The Choreography of Encanto
I’ve mentioned before how my writing process works on any piece of media criticism. The original draft of what you see here or in a book is significantly longer. For example, I wrote out paragraphs just on the choreography and movement style of the different Madrigal family members in Encanto. And if you read my review, you’ll see that none of that made the final cut. As a piece of non-fiction, even a review has to tell a cohesive story with a theme and point of view. For the Encanto review, the choreography analysis distracted from the big picture of the review.
Good thing assistant choreographer and animation reference consultant Kai Martinez started to post little clips of the Encanto one take choreography of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” on her TikTok. It’s a great way to open up this discussion of how the dance style of the different Madrigal family members is essential to the storytelling in the film.
I’ve been obsessed with these clips since I saw the first one a few weeks ago. On the top is the talented cast of dancers switching between the various characters in the scene. On the bottom is the final animation. The fidelity to the live action choreography even in a piece of animated fantasy is pretty remarkable.
According to an interview with D23 back in November, Encanto choreographer Jamal Sims brought in Kai Martinez to work on the project because of her dance and choreography background. She is Colombian American and Sims knew what she could bring to the project. Then, Sims took it a step further and recommended Martinez for the animation reference consultant position. Martinez knew what this style of dance was supposed to look like. It became her job to help make sure the animators captured the important style, rhythm, and vision of the choreography created for the film.
The results are clearly worth it. The dancing in Encanto is just as important to the story as the lyrics and dialogue. It’s part of why I think Encanto is genuinely the best movie musical to come out in 2021. Yes, even better than tick, tick…BOOM! and In the Heights, the other two movie musicals I fell hard for this year. Encanto stays true to its Colombian setting, the limitless imagination made possible in magical realism, and the heartfelt exploration of a family reconciling their differences created by intergenerational trauma.
No detail is too small to matter in this film. “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is the perfect example of this. It’s been pointed out quite a few times that Bruno is hanging out in the background while Dolores sings about him. Did you notice that Dolores is leading the dance and only makes sharp, sudden changes in direction when she realizes Mirabel could see Bruno if they moved any closer? Check the animated clip above again. Each direction shift is predicated on Dolores protecting Bruno because no one is willing to hear what she knows from hearing him while he’s hidden from the family for years. These movements all line up with the secrets hidden in Dolores’ verse. She can’t speak the truth when the family can hear her, so she does what she can to prepare Mirabel for what she will learn.
Then there’s Camilo’s solo, also featured in that same video. You can see the shadows of the rats clearly in the film. Watching the dancers shift from synchronous to separate movements as they switch from Bruno’s shadows to the rats is quite clever. You can even see the dancer playing Camilo shift his posture from his Bruno impersonation to his Camilo stance as part of the storytelling. Camilo’s Bruno is very Bela Lugosi, while his own dance style is very fluid and constantly moving, like a shapeshifter. The shift happens when the rats become rats again and it’s great. People are grooving out to Camilo’s verse, as they should, but the visual storytelling through dance really sets his nightmare vision of the family scapegoat to life.
The final moment I want to draw your attention to is the village recognizing Isabella. After everyone shares their grievances with Bruno, the treacherous pet-fish-murdering monster, they raise their right hands up to the sky. Their arms lower in unison as Isabella descends on her vines to reveal her prophecy, eventually bowing down and even starting to fade away like the cast of Wicked on a no-fly-day in “Defying Gravity.” The town and the family are in awe of the perfect child, who gets a brand new counter melody and arrangement to match her prophecy of living the life of her dreams. The music clearly tells a story in that moment, but the choreography literally pushes Isabella high above everyone else in the village.
While I’m not quite ready to reveal my final Best Films of 2021 list, I can tell you now that Encanto has secured a spot on the list. It’s this level of detail and hard work that does it for me. Nothing is by accident or chance, especially the choreography. Every member of the family has their own unique style of movement that carries throughout their songs because of the hard work Jamal Sims, Kai Martinez, and the cast of reference dancers put in to creating the dance of Encanto.
Encanto is streaming on Disney +.
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