Director: Nayip Ramos
A small-town dancer gets thrown headfirst into the competitive Los Angeles scene in Dance Rivals, a 2024 drama that follows one uneasy year of ambition, rivalry, and first love.
What is Dance Rivals about?
When circumstances upend her plans, a young dancer finds herself unexpectedly relocated into the fast-moving, high-pressure world of LA dance studios. She goes from taking lessons to teaching them almost overnight, then finds herself standing across the floor from seasoned professionals she's expected to compete against. Balancing a new job, a demanding schedule, and mentors who don't make things easy, she also starts falling for someone who complicates every decision she makes about her future. The film follows her through rehearsals, auditions, and the kind of setbacks that test whether she actually wants this career or just fell into it — building toward a competition where everything she's learned, on and off the floor, gets put to the test.
Cast & crew
Savannah May stars alongside Maria Canals-Barrera, Gunner Burkhardt, Laura Krystine, and Hayden Summerall, with Ava Whitworth and Simmons Arnold rounding out the ensemble of dancers and mentors surrounding her.
Context & significance
Directed by Nayip Ramos, Dance Rivals sits in the lineage of dance-competition dramas aimed at family audiences, pairing choreography-heavy sequences with a coming-of-age arc about ambition, mentorship, and figuring out who to trust when everyone around you is also chasing a spot at the top. The film spends real time on the discipline behind the routines — long rehearsal hours, injuries brushed off, and the awkward politics of a studio where today's teacher can be tomorrow's rival — rather than treating the dance numbers as pure spectacle.
Where & how to watch
Dance Rivals is available on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, making it easy for Farsi-speaking viewers to follow every rehearsal-room conversation and audition-day nerve. Reading about the film requires no account, but watching it does — just log in free and press play.