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Josef Kubota Wladyka’s “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” is a multicultural feast for the senses. The colourful story of a lady tangoing her manner by way of the grieving course of after her husband abruptly dies is about in Tokyo’s ballroom dancing scene, with characters seamlessly switching between talking English, Spanish, and Japanese. It’s a one-of-a-kind movie, which required a one-of-a-kind manufacturing course of.
Following the movie’s Sundance premiere, Wladyka and stars Alberto Guerra and Alejandro Edda visited the IndieWire Studio, offered by Dropbox. Throughout our dialog, Guerra and Edda revealed that they’d no ballroom dancing expertise earlier than the movie, which required them to take classes in Japan.
“Zero,” Guerra mentioned when requested about his dance historical past previous to touchdown the function. “That was wonderful. It’s lovely when this occupation will get you to loopy locations. The truth that I discovered myself in 2024 studying the right way to tango and cha-cha-cha and mambo and rumba in Japan… that was one thing that was not in my e book.”
Dancing can transcend language as soon as you understand what you’re doing, however Edda admitted that the language barrier with their instructors made it a very difficult course of at instances.
“We had two unimaginable dance academics. Japanese, so think about the conflict,” Edda mentioned. “They have been instructing us in English with Japanese and [we were] studying the steps but additionally making an attempt to understand what was mentioned… I had a headache from processing so many issues without delay.”
The laborious work paid off, and in the end looks like a becoming metaphor for a movie concerning the ways in which dance can unite individuals from throughout cultural obstacles. It’s a theme that Wladyka often addresses within the movie, and he defined that he thinks dance can categorical feelings that verbal communication by no means may.
“I feel it’s the common language,” Wladyka mentioned. “It’s our our bodies, it’s motion. It’s probably the most highly effective factor I really feel transcends boundaries.”
Watch our full dialog with the “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” group above.
Dropbox is proud to companion with IndieWire and the Sundance Movie Competition. In 2026, 68% of characteristic movies premiering at Sundance used Dropbox throughout manufacturing. Dropbox helps filmmakers and inventive groups discover, manage, safe, and share the content material that issues most to any mission.
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