Educational Media Reviews Online

Like Air follows three teenage dancers through a recent season of competitions run by DanceMakers Inc., which describes itself as “a dance convention & competition.” The majority of the film is comprised of interviews along with rehearsal and performance footage accompanied by the voiceover of the three dancers. While Allyssa, Monts, and Kayla are the main subjects of Like Air, DanceMakers’ faculty Kathryn McCormick is also featured. McCormick’s role in DanceMakers appears to be to motivate the conventions of dancers gathered, encouraging them to pat themselves on the back and providing other reasons to keep dancing.

The challenge of reviewing Like Air is that its participants both on and off-screen seem to come from within the competitive dance world, and specifically, DanceMakers. In fact, Like Air is produced by Amalgamation Pictures in association with DanceMakers Inc., and Kathryn McCormick is a co-producer of the film. Thus, it is not surprising that the film avoids exploring the broader issues of competitive dance, such as the cost to train and compete, and how companies like DanceMakers function as businesses.

It is the lack of a broader perspective that makes it difficult to recommend Like Air. The film does illustrate the relationship between art and commerce, a relationship which the athletic nature of dance adds an additional layer of complexity. In addition, adolescents involved in competitive dance will relate to the film, given the predominant voice of its three candid protagonists who do not hold back from discussing injury and struggling with losing competitions. However, these two factors did not outweigh the overall questions of how Like Air may be functioning to support DanceMakers Inc. For these conflicting reasons, Like Air is recommended with reservations.