Dance in Film · 2020
Feel the Beat (2020)
A failed Broadway dancer returns to her small town and reluctantly coaches a group of misfit kids for a dance competition. Family-friendly and heartfelt.
Feel the Beat is a 2020 dance feature film centred on Acro & Dance Acrobatics, Modern Fusion & Commercial, Ballet, Jazz Dance, Musical Theatre Dance. 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.
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Dance styles featured
Where to watch: Netflix
The dance sequences in Feel the Beat
24 sequences — what is danced, by whom, and where to find it.
April performs in Welly Wong's show
Contemporary BroadwayDanced by Sofia Carson (April Dibrina); Welly Wong company dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
April leading Welly Wong's company and then switching straight back into teacher mode.
The finished Broadway number confirms that April kept the lead without abandoning her commitment to New Hope. Instead of presenting professional success as the story's sole reward, the performance is immediately paired with her backstage video instruction to the Wisconsin team.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
April's punishing studio rehearsal
Danced by Sofia Carson (April Dibrina); Donna Lynne Champlin (Barb); New Hope dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
The rehearsal unraveling over glasses, demi-pointe, and April's order to 'get on your leg.'
April converts Barb's small studio into a drill floor, sending the children from push-ups to barre work and glissade-pique combinations without a break. Lucia's lost glasses, Zuzu's delayed count, and Ruby's challenge expose how April's professional shorthand is crushing the beginners instead of training them.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
April's spotlight-hogging Teacher Feature
Contemporary BroadwayDanced by Sofia Carson (April Dibrina); New Hope dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
April nailing the dance and still receiving a lesson about why the number failed.
April treats the Teacher Feature as a solo showcase, carving through the choreography while her students become scenery around her. Her flawless finish is undercut when the judge explains that the category is supposed to display what the children learned, not how completely their teacher can eclipse them.
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Barn rehearsal for the Star Lift
Acro Dance (Competitive)Danced by Sofia Carson (April Dibrina); Wolfgang Novogratz (Nick); Eva Hauge (Sarah); Justin Allan (Dicky); New Hope dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
The Star Lift demonstration ending with Sarah's bra insert on the barn floor.
April uses Nick to test the difficult Star Lift before assigning it to Dicky, with locked elbows and a low barn ceiling making the mechanics feel precariously concrete. The rehearsal's flirtation flips into embarrassment when R.J. lifts Sarah and her silicone bra cup drops onto the floor.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
Broadhurst Theatre audition
Contemporary BroadwayDanced by Sofia Carson (April Dibrina); audition dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
April surviving the cut only to recognize the drenched woman whose taxi she took.
April arrives rain-soaked and drops straight into the numbered Broadway call, so Carson's sharp attack reads as both skill and panic. The combination lands hardest when Ruth Zimmer enters from the stolen taxi and April's polished audition turns into a public catastrophe.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
Broadway audition opening
Contemporary BroadwayDanced by Sofia Carson; audition dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
Fast combination pickup and unforgiving sightlines make professional pressure readable before the mishap.
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.
County competition routine
Jazz FunkDanced by Sofia Carson; young dance-team cast · Choreography Mia Michaels
Front-facing coverage shows formation mistakes and recoveries while reactions never replace the routine.
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.
Dewey Dance-'Em-All age-eight routine
Danced by Dewey Dance-'Em-All youth dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
The stage-parent cheer that enthusiastically confirms April's worst suspicion.
The very young Dewey ensemble performs material provocative enough to make April question whether their parents know the choreography. A mother's shouted encouragement to 'bounce' supplies the punch line and turns the number into the film's clearest satire of over-adult competition styling.
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Final team performance
Contemporary BroadwayDanced by Sofia Carson; young dance-team cast; ensemble · Choreography Mia Michaels
The choreography uses each child's recognizable strength inside a cleaner group architecture, so improvement stays personal.
The camera expands and contracts with the number, moving from architectural wides to selective details at musical turning points. Scale, costume and formation changes amplify the choreography instead of replacing it, so the spectacle remains anchored in dancing bodies.
Football-field ballet cross-training
Classical BalletDanced by New Hope dancers; New Hope football players; Sofia Carson (April Dibrina) · Choreography Mia Michaels
The dancers silencing the football team with a clean temps leve challenge.
With the damaged studio unavailable, April and Coach Buzz turn tires and the football field into a shared training circuit. The decisive gag arrives when the girls answer the boys' teasing with a temps leve demonstration, forcing the padded players to confront how much power ballet requires.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
Minis-under-six group jazz with Dicky
Danced by Kai Zen (June); Carina Battrick (Michelle); Justin Allan (Dicky) · Choreography Mia Michaels
Dicky charging onstage and completing the girls' routine from memory.
June and Michelle freeze in the minis-under-six group jazz, leaving the stage painfully empty until Dicky runs out with the choreography he learned from watching rehearsals. His commitment restarts the girls, and the trio's recovered unison turns a likely disaster into the movie's first genuinely communal win.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
Nationals Teacher Feature to Always
Contemporary BroadwayDanced by Sofia Carson (April Dibrina); New Hope dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
April and the New Hope team closing together on the repeated promise 'we are family.'
April enters the national Teacher Feature visibly nervous because the town and her students, not an anonymous Broadway panel, are now watching her. Dancing 'Always' with the children distributes the phrases across the ensemble, correcting the selfish architecture of her first Teacher Feature and earning Welly Wong's attention.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
New Hope final-round production
Danced by Lidya Jewett (Kari); Shiloh Nelson (Ruby); Shaylee Mansfield (Zuzu); Johanna Colon (Lucia); Eva Hauge (Sarah); Carina Battrick (Michelle); Justin Allan (Dicky); New Hope dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
The supposedly hopeless beginners finishing a killer routine after choosing to dance for themselves.
