Dance in Film · 1998
Dance With Me (1998)
Vanessa Williams and Chayanne in a romance set against the competitive Latin dance world.
Dance With Me is a 1998 dance feature film centred on American Rhythm, American Smooth, International Latin, International Standard, Club & Social Latin. For dancers, it's a chance to see these styles performed on screen — the phrasing, partnering, and musicality that the same dances carry onto a real floor.
Jump to the 26 indexed dance sequences ↓
Dance styles featured
Where to watch: Streaming (various)
The dance sequences in Dance With Me
26 sequences — what is danced, by whom, and where to find it.
After-party reunion dance
SalsaDanced by Chayanne; Vanessa Williams; ensemble · Choreography Liz Curtis; Daryl Lynn Matthews; Rick Valenzuela
The formal competition frame gives way to looser social timing, making the reunion feel chosen rather than judged.
The framing stays close enough to catch breath, eye-line and lead-follow negotiation, then widens when the partnership needs spatial room. Small weight shifts and pauses carry as much force as the larger figures, which makes the dance register as a live relationship rather than decoration.
After-party reunion salsa
SalsaDanced by Chayanne; Vanessa Williams; championship-party ensemble · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Ruby leaving a Chicago contract on the table when Rafael asks only whether she wants to dance.
Rafael interrupts the promoter's contract pitch with the simplest possible offer, then draws Ruby away from the table into the after-party's loose salsa current. Championship posture dissolves into close eye contact and elastic hand changes, so the couple's first unjudged dance carries more consequence than the trophy ceremony.
Amateur junior swing heat
Danced by World Open junior competitors · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
The junior competitors taking over the same championship floor with quick kicks and fearless speed.
The junior heat snaps the floor from Bea's controlled tango into small competitors kicking and changing places at a much faster tempo. Their scale against the enormous ballroom and adult audience turns the sequence into a bright reset before the film returns to the Excelsior dancers' personal stakes.
Bea and Rafael's comic cabaret reprise
Danced by Joan Plowright; Chayanne · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Bea shouting that she wants to do that too, then stealing the Las Vegas crowd with Rafael.
Bea answers Patricia's aerial display by demanding her own turn, and Rafael reshapes the cabaret vocabulary around her shorter reach and exuberant timing. Their playful assisted poses win the room because Plowright never pretends to be the ingenue; the joke is that Bea's delight becomes more commanding than polish.
Bea and Stefano's studio lesson
American FoxtrotDanced by Joan Plowright; William Marquez · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Bea spotting Rafael mid-lesson and calling him a tall drink of water.
Bea tries to maintain a lifted ballroom frame while Stefano steers her past the Excelsior studio's loose floorboards and mirrors. Her glance toward the newly arrived Rafael breaks the lesson's concentration, making the slow traveling pattern double as his introduction to the studio community.
Bea's senior-division tango
International TangoDanced by Joan Plowright; William Marquez · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Bea carrying her Ginger Rogers ambition all the way from Excelsior's party to a Las Vegas tango heat.
Bea enters the senior student tango with Stefano in compact hold, replacing her costume-party uncertainty with clipped head changes and a purposeful walk across the vast Vegas floor. The surrounding championship scale makes her concentration comic and touching at once, because every small directional change is visibly hard won.
Cha-cha time at Excelsior
American Cha-ChaDanced by Vanessa Williams; Excelsior studio students · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
John's order that a dance studio ought to have music, followed by Ruby's crisp cha-cha count.
When Stefano is told to put on music, Ruby immediately counts a student's forward-left break into 'two, three, cha-cha-cha' beneath Excelsior's mirrors. The cut from Rafael's formal welcome to feet turning on command makes the studio feel like a workplace whose social life begins the instant the record starts.
Costume-party foxtrot with Bea
American FoxtrotDanced by Chayanne; Joan Plowright · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Bea insisting on her Ginger Rogers moment beneath every holiday decoration in the closet.
Under Rafael's jumble of Christmas, Halloween and Easter decorations, Bea clears a lane and coaches him through a slow-quick-quick-slow foxtrot. His Cuban quickness keeps outrunning her measured pattern until a turn goes wrong, so the studio party converts cultural mismatch into a warm, physical joke.
