Dance in Film · 2021
In the Heights (2021)
Jon M. Chu's screen adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical bursts with salsa, merengue, and Latin social dance across a New York summer in Washington Heights.
In the Heights is a 2021 dance musical centred on ballroom and social dance. 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 6 indexed dance sequences ↓
Where to watch: Streaming (various)
The dance sequences in In the Heights
6 sequences — what is danced, by whom, and where to find it.
96,000 — submerged breaking
Breaking (B-Boying / B-Girling)Choreography Christopher Scott
Fully submerged breakers holding and propelling street-dance shapes beneath the Highbridge Pool surface.
Placing breaking underwater removes the form’s normal floor contact while preserving its explosive shapes, making the number’s competing dreams feel physically impossible and exuberant.
Open the film at this point · Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. No edition-specific timestamp used. Apple identifies the exact 2021 Warner Bros. feature at 2 hr 23 min; Prime rental availability checked 2026-08-13.
96,000 — underwater ballet figures
Classical BalletChoreography Christopher Scott
Ballet dancers changing beneath the water inside Busby Berkeley-like pool geometry.
Underwater changements turn the pool into a weightless ballet stage while the overhead formations expand an individual lottery fantasy into a neighborhood-scale spectacle.
Open the film at this point · Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. No edition-specific timestamp used. Apple identifies the exact 2021 Warner Bros. feature at 2 hr 23 min; Prime rental availability checked 2026-08-13.
Carnaval del Barrio
Caribbean and Latin community dance medleyChoreography Christopher Scott; Eddie Torres Jr.; Princess Serrano
The courtyard erupting into flags, intergenerational dancing and spontaneous New York chants.
Traditional Dominican, Puerto Rican, Cuban and Mexican vignettes mix with New York movement and community freestyle, making cultural plurality—not a single homogenized “Latin” style—the sequence’s organizing principle.
Open the film at this point · Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. No edition-specific timestamp used. Apple identifies the exact 2021 Warner Bros. feature at 2 hr 23 min; Prime rental availability checked 2026-08-13.
Paciencia y Fe — subway memory dance
Cuban-memory and New York narrative movementDanced by Olga Merediz · Choreography Christopher Scott
Claudia moving through historic trains as dancers emerge from memory, including bodies compressed into suitcases on the platform.
Two movement ensembles distinguish Claudia’s Cuban past from New York through contrasting posture and torso shape, letting choreography carry migration history across the vintage subway cars.
Open the film at this point · Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. No edition-specific timestamp used. Apple identifies the exact 2021 Warner Bros. feature at 2 hr 23 min; Prime rental availability checked 2026-08-13.
The Club — New York on-2 dance
New York salsa (on 2) / mambo timingDanced by Melissa Barrera · Choreography Christopher Scott; Eddie Torres Jr.
Vanessa commanding the crowded club while the moving partners sharpen Usnavi’s jealousy.
Eddie Torres Jr.’s on-2 training gives Vanessa’s club dancing authentic New York timing, so the choreography carries the scene’s jealousy and attraction instead of functioning as decoration.
Open the film at this point · Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. No edition-specific timestamp used. Apple identifies the exact 2021 Warner Bros. feature at 2 hr 23 min; Prime rental availability checked 2026-08-13.
When the Sun Goes Down — gravity-defying duet
Gravity-defying screen-dance duetDanced by Corey Hawkins; Leslie Grace · Choreography Christopher Scott
Nina and Benny dancing along the side of a Washington Heights building as the world rotates beneath them.
The rotating set turns a romantic duet into literal release from gravity, using a continuous cinematic illusion to express Nina and Benny briefly escaping the pressures placed on their future.
Open the film at this point · Stream or rental only — the timestamp is for when you have it playing. No edition-specific timestamp used. Apple identifies the exact 2021 Warner Bros. feature at 2 hr 23 min; Prime rental availability checked 2026-08-13.
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