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Center Stage Review | TVGuide.com:
Eighteen-year-old Jody (Amanda Schull) auditions for the school of the American Ballet Company (clearly based largely on the world-famous New York City Ballet) ...
The roster of major Hollywood films about classical ballet expands to three with this young-skewing soap opera. Casting dance-oriented movies (the classics being THE RED SHOES and THE TURNING POINT) always comes down to actors who can dance a little or dancers who can act a little. This movie mostly opts for acting dancers, notably American Ballet Theatre's Kent, Stiefel and Radetsky, and San Francisco Ballet's Schull, all of whom emote sufficiently well to keep their heads above the suds. Director Nicholas Hytner captures the sheer physicality of dance and gets many of the details of dance life surprisingly right.

IMDb user comments for Center Stage (2000):
-There's Cooper (Ethan Stiefel), the bad-boy celebrity who's still in love with the director's wife ballerina. There's Charlie (Sascha Radetsky), the perfect good guy. I like watching Radetsky dance. (more than Stiefel, in the scene where they are one-upping one another: 'what about sth like this?').
-The filmmaker gives us a bunch of young actors (actually dancers) who surprise us by effectively showing us their souls in a little love triangle drama. And the matter of their story? A bunch of young dancers who surprise the audience in the film by effectively showing their souls in a little love triangle drama. The film as summarized in the dance is a very intelligent device which I appreciated. And you will too.
-Every now and then there's a new movie about dancers, or dancing, or one with a lot of dancing in it. From Astaire to Kelly to Hines, it's the poetry of motion. If you have any appreciation for the art form whatsoever, the one to see right now is Center Stage. It's about a school year in the life of three teenage girls who are roommates at a ballet academy in New York.
"A dancer has ten years, maybe fifteen if they're not injured" in order to peak in their career and be the best they can ever be. A singer can sing most of their life. An actor can act all his life. A dancer's clock is ticking. It's only a matter of time before they can only teach and choreograph, so there's a unique sense of urgency to start young, study hard, and survive. All that might make a good movie. Might not.
Along with the good, you have to take the less than good. The characters are nothing new.
Did I mention that the only reason to see this is for the dancing? The way it's filmed here is excellent, without actually having to go to a ballet. The beauty of movement, the grace of the girls, and the strength and skill of the boys is captured as well as any other movie in the subject you're likely to see. The big dance numbers at the end are worth seeing by themselves, including more modern styles. whoa - great. esp to "The Way You Make Me Feel" -