Cuban engagement party rueda
Casino & Rueda de CasinoDanced by Chayanne; Vanessa Williams; party ensemble · Choreography Liz Curtis; Daryl Lynn Matthews; Rick Valenzuela
The circle, calls and rapid partner exchanges make community structure visible without isolating a star couple.
Wide frames make the ensemble geometry readable, while selective cuts redirect attention without breaking the musical phrase. Layered entrances and changing formations turn the group itself into a visual rhythm, giving the number scale without sacrificing clarity.
Cuban engagement-party rueda
Casino & Rueda de CasinoDanced by Chayanne; Vanessa Williams; engagement-party ensemble · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Ruby realizing after the circle dance that the music made her execute a ball change without thinking.
At the roadside engagement celebration, couples close into a ring and exchange partners while Rafael and Ruby are absorbed into the Cuban family's party rather than isolated as stars. The circular traffic makes Ruby's unplanned ball change at the edge of the group feel contagious: the community's timing reaches her before Rafael's lesson does.
Excelsior studio finale
SalsaDanced by Chayanne; Vanessa Williams; Kris Kristofferson; Joan Plowright; Jane Krakowski; Excelsior ensemble · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
The whole Excelsior community dancing together as Rafael and Ruby's duet becomes a group homecoming.
Back at Excelsior, the film fills the repaired studio with the same teachers, students and improvised family Rafael encountered on arrival, now dancing together to You Are My Home. Mirrors multiply the couples while no contest number or judging lane separates them, closing the story on a shared social floor rather than another championship image.
Las Vegas competition
American RumbaDanced by Vanessa Williams; Johnathan Schaech; Chayanne; Joan Plowright · Choreography Liz Curtis; Daryl Lynn Matthews; Rick Valenzuela
Floor-wide coverage preserves competitive lines and lifts, while reaction shots reveal the emotional cost of polish.
The coverage alternates between adjudicator-style wide views and reaction shots without abandoning the routine's structure. Clear musical hits, difficulty peaks and formation changes create a legible competitive arc, making the result feel earned on the floor.
Patricia and Rafael's Theatre Arts entry
Danced by Jane Krakowski; Chayanne · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Rafael nailing Patricia's star lift while Ruby watches from the championship floor.
Patricia uses Rafael as a moving base for the high extension they could not finish with John, culminating in the star lift she had rehearsed back in Houston. The camera lets the ascent clear the surrounding floor before cutting to Ruby's reaction, so the airborne figure lands as both competitive payoff and romantic provocation.
Patricia's star-lift rehearsal
Danced by Jane Krakowski; Chayanne; Kris Kristofferson · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Rafael using his childhood ballet training to make Patricia's stalled star lift fly.
Patricia repeatedly compresses for a high cabaret lift while John's back prevents him from placing enough force beneath her. Rafael steps under the figure and sends her cleanly overhead, making the star lift a concrete transfer of partnership before anyone has decided he will replace John in Las Vegas.
Professional Latin final: cha-cha-cha
International Cha-Cha-ChaDanced by Vanessa Williams; Rick Valenzuela; Professional Latin finalists · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Julian correcting Ruby in the middle of a World Open cha-cha while neither partner can leave the floor.
The cha-cha compresses Ruby and Julian's conflict into sharp stops, checked actions and a hand connection that he keeps using to pull her back on line. His hissed command to move her feet arrives while the beat keeps running, making professional attack look dangerously close to a public argument.
Professional Latin final: paso doble
International Paso DobleDanced by Vanessa Williams; Rick Valenzuela; Professional Latin finalists · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Ruby turning Julian's forceful lead into hard, defiant paso shapes rather than yielding emotionally.
Paso doble gives Julian's controlling lead a vocabulary of squared shoulders, abrupt lunges and cape-like sweeps of Ruby's skirt. Ruby matches that pressure with fixed eye-line and held shapes, so each musical accent reads as resistance inside a partnership still scoring perfectly for the judges.
Professional Latin final: rumba
International RumbaDanced by Vanessa Williams; Rick Valenzuela; Professional Latin finalists; Chayanne · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Ruby halting in Julian's arms as Rafael appears backlit beyond the floor, then continuing at his gesture.
The final rumba slows the championship enough for Ruby to find Rafael in the audience and imagine his presence inside Julian's hold. Her suspended walk stops facing the backlit spectator before Rafael silently motions her onward, turning one held beat into the emotional decision that lets her finish the routine.
