"The result of filming over a period of 30 years in the director's dance studio and in Harlem's famed Savoy Ballroom, The Spirit Moves is a revelatory and totally unique assembly of jazz dance routines offering a complete panorama of the art's development in its absolute and pure state, without any recourse to a theatrical or commercial structure. From Ragtime, Struts and Cakewalks through Blues, The Lindy Hop and Bebop to Calypso, Mambo and Rock 'n' Roll, with an added soundtrack of appropriate jazz and big band recordings, with James Berry, Al Minns, Leon James, Pepsi Bethel and Esther Washington among the dancers, the cumulative effect is staggering. The essence of American cultural anthropology has never been depicted quite like this." David Meeker, London Film Festival