‘Move Ya Body: The Birth of House’ Review: Celebratory Doc About a Genre’s Origins Plays Like a Party

variety.com:

Murtada Elfadl “Move Ya Body: The Birth of House” tells the story of how house music was born in the late 1970s. A history reconstructed by director Elegance Bratton (“The Inspection”) through the memories of the trailblazers who birthed it at underground clubs in racially segregated and violent Chicago, this is the story of how Black, brown and queer kids came up with a unique rhythm that people still dance to today.

After watching this entertaining and nostalgic documentary, audiences’ most likely recourse may be to find the nearest club and spend the rest of their night dancing.

The first few minutes of “Move Ya Body: The Birth of House” dynamically set the stage for this revolution: Voiceover describes music whose beat “can be heard blocks away,” while the images show Chicago’s denizens rioting against the police and dancing all night.

Bratton introduces his main protagonist, Vince Lawrence, who claims nervousness about the endeavor. Off camera, the director assures him that “it’s not about you” — a fallacy since the film reveals how Lawrence emerged from the racism and conflict that formed him to make music rooted in his culture and environment.