Life within the Mad Hot Ballroom
Nantucket Atheneum continues its three-part documentary series this week with a documentary focusing on life as seen through the eyes of children in New York City
BY LUCRETIA VOIGT CONTRIBUTING WRITER
On Monday, October 22, the Nantucket Atheneum will continue its three-part documentary series entitled "Through a Child's Eyes" with the award winning documentary "Mad Hot Ballroom."

"Mad Hot Ballroom" Cinematographer Claudia Raschke-Robinson.

"Mad Hot Ballroom" focuses on the ballroom dancing competition that is a staple in fifth grade classrooms across New York City. When questioned about her decision to include this documentary in the series, Amy Jenness laughed as she remembered her first introduction to the film. "By the end I couldn't sit still," she said. "I was so excited to see who was going to win that I was tangoing around my kitchen."

Jenness commented about the string that threads through each of the documentaries - the transitional time between childhood and teenager. "I realize that almost all of the children in the documentaries are between the ages of 10 and 12. It's a magical age when you realize there are pitfalls out there, but you still have the enthusiasm of being a kid."

Last week The Nantucket Independent introduced you to the Academy Award-winning director and cinematographer of the first documentary, "Born Into Brothels." This week, as part two of the three part series, we introduce you to the eyes behind the camera that brought you "Mad Hot Ballroom."

Next week will focus on the third and final documentary in the series, "Paper Clips," a story about tolerance, cultural diversity and the life lessons learned by a group of middle school children in Whitwell, Tenn. "MAD HOT BALLROOM" Monday, Oct. 22, 7 p.m., Nantucket Atheneum Great Hall

Most movies begin with a great story. "Mad Hot Ballroom" is no different, and began as an article written by Amy Sewell for The Tribeca Trib, a newspaper covering lower Manhattan. According to Claudia Raschke- Robinson, the cinematographer on "Mad Hot Ballroom," "[Amy Sewell] wrote about it, fell in love with what she saw, and noticed you couldn't really put that into words. She ventured out, having never made a film before, and contacted friends she had and put a team together. She has written a book about it called "The Unlikely Filmmaker" regarding her process."

"Mad Hot Ballroom" follows the children from three New York Public Schools: P.S. 150 in the Tribeca area, P.S. 112 in Bensonhurt, and P.S. 115 in Washington Heights. These elementary school children are practicing to compete in the city-wide competition in the foxtrot, merengue, swing, rumba and tango. The three school groups are a microcosm of the diversity throughout New York City. The children from Tribeca are basically affluent and white, the children from Bensonhurt mainly Italian and Asian, and the children from Washington Heights predominantly Dominican with a poverty level of ninety-seven percent. Kids are kids, however, and making a documentary where they are the focus has its problems.

"I had to hold the camera down at my waist," said Raschke-Robinson, when asked about some of the problems in filming children. "If I held it on my shoulder, I would be twice as tall as them. I wanted the camera at their eye level, and the audience at the level of children. It's the instance of being one with their world."

Raschke-Robinson has a history of becoming one with the world of her subjects. Early in her career, she was hired to film an entire movie from the view of a cockroach. She laughed, stating, "The biggest thing was how not to see my own shadow."

Filming kids presents some different obstacles. "With this film, the issue was that I didn't know the dances. So as they are starting to dance, okay, they're moving in that direction, then suddenly they sidestep, so you had to be on your toes. We had our own pas de deux going while they were doing their tango. The obstacles were more about physical ability - more avoiding colli- sions and most of all really trying to be unobtrusive and kind of as good as can be to morph into the music and with their movements."

In addition to becoming a "Dancing with the Stars" contestant, Raschke-Robinson had technical elements to overcome. "We could not have any additional lights. We had to use totally natural surroundings, and work with what was there at the location. The director and producer could not be in the room during the filming because we needed to have a 360 degree shot. Kids respond to any kind of activity. To become invisible, we had to totally minimize everything so that even the camera had to be scaled down to something not even visible to the children. If I have a camera right to my face, it is a big object, and with that it limits my field of view, not letting me use my peripheral vision. We decided on a small camera with a flip out screen so that I could see what I was photographing but also could see out of the corner of my eye. If something interesting was happening elsewhere, I could whip around and catch it. "

Trying to be unobtrusive is not easy for a camera person. Add to that mix the draw of children to cameras like moths to a flame, and the ability to get reality and not acting is tough. Raschke-Robinson found that the longer she was there and the less she interacted with the children, the more they became used to her. "It was fascinating. In the beginning they were all like deer in the headlights, staring at me, staring at the camera. Since I wasn't really into acting with them, I became wallpaper. In the end, I was not there. They totally let me in to be part of it, they adapted in such a beautiful way. It was a very special experience of them making their mistakes, them talking straight from the heart, without them feeling 'Oh my god, there's a camera, what are my parents going to think?' Any of those thoughts totally vanished."

That raw innocence runs through the entire film, from the expressions on the boys' faces during the dances, to the discussions between the girls about love and having babies. Raschke-Robinson captures the subtle changes in the children's faces as they joke about liking someone, then worry about childhood predators. Her ability to photograph the soul of each child by capturing their body language and their personality is one of the more remarkable aspects of the film. This ability to see inside a child is bolstered by her own reality as a mother.

"I used to do a lot of feature films before I had children," she explains. Raschke-Robinson was the second assistant cameraman on "Last Exit to Brooklyn," as well as the cinematographer for the film "The Last Good Time," to list a few. "You make a big decision once you have children. My family is what I wanted, but I couldn't be without my cinematography. With feature films, you're gone for months at a time. I switched over to documentaries because they are not shot in one chunk. You shoot a little, look at it, decide if it's going the way you want, then shoot some more. It's a much more lengthy project. I'm working right now on seven different documentaries. Documentaries are kind of spread out. They fit really well with family life. I can go on field trips with my kids and can still contribute my artistry to whatever story needs to be told."

It is this dance of her own that moves through Raschke-Robinson's life. "Mothers in the industry definitely have a hard job. We work to make everything happen, to be a career woman, to be the perfect mother, to be there for our children when they need us. It seems to be 24/7 because if I come home from a 12 hour job, because that's my norm, I come home to a household that is still waiting for me." The children in the documentary are products of their environment, but are also clean canvases waiting to be painted. "It is so hard as a parent, period, to constantly set an example. Whatever you do, they are the perfect mirror."

In "Mad Hot Ballroom," the audience gets to look into the faces of these 60 children, see what they see, and dance through the glory with them. It is a dance

we all need to remember. I