Stomp the Yard

DJ, a street dancer in Los Angeles, loses his brother in a fight after a performance. Instead of a sentence he is sent to a university in the south. There he encounters a tradition called stepping: stomping, clapping and synchronised movement, competed between student organisations. His street dancing does not fit that order. The subject is not the dance contest but discipline. Stepping is not built on individual display but on who keeps time with whom, and that is exactly what DJ has to learn. The form is a dance film without being a musical: the competition sequences are shot wide and unbroken, so you see the performers actually doing it. Stepping is a deep-rooted tradition from the fraternities and sororities of America's historically Black colleges. The film is one of the productions that carried it to a wide audience and unexpectedly opened at number one at the box office. Sylvain White directs. Columbus Short plays DJ and Meagan Good the woman he loves, with the singer Ne-Yo also in the cast. Who it is for: viewers who like dance films and watching choreography. Who it is not for: anyone wanting story; the plot never leaves the template and exists to connect the numbers.