After April returns and apologizes, the team runs onto the national stage with the mismatched traits she once called flaws fully incorporated into the production. Dicky's commitment, Zuzu's vibration-led timing, and the girls' recovered confidence make the routine a collective answer to April's old demand for perfection.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
New Hope Nationals group production
Acro Dance (Competitive)Danced by Lidya Jewett (Kari); Shiloh Nelson (Ruby); Shaylee Mansfield (Zuzu); Johanna Colon (Lucia); Eva Hauge (Sarah); Carina Battrick (Michelle); Justin Allan (Dicky); New Hope dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
A girl lifting Dicky in the reworked Star Lift as the New Hope families erupt.
New Hope goes on after April orders a pose in place of the injured Dicky's Star Lift, but the children choose the risky version they rehearsed. The payoff reverses the lift's expected roles when a girl hoists Dicky, converting an injury workaround into the troupe's loudest declaration of trust.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
New Hope team first rehearsal
Pre-Ballet & Creative MovementDanced by Sofia Carson; young dance-team cast · Choreography Mia Michaels
Uneven timing and candid corrections remain in view, making the children collaborators rather than instant prodigies.
Observational coverage keeps the dancers' full bodies and surrounding community in view, using close-ups mainly to reveal effort and response. Because the film lets attempts, corrections and recoveries remain visible, the sequence shows how the dance is made rather than presenting only a polished result.
New Hope's first competition jazz routine
Danced by Lidya Jewett (Kari); Shiloh Nelson (Ruby); Shaylee Mansfield (Zuzu); Johanna Colon (Lucia); Eva Hauge (Sarah); Carina Battrick (Michelle); New Hope dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
The confused ending that leaves even the dancers asking whether the routine is over.
The first New Hope number begins with frightened faces and visibly delayed entrances while April fires corrections from the wings. Kari scrambling into place and the routine's abrupt, anticlimactic finish make the team's third-place survival feel like luck rather than triumph.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
Opening-night street dance party
Commercial / Industry DanceDanced by Sofia Carson (April Dibrina); Rex Lee (Welly Wong); New Hope dancers; New Hope families; Broadway company · Choreography Mia Michaels
The entire New Hope family dancing in the street while Ruth Zimmer's car is forced to pass the party.
Welly turns the surprise New Hope reunion into an opening-night dance party that spills from the theater into the New York street. The finale folds children, parents, April, and the Broadway company into one traffic-stopping number, with Ruth Zimmer's appalled drive-by supplying the last comic accent.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
Recommitted team returns to first position
Classical BalletDanced by Sofia Carson (April Dibrina); New Hope dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
The whole troupe accepting the deal and returning to first position together.
After the children negotiate a truce, April starts again at the barre with first and fifth position instead of barking an unexplained finished routine. The stripped-back reset makes technique itself the dramatic action: teacher and team finally agree to build from the same foundation.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
Royalton national-championship routine
Danced by Royalton Dance Conservatory dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
Royalton finishing cleanly while New Hope discovers Dicky has been dancing hurt.
Royalton enters Nationals as the polished Wisconsin champion, stretching its routine across nearly a minute before the story returns to New Hope's injury crisis. The unbroken competitive confidence makes Dicky's hidden rib pain and New Hope's improvised replacement for the lift feel even riskier.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
Royalton reigning-champions jazz number
Danced by Royalton Conservatory dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
New Hope watching the champions' precision and declaring themselves dead on arrival.
Royalton's five-time state champions execute the ten-to-thirteen jazz entry with the cleanliness that New Hope immediately recognizes as out of reach. April's involuntary admiration before Royalton's chant exposes the gap between her professional eye and the team she has barely begun to teach.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
Sarah practices alone
Lyrical JazzDanced by Eva Hauge (Sarah); Sofia Carson (April Dibrina) · Choreography Mia Michaels
Sarah stopping the instant she realizes April has been watching.
Sarah rehearses by herself until April interrupts with corrections about her center and core, turning private movement into an unwanted lesson. The scene's tension comes from Sarah holding her body under control while refusing the emotional mentorship April is trying to offer.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
Waupaca tween-angst number
Lyrical JazzDanced by Waupaca youth dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
The announcer reducing the entire earnest routine to 'tween angst.'
The Waupaca dancers turn adolescent melodrama into a competition number whose emotional excess is punctured by Burt Davenport's dry verdict. That deadpan label, 'tween angst,' makes this short rival-studio passage a comic benchmark for everything New Hope still lacks.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
Whirly Girl Broadway rehearsal
Commercial / Industry DanceDanced by Sofia Carson (April Dibrina); Whirly Girl company dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
April taking her place as Whirly Girl while Sarah's absence hangs over the rehearsal.
Welly introduces April to the Whirly Girl company as its new lead, placing her at the center of the professional room she has chased throughout the film. The rehearsal's exacting ensemble exposes the cost of her choice: every clean count in New York is happening while New Hope prepares without her in Atlantic City.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
Wisconsin state Teacher Feature recovery
Contemporary BroadwayDanced by Sofia Carson (April Dibrina); New Hope dancers · Choreography Mia Michaels
Oona making April's fall look intentional while the team refuses to stop.
Ruth Zimmer's taunts follow April to the stage, and the teacher's distraction produces a visible fall inside the state Teacher Feature. Oona absorbs the accident into the choreography and the group keeps moving, proving the children can now rescue the professional who once treated them as liabilities.
Watch this sequence · This sequence is on YouTube as a standalone clip.
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