all six episodes of this in one sitting.
By episode 3 of Dance 100 it was like being stuck in a conversation with that same gorgeous person. But instead of talking about all of the cool stuff we have in common they are telling me about how Percy Shaw had patented the Cat’s Eye in 1934. How, I wondered, had this show begun to turn me off so much? How had this gorgeous person let me down so much?
The dancers were still dancing really well, the production still looked great and I still loved dance. After three episodes I knew I had to see it through, I was sure it was going to spring into life.
Please God, I was thinking, let it be worth it at the end. But, sadly, it was not.
The big question for Netflix with Dance 100 is how did they take something that could have been so groundbreaking and make it so dull? They definitely started with a great ides. They hired some great talent and invested a healthy budget -100 dancers from the UK and US is a big cast!
From a creative perspective there are several parts of Dance 100 that don’t work:
First off: Choreography is an intense art to master. Transforming sound waves into movements that look good, and make sense takes huge amounts of creative work. It is not a broad brush art form even when creating 90 second pieces so more time is needed to examine and help the audience understand how a piece of choreography is built. Think about how much time is dedicated to process and explaining the brief on Great British Bake Off. The presenters talk about what is needed from each individual challenge, what makes one piece of cake different from another and what needs to be done to successfully deliver. None of this is present in Dance 100. The choreographers supposedly go into rehearsal and say things like “we are really gonna kill it this week” or “I love this track and I love you guys” Creative process is replaced with platitudes.
The Dance 100 creative team also needs to address the rhythm and pace of the show. Every song used is a certified banger but as anyone who has ever created a show knows: you need light and shade, fast songs and slow songs, big and small to make the show work. If James Bond was just car chases and explosions then they would stop being effective. If you just continually hit your audience with big thrills then it becomes tiring and boring and this is really show production 101!
Why not set different stylistic challenges - maybe a lyrical piece, or a pas-de deux? Take the contestants to meet a successful choreographer like Sergio Trujillo, Susan Stroman or Matthew Bourne so that they (and the audience) gets a deeper understanding of the art form.
This is important because there is literally no informed or impartial critique of the work beyond some slightly bitchy comments from the dancers. Each choreographer accepts ‘totally takes on board these comments 100%’ which removes any conflict. It certainly succeeds in making the dancers seem human but it does leave you longing for the critiques of Craig, Bruno, Shirley and Anton!
As an audience member you will learn nothing of how choreography works, of the shapes or the levels that are needed to make dance successful. If you have Liam Lunnis on the creative team then let’s hear his opinion!
There’s a BBC show called Interior Design Masters that is put together to show the audience how each contestant develops their own personal style and vision. The closest we get to any contestant having a personal style in Dance 100 is when we learn that Keenan earns the nickname ‘Kleenan’ for wanting his pieces to be as clean as possible. (NB: for non dancers the process of ‘cleaning’ a dance involves making every dancer as precise as possible). Not one choreographer is given the chance to showcase their unique creative vision or choreographic style - and even if they were, there is no mechanism in the show to discuss it.
Finally let’s discuss editing! Every comment uttered is greeted by totally out of synch wild applause from the studio audience - this is just poor quality.
Dance 100 is, unfortunately, a limp and lifeless, poorly edited show that gives zero insight into the choreographic process. It reduces creativity to something that wins you a $100k prize rather than a process that creates beauty.
And this is such a shame because the opportunity to show dance off as relevant and dynamic has been completely missed as has the chance to show off choreographers as the creative geniuses they truly are!
I hope there is a much better second series and would love to view season one as the slightly tricky out of town opening which will lead to a glorious, insightful, creative and entertaining hit!