The shooting of Dancing on Air, a film about salsa dancing, is nearing completion in Cork with an all-Cork cast of salsa dancers.
Salsa has everything. It is languid, tumultuous and sexy, all at the same time, and it is very big in the southern capital.
People of all ages, but particularly the young and fit, find it to their liking and salsa venues have sprung up all over the city to meet the demand. There are even salsa classes.
The movie revolves around the salsa phenomenon and explores the lives of four characters - T-Shock (Harry Sealy in real life and a professional salsa teacher), Claire, Ethan and Lynski who salsa by night and go about their ordinary business by day.
The producer-director of the 26-minute film is Hugh Crean, a native of Cork who studied at UCC before moving to the US. He says he was hooked when he read Maeve Saunders's script.
It was so powerful, he adds, that it had the selling power to attract the necessary funding on both sides of the Atlantic. The easy bit was finding the dancers. In Cork, some 50 people, all lovers of the dance form, were recruited without difficulty.
"Everyone of them could dance salsa, some to international standards, all we had to do was show them how to act," Crean said. His company, Hawthorn Productions, has been shooting at various locations in Cork, on and off for the past year.
As it is essentially a Cork story, the area around Shandon will feature prominently in the film as will other landmarks. Crean's hope is that Dancing on Air will not only be a good visual yarn but a showpiece for Cork.
The local dancers, he says, have brought an extraordinary enthusiasm to the set of the film and it shines through. The four characters lead different lives. One is involved in technology, one is a cook, another is unemployed and the fourth is involved in the glamorous world of modelling. Salsa is the leveller. When they are on the dance floor, status no longer matters.
Work on the film will be completed by September and it will be ready for screening early next year. It will be on release both here and in the United States.