How She Move
Title: How She Move
Director: Ian Iqbal Rashid
Amazon price: $19.99
How She Move (2008) is a delightful, high-energy movie about pursuing dreams, dreams as hopes, goals & aspirations. It clearly demonstrates that without tremendous determination and waking-world elbow grease, hopes and aspirations are no more than pipe dreams. To make dreams real requires jumping, feet first, into the fray of the waking world, constantly recalibrating the dreams against waking reality, modifying the dreams, but never giving them up.
In its structure, “How She Move” is the standard Hollywood story of a talented but disadvantaged kid overcoming all odds to become a success. However, the vitality of the characters and the electricity of the dancing make this movie more than worth watching.
The main character of this movie, the “she” who “move”, is Raya Green (portrayed delightfully by Rutina Wesley), the teen-aged daughter of Caribbean immigrants. Dark skinned, slender and athletic, she excels at academics as well as at stepping, an acrobatic form of group dance that is a hallmark of Black American culture. She has returned to her rough-and-tumble Toronto neighborhood, having attended private school and then failing a scholarship-qualifying exam.
Her story is of the struggle between the two worlds that she now is a resident of. Her first home is the “hood” where she grew up, where her friends and neighbors are economically struggling people of color, living difficult and often limited lives. Violence and drugs are a part of this world, as is the vital excitement of music and dance.
Because of her academic success, she has also gained access to the genteel, most probably White, world of higher education and Big Time Success. We don’t see her negotiating this world, but clearly, it is the one that offers her the broadest horizon of success.
A resident of both worlds, she finds herself not fully belonging to either. The movie shows that, having returned to her Toronto ‘hood, she is seen as an outsider by her friends, not “one of us.” Undoubtedly she feels like an outsider in the world opened to her by her intellectual prowess.
Having returned home, Raya deals with loss. Her beloved older sister, a local legend in the world of stepping contests, has recently died from a drug overdose. Raya has not been able to get the scholarship that was mandatory for her to continue her privileged schooling. Raya must decide what to do with her life. She is also has to figure out where she belongs and who she is. Ultimately, she has to examine what her dreams are and will she struggle to make them real.
Raya is a top-notch step-dancer, and returns to this activity back home. She sees an opportunity to get the money she needs to resume her schooling by winning a big-money stepping contest. Her mother is vehemently against this, since dancing was part of Raya’s sister’s world, along with drugs.
Another hurdle for Raya in achieving this dream is that the world of stepping is intensely sexist, with dance teams segregated by gender, with much bigger monetary purses going to male teams. In order to get the money she needs for school, Raya has to get herself connected to an all-male team, which she does.
Raya ongoingly has to prove her intentions and determination as she works for acceptance on her guys’ dance team. She has to prove her dancing mettle, as well as the fact that she is a “homey,” not a “I’m better than you White-wannabe.” She clashes with virtually everyone in her old stomping grounds, male and female. The most powerful clash occurs with Bishop, the captain of the team who accepts her.
In the end, of course, she and her team win the big dance contest, which means she will be going back to school. She proves to herself that she is a real member of both worlds. She is not a "wannabe" step dancer or person of color; neither is she a "wannabe" student and thinker. Where she is a "wannabe" is in her dream of creating a life that allows her to be everything that is part of her experience and talent. Raya realizes that the over-arching dream of her life means embracing whatever it is that is significant for her, not censoring or isolating herself. She understands that she can and must integrate the various aspects of herself into a whole that makes sense for her. Her strength and determination allow her to open her mind and heart. In following both of her dreams (academic success and dancing) and working heroically to make them real, Raya creates an opportunity for a larger, more exciting dream of what her life might look like.