Hollywood breaks: hip hop goes mainstream.

Step Up Directed by Anne Fletcher DVD, 98 mins. $29.99

In last summer's teen flick Step Up, jazz and hip hop go head-to-head. The faceoff between jazz's smooth moves and hip hop's raw energy spice up the dance scenes in an otherwise predictable plot. The leads come from different walks of dance life. Ienna Dewan, a trained competition dancer who had a small role in the ballroom flick Take the Lead, plays Nora, a ballet dancer from a well-off family. Channing Tatum--a football player-turned-actor with no previous dance training-is Tyler, a kid with street cred and an incredible hip hop vocabulary. It's no surprise when their shared passion for moving brings them together.

From a dark dance club to center stage, director/choreographer Anne Fletcher (who also choreographed Bring It On) and music video masters Rosero and Jamal (see "Vital Signs," Oct. 2006) give excitement to a tired formula by mixing their choreographic genres together. And Channing is that rarest of all screen creatures: a natural. In one scene, he dances in a parking lot, break dancing across the roof of a car, barrel rolling, doing aerial spins, and then back-flipping off the car's hood.

Will Tatum show up and make Nora's big performance a success? They get their happy ending, and we get a great dance scene that marries jazz and hip hop. And just as Tyler leaves the street behind to pursue life as a serious dance student, viewers will hope Channing continues his on-screen moves, too. --Emily Macel

Idlewild Directed by Brian Barber DVD; www.idlewild movie.net $19.98

Once upon a time Hollywood produced musicals by the dozens each year, many of them dance extravaganzas. While there aren't a lot of modern day "dansicals" hitting local cineplexes these days, Idlewild may be a sign of changing times.

When the exceptional hip hop duo of Andre "Andre 3000" Benjamin and Antwan "Big Boi" Patton, a.k.a. Outkast, hit the big screen in Idlewild last summer, they proved that hip hop music, old school swing and jive dancing, and a little bit of animated magic can go a long way. Their funky, jazz-laden vocals propelled the movie through its period plot, but the dancing really brought the film to life.

Those scenes, choreographed by Hinton Battle (who recently appeared in Dreamgirls), are lively, wild, and uninhibited. Set during Prohibition in the Georgia town from which the movie takes its name, the story follows Rooster (played by Patton), the smooth and devious manager and lead performer in a speakeasy, and its loveable and naive piano player Percival (Benjamin), as they ply their trades and try to duck the law.

Battle calls the fusion of swing and hip hop he created for the movie "swop." During the number "Bowtie," scantily clad girls in pink feathers cling to Rooster as he spits fast rhymes. The dance floor is packed with swinging and Lindy hopping as well as bumping and grinding. Outkast's hip hop, set to the blend of past and present club dances, creates a time machine with a subtle African American dance history lesson. It's impossible to watch without wanting to swing your hips on the dance floor, too.

While Rooster gets tangled up with the financial scandals of club life, Percival falls in love with a singer called Angel, and they decide to pursue dreams beyond Idlewild. The film ends with tragedy, a bit of hope, and one final dance number. Taking a cue from Busby Berkeley, Percival wears a tux and performs at a grand piano while bejeweled women descend a white staircase and tap dance the movie into the credits.--E.M.

Rize Directed by David LaChapelle DVD or VHS, 84 mins. www.rizethemovie.com. $27.98.

"The footage in this film has not been sped up in any way." This on-screen disclaimer is the first "picture" shown in Rize, and with good reason. "Krumping," the new skeet dance, is performed with such intense, angular, breathtaking speed and precision that it's hard to believe that what we see is for real (see cover story, July 2005). But it is, and it's the original creation of, yet again, a group of African American youth trapped in an urban enclave. This time it's not the South Bronx (where breakdancing was born), but South Central Los Angeles--and Watts and Inglewood.

Beginning with footage of the two big L.A. riots--1965 and 1992--the voice-over of "Tommy the Clown," the force behind krumping, talks about this dance form as "something positive growing from these ashes." The film then fast-forwards to krump dancers in 2002, and we see the connection. Director David LaChapelle, a well-known fashion photographer (this is his first feature documentary), makes an even more profound connection midway through the film. Splicing in footage of West African dances, he shows wrestlers in aggressive body contact, and the dancing bodies and facial adornment of other continental African dancers to make his point about continuity, community, and creativity, from there to here.

Creativity is the name of this game. The dance footage is stunning. Beneath the vibrations of a rapid-fire articulated core are fleet-footed leg movements centered on deeply bent knees. LaChapelle follows the family life of key dancers, weaving a poignant story of struggle and survival. More than a dance film, this is a story of how the beauty and power of dance can save souls as well as bodies. These dancers, with names like "Dragon," "Tight Eyez," "Miss Prissy," and "Lil C," inhabit that place where physically feeling the movement can transform into emotional/spiritual feeling, or "getting krumped."

To understand the connection between dance and society, see this film. It's a valuable visual testament and an excellent teaching tool. As stated by Dragon, "We're not gonna be clones of the commercial hip hop world. We're gonna rise, no matter what."

--Brenda Dixon Gottschild