Dad Can Dance

A secret, when finally disclosed after so many years, can be a doorway to connection, to understanding, to deepening. Dad Can Dance certainly demonstrates this, not only in its subject matter but in its very storytelling. Written and directed by Jamie Ross in true collaboration with his father David Ross, the film’s main subject is David, but told through the lens of their relationship, as it grows and changes in relation to the secret the film reveals: that David was once a ballet dancer in his youth. Told through audio correspondence, archival imagery, as well as newly choreographed movement, among other elements, the pair has the rare and precious opportunity to travel through their shared familial past—rife with its wounds and errors—with care and sensitivity. It is equally rare and precious for a viewer to get the chance to watch elderly bodies dancing and moving with graceful imperfection, and to marvel in the beauty of a body reclaiming what was once so meaningful to them and was abandoned and lost for so long.

Sure to leave no eyes dry in the room, this film stirs in the viewer “a sense of how spirit moves through us—to be alive!” as eloquently put by legendary Canadian ballet dancer Evelyn Hart in the film. She and Jamie and David and the film as a whole exemplify to us all what it is, in fact, to be an artist: to have the opportunity to share the depth inside of yourself with other people, the courage to be oneself publicly, expressively, whatever that self is. And to expose your passion and your vulnerability in a way that is so particular to the performing arts, as if tenderly extending a balletic arm out in the direction of the audience, hoping someone out there is reaching right back, waiting to grab hold of it.

Aurora Prelević
Writer, performance artist, cinephile, programmer