Professional Latin final: samba
International SambaDanced by Vanessa Williams; Rick Valenzuela; Professional Latin finalists · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Ruby scanning the crowd for Rafael without dropping the samba's traveling pulse.
Ruby and Julian launch the final with traveling samba bounce, weaving through five rival couples while her fringe and his number panel keep their speed visible from across the floor. The moving camera joins the competitors' diagonal travel, but Ruby's repeated search toward the spectators interrupts the otherwise relentless parade.
Rafael's first club-floor reveal
SalsaDanced by Chayanne; club dancer; club ensemble · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Ruby discovering that Rafael can dance brilliantly as soon as nobody asks him to name the step.
After Ruby abandons the lesson, another woman pulls Rafael into the crowd and his hesitant ball-change act disappears into fast turns and loose torso rhythm. The reveal is staged through Ruby's fixed stare at the edge of the floor, so Chayanne's suddenly easy salsa reads as both virtuosity and an accidental rebuke.
Ruby and Michael's silent cha-cha rehearsal
International Cha-Cha-ChaDanced by Vanessa Williams; Harry Groener · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Rafael questioning a meticulously counted Latin rehearsal conducted in silence.
Ruby and Michael mark crossovers, rondes and a lift without music, her counts ricocheting off the studio mirrors while Rafael watches from the doorway. Michael's comic collision with Ruby's backside punctures the professional stiffness just before Rafael asks how anyone can dance without hearing the rhythm.
Ruby's first mambo lesson for Rafael
American MamboDanced by Vanessa Williams; Chayanne · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Ruby repeating 'the two' as Rafael keeps breaking on one.
At the first club, Ruby plants Rafael's left foot on the two and reduces mambo to a ball change he cannot—or will not—make look natural. Their bodies keep missing the same beat while the crowded floor flows around them, turning a flirtatious lesson into a visibly frustrating collision between codified count and social instinct.
Salsa club arrival
SalsaDanced by Chayanne; Vanessa Williams; club dancers · Choreography Liz Curtis; Daryl Lynn Matthews; Rick Valenzuela
A circulating camera lets the club floor feel socially dense while still returning to complete partner phrases.
Wide frames make the ensemble geometry readable, while selective cuts redirect attention without breaking the musical phrase. Layered entrances and changing formations turn the group itself into a visual rhythm, giving the number scale without sacrificing clarity.
Second-club salsa with Ruby
SalsaDanced by Chayanne; Vanessa Williams; Albita; club ensemble · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Rafael and Ruby finally sharing the crowded club floor without stopping to argue about the name of a step.
With Albita driving the room from the bandstand, Rafael opens Ruby out and pulls her back through a floor packed shoulder-to-shoulder with social dancers. The sequence lets their handhold loosen and reconnect instead of forcing ballroom frame, so the same woman who counted him rigidly on two now follows changes generated by the live groove.
Studio ballroom lesson
American RumbaDanced by Vanessa Williams; Chayanne; Kris Kristofferson; studio dancers · Choreography Liz Curtis; Daryl Lynn Matthews; Rick Valenzuela
Mirrors and partner rotations clarify the difference between codified ballroom frame and Rafael's social instinct.
The sequence gains force by cutting between sharply different movement textures while keeping each style visually legible. That contrast turns technique into character: posture, groove and use of space communicate the conflict before dialogue can explain it.
Vegas rehearsal montage
Danced by Jane Krakowski; Chayanne; Vanessa Williams; Rick Valenzuela; Excelsior competitors · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
Ruby watching Rafael support Patricia's arm and lift while Julian demands that she stay on his count.
Patricia and Rafael circle through supported arm lines while Ruby and Julian grind through their own partnership a few feet away, each couple stealing glances across Excelsior's mirrored floor. Rafael's secure catch on Patricia's lift contrasts with Julian's increasingly forceful corrections, so the montage makes rival partnerships legible without stopping for exposition.
World Open quickstep round
International QuickstepDanced by World Open professional competitors · Choreography Daryl Matthews; Liz Curtis
The first full view of the World Open floor, with couples appearing to fly past one another.
The Vegas floor fills with couples driving diagonally past one another in quickstep, tails and skirts streaming as the camera glides among the traffic rather than observing from the judges' table. The danger of collision supplies the passage's charge: each pair has to accelerate through a crowded lane and still arrive in a clean closed frame.
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