A DRAMATIC DANCE

There are problems for sure. But Étoile has humour and heart

- GIA KOURLAS

Like the art of ballet, Étoile, a television show about ballet, has its ups and downs. Sometimes you want to toss confetti in the air to celebrate how deftly it dives into the intelligence and humour of ballet culture. It lives largely in the world of comedy, which is rare for a ballet story.

Yet it also shows a commitment to world-class dance, with snippets from classic works like George Balanchine's Rubies. And it arrives with a narrative miracle — nary an eating disorder in sight.

But then comes a scene, or sadly a dance, that makes you want to throw that confetti in the trash. The first time the show seesaws between paradise and purgatory happens in its first five minutes.

Étoile, on Amazon Prime Video, begins on a poignant note as a young girl, alone in a dark studio, follows along to a ballet class saved on a smart-phone. A cleaning woman appears in the doorway to let her know that she has only one more floor to get through. This is the dancer's mother, who has been secretly recording company class for her.

"I've barely gotten to frappés," young SuSu (LaMay Zhang) says to her mum. With a heavy heart, SuSu fast forwards to petit allegro, and an overhead shot pulls back, rendering her tinier and tinier as her feet cross back and forth in springy jumps. Blondie's Heart Of Glass, its beat echoing her rhythm, takes over, and we're dropped into a pulsating nightclub.

There, a tipsy and inane conversation about Tchaikovsky and Aaron Copland ensues: Who would win in a fight? (Who cares?) And that generates a new topic: famous composers who had syphilis.

SuSu, come back! (She does eventually. And her part gets better and better especially after Cheyenne, the leading French ballerina, sees in a studio "this little girl who appears only at night like a fairy" and takes her under her wing.)