Canadians Can Dance
1966 · 22m · Canada
Directed by John Howe
Genres: documentary, family, musical
Tones: sensual, theatrical
Folk dance troupes from Canada's language communities perform styles from Hawaiian to Cossack at a national exhibition.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 1966 doc about folk dancers performing at a Canadian exhibition sounds like the safest possible premise, which is exactly why it's fascinating—Howe somehow made earnestness itself subversive, letting the theatrical sensuality of these performances collapse the distance between 'wholesome national pride' and genuine desire in a way that feels almost illicit for its era.
Canadians Can Dance sits in a crucial lineage of mid-century documentary exhibition films that understood performance as a legitimate subject for formal rigor; the theatrical staging and sensual editing choices position this alongside the best of the NFB's curatorial work, a film that knows exactly what it's inheriting and uses it.
The decision to hold on the bodies in motion rather than cut away—to let the camera trust the dancers' own rhythm instead of imposing external pace—is what elevates this from educational travelogue into something genuinely alive, a small formal choice that reframes the entire project as a love letter to movement itself.