Dance in Film · 2016
Alive and Kicking (2016)
Documentary exploring the Lindy Hop revival and its community of dancers keeping the Swing era alive.
Alive and Kicking is a 2016 dance documentary centred on Swing & Jazz. For dancers, it's a chance to see the style performed on screen — the phrasing, partnering, and musicality that the same dances carry onto a real floor.
Jump to the 12 dance sequences ↓
Dance styles featured
Where to watch: Streaming (various)
Trailer
Official trailer.
The dance sequences in Alive and Kicking
12 sequences — what is danced, by whom, and where to find it.
Augie Freeman's Balboa passage after Iraq
BalboaDanced by Augie Freeman; Delphine Laurens
Augie Freeman converting post-deployment isolation into the minute shared adjustments of Balboa.
Freeman's close, rapid Balboa with Laurens is set against his account of returning from Iraq isolated and finding connection through swing. The compact partnership turns recovery into something visible: two people continually adjusting distance and timing instead of leaving the veteran alone in the frame.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Untimed passage in the 88-minute U.S. digital edition; no legal timed master was accessible on 2026-08-04, and platform masters may vary.
Augie Freeman’s Balboa passage after Iraq
BalboaDanced by Augie Freeman; Delphine Laurens
Post-deployment isolation giving way to the minute shared adjustments of Balboa.
Freeman’s close, rapid Balboa is set against his account of returning from Iraq isolated and finding connection through swing. The compact partnership makes recovery visible through continual adjustments of distance, pulse, and shared timing.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing.
Blues-dance chapter
Danced by Blues dancers (unnamed)
The documentary dropping from flying Lindy bodies into a close, slow blues embrace.
After the Lindy passages’ airborne momentum, the blues chapter closes the distance between partners and lets slower, weighted movement replace the rush of airsteps. The shift in speed and space gives the film a tactile counterexample to its dominant swing imagery.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing.
Catalina Casino ballroom reveal and Lindy competition
Lindy HopDanced by Lindy Hop competitors
A service-door threshold suddenly revealing the Catalina ballroom alive with Lindy dancers.
Glatzer follows a waitress carrying a tray from the kitchen into the Catalina Casino ballroom, letting ordinary labor open suddenly onto a wild Lindy Hop competition. The moving tray establishes the path before improvisation and airsteps take over the grand floor.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing.
Contemporary gravity-defying airstep montage
Lindy HopDanced by Lindy Hop competitors and social dancers
A tossed dancer snapping from apparent weightlessness into a firm two-footed landing.
Contemporary partners appear to fling one another like rag dolls, yet each flight resolves in controlled landings and renewed pulse. Glatzer’s mobile camera follows the improvised exchange so every takeoff becomes a question the landing answers.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing.
Crowdsourced international social-floor montage
Lindy HopDanced by International Lindy Hop community dancers
Kuala Lumpur and Swedish dancers answering the same jazz pulse across different social floors.
Crowdsourced footage from Kuala Lumpur and second-unit material from Sweden connect far-apart social floors without pretending the director witnessed every room. Partner changes and crowded floorcraft make global transmission legible through actual dancing.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing.
Emelie and Rebecka DecaVita reframe the partner duet
Lindy HopDanced by Emelie DecaVita; Rebecka DecaVita
The Swedish pair turning Lindy partnership into an embodied argument for chosen sisterhood.
The DecaVitas bring their training as therapists into a Lindy duet that treats lead-and-follow as negotiated communication instead of a fixed romantic pairing. Their chosen sisterhood makes partnership itself the scene’s subject.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing.
Harlem-to-Hollywood archive and elder testimony
Lindy HopDanced by Frankie Manning; Norma Miller; Dawn Hampton; Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers (archival footage)
Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers making airborne Harlem movement look like cinema’s original special effect.
Archival performance and elder testimony carry Lindy Hop from Harlem ballrooms into Hollywood imagery without erasing its Black social-dance origin. Airsteps read as cinematic spectacle while Manning, Miller, and Hampton keep history attached to people.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing.
Harlem-to-Hollywood Whitey's Lindy Hoppers archive
Lindy HopDanced by Frankie Manning; Norma Miller; Whitey's Lindy Hoppers (archival footage)
Whitey's Lindy Hoppers making an airborne Harlem dance look like cinema's original special effect.
The history passage carries Harlem's Savoy dancers into Hollywood excerpts, where Manning, Miller, and Whitey's Lindy Hoppers send bodies through airsteps that early movie audiences could read like practical special effects. The leaps retain their Black social-dance origin even as the montage shows the form being packaged for a national screen.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Untimed passage in the 88-minute U.S. digital edition; no legal timed master was accessible on 2026-08-04, and platform masters may vary.
Stephen Sayer and Chandrae Roettig on the competition circuit
Lindy HopDanced by Stephen Sayer; Chandrae “Chanzie” Roettig
Steve and Chanzie throwing down at Camp Hollywood after fitting the partnership around ordinary jobs.
The film follows Sayer and Roettig through Camp Hollywood and other contests while they balance full-time work with their partnership. Their recurring returns to the floor emphasize sustained musical conversation and trust more than any single trophy.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing.
Steve Sayer and Chanzie Roettig at Camp Hollywood and world contests
Lindy HopDanced by Stephen Sayer; Chandrae “Chanzie” Roettig
Steve and Chanzie throwing down at Camp Hollywood after fitting the partnership around ordinary jobs.
Sayer and Roettig carry full-time jobs into a circuit of Camp Hollywood and international contests, so their quick turns and risk-bearing tricks arrive with the pressure of work squeezed around dance. Keeping the pair together across venues makes their repeated returns to the floor the passage's real achievement, not a single trophy.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. Untimed passage in the 88-minute U.S. digital edition; no legal timed master was accessible on 2026-08-04, and platform masters may vary.
VCR rewind and swing-revival study passage
Lindy HopDanced by Revival-era swing dancers (unnamed)
Home viewers wearing out pause and rewind to recover swing movement from old films.
The revival chapter turns the videocassette player into a rehearsal tool: dancers pause and rewind old screen routines until fleeting figures can be studied fragment by fragment. Repetition makes the comeback feel like practical reverse engineering rather than nostalgia.
Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing.
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