Revolutionising dance movies

International director John M Chu talks about the new cult of street dancing.

What is dance for you?
Dance is drama. We have various form of dance from jazz, breaking, popping, tango, ballet, hip-hop to Indian bollywood dance. I love all forms of dance. Its my passion. And I believe in it.

Why did you want to make your new film in 3D?
In my new movie, you can see the story of urban street dancing goes global with an electrifying new story of hearts, dreams and bodies in motion, made even more thrilling with cutting-edge 3D technology. It has more fantasies than the last one. It is a first dance 3D movie where you can feel the dance within you.  And it was a challenge that we undertook, and made happen. We aim to revolutionize dance movies.

3D started as a joke. One of my editors cracked a joke asking ‘why can’t we do it in 3D?’,all of us started laughing and then all of us started looking at each other to give ita second thought, then we thought that it will be pretty awesome if we tried it. When shooting 3D it takes longer...much longer I’d say. The machine is gigantic, one for the right eye and one for the left. After each shot changing a lens would take almost an hour.

The form of street dance is growing all over the world?
Street dance has become a cult now. Once aimed very specific niche market, dance has become a lot more mainstream in recent years thanks to the popularity of such reality TV shows like Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance? and America’s Best Dance Crew. My webseries on Hulu,  The LXD (The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers) celebrates the vibrant dance culture I’ve been immersed in for many years and showcases these amazing athletes against a backdrop of an epic adventure tale, I hope The LXD inspires a new generation of dancers to push the limits of their abilities.