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Documentary following a group of women dancers over 60 is well made but leaves you wondering if there’s more to know about these spirited performersMaria Loohufvud and Love Martinsen, a married couple as well as artistic collaborators, make their feature debut as directors with this affectionate portrait of the Calendar Girls, an amateur dance troupe based in southern Florida. Entirely made up of women over the age of 60, a few considerably older, the dancers perform on flatbed trucks in parades and retirement homes, community centres and private events in order to raise funds for Southeastern Guide Dogs, an organisation that trains guide dogs for veterans and other visually impaired people. Dressed in homemade, leg-revealing spandex and sparkle-festooned outfits that variously suggest unicorns or “patriotic reindeer” at Christmas time, the women perform dance sequences set to an eclectic selection of tunes, from Harry Belafonte’s Jump in the Line (Shake, Señora) and Everybody by the Backstreet Boys, to drone-forward EDM composed by Martinsen himself. There is, in fact, a scene where the women seem to break into a tightly planned routine (choreographed by Loohufvud) in the middle of loading the car, which adds a mild surreality to the proceedings.As the film goes along, we get to know some of the women on a more personal level although the film-makers have chosen not to use any identifying subtitles to help track who’s who, as is often the fashion these days with documentaries. Still, it’s not hard to work out that Katherine Hardy Shortlidge is the main motivating troupe leader, a former cop who spent years undercover in the vice squad, who had found a new purpose in marshalling her dancers between rehearsals and performances. Another subject who gets prominent coverage is Nancy Miller, a woman still doing a physically challenging outdoor 9-to-5 job but who finds herself increasingly challenged to keep up due to a serious gastrointestinal condition that drains her health. A third woman bridles against a controlling husband who doesn’t want her diverting her energy away from him and their home; yet another, perhaps the most intriguing of all, is a former prisoner with a twangy southern accent, a massive Rottweiler and a butch fashion sense who works the troupe’s iPod. Continue reading...