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Dori Berinstein Has Gotta Dance
For 15 years Dori Berinstein was a Tony Award-winning force behind the scenes as a producer for some of Broadway’s biggest hits, including Thoroughly Modern Millie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Legally Blonde: The Musical. While she had, at times, worked in television and film (see Dirty Dancing and “The Isaac Mizrahi Show"), it was largely in a production capacity. That changed when Berinstein found inspiration for her first feature in the opening of the 2003-2004 Broadway season. It was inevitable some of the shows set to debut that year would soar while others failed, and that’s exactly the kind of tension the first-time director looked to examine.
Berinstein’s ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway documents rehearsals through opening night—and for some, the final performances—of four of the season’s prospective shows (Avenue Q, Caroline, or Change, Taboo and Wicked) and was just as diverting as anything on the Broadway stage.
Her second documentary, Some Assembly Required, chronicles the lives and work of six teams of child inventors as they prepare for competition in astronaut Dr. Sally Ride’s TOYchallenge. The movie made its world premiere at SXSW earlier this year.
But it is Berinstein’s most recent documentary, Gotta Dance, that is the talk of the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. The movie follows the 12 women and one man chosen as the first senior hip-hop dance team for the New Jersey Nets. “I had a quote from Florenz Ziegfield stuck in my head that would serve as the mantra for our film: ‘Age doesn’t matter unless you’re a cheese.’ The adventures of this senior hip-hop dance team had the potential to showcase that perfectly,” Berinstein says.
From early auditions to the pressure of the final performance Berinstein leads the audience on an engaging emotional journey that will make you forget you’re watching a movie and not right there with them. However, the entertainment comes from more than simply watching 81-year-old Fanny practice her hip-hop moves and dance around in a bright pink poodle skirt. As much as the documentary focuses on age—and indeed many of the humorous moments are the result of the ages of all participants—it is ultimately an examination of will and persistence.
Whether it’s 62-year-old Joe B.’s push despite his lack of rhythm or Betty/Betsy’s acceptance and merging of her two unlikely personalities, each member of the 2007 NETsationals team showcases that willingness and persistence that characterize a Berinstein documentary.
In between this week’s screenings of Gotta Dance in Tribeca, Berinstein explained to MM what draws her to film and how this story in particular is one for the ages.
Mallory Potosky (MM): How did you originally hear about the NETSational Senior hip-hop team?
Dori Berinstein (DB): I was reading Cindy Adams’ column in The New York Post, when I came across the item that the New Jersey Nets Basketball Team were holding auditions for a first-ever, senior citizen dance team. At that point, it wasn’t clear that the group would be dancing hip-hop. I just had to dive in and check it out!
MM: Before meeting the group of 13 that would eventually be chosen for the team and carry the movie, what made you think that this subject would make a good documentary?
DB: The idea of making a film that celebrates aging had been on my mind for several years. I had witnessed age discrimination and it made me furious. Just because someone turns 60, 70, 80, whatever… why should they have to age-out of a job? Shouldn’t ability, experience and wisdom figure most prominently? When I read about the team, I thought, ‘This could be it!’ I was excited about a group of seniors, all dance newbies, taking on a dream—diving into something they never thought, in their wildest dreams, that they’d ever do. I was ecstatic about the prospect of telling a story that said, “Just because you’re 80-years-old, who says you can’t shake the roof off a sports arena in front of 20,000 screaming fans with your cool dance moves?”
MM: It’s often said a woman never reveals her age. Obviously, the 12 women on this team didn’t feel that way since they wore their respective ages on their uniforms. But performing in front of a stadium full of people is quite different than allowing a camera into your life for the whole world to see. Did you find that anyone was reluctant to participate? Was anyone especially eager?
DB: Actually, prior to joining the Nets Senior Dance Team, several NETSationals had hid their age from their employers. They thought their real age could have a negative impact on people’s perceptions of their abilities and, in fact, on their employment. Wearing their age, front-and-center on their jerseys and then for our cameras was a very brave thing to do.
Separately, one team member, Betty, hid from us for the first two months of the shoot. She was tremendously shy. After a while, trust was built and Betty opened up to us on camera. Her journey, uniting her two personalities—Betsy: a very gentle, conservative kindergarten teacher, and Betty: a daring hip-hop dance aficionado—ultimately became one of our major throughlines.
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