Donny is an ex-con hoofer trying to make a living tap dancing for tourists on the streets of New Orleans. After his parole officer gives him a hard time, basically telling him to get a real job, Donny flees to New York to hook up with his foster brother Nick, who is the proprietor of a hot underground dance club in Brooklyn called Static. Donny thinks maybe he could get a job dancing there, make some real money. He walks into a complicated turf war, between Nick and his former partner Kaz. Kaz stole some ideas, and then branched out on his own, opening his own rival dance club. Things have gotten ugly. Donny doesn't care about any of that, he just wants to dance!Donny almost instantly gets a crush on Aya, younger sister to Kaz. Aya dances with an all-girl group called the Cobu Girls. Aya is caught in the middle of the war between her older brother and Nick, and her problems are exacerbated by the fact that she will be sent back to Japan in three weeks if she doesn't get some kind of gig, and soon. She and Donny meet one night at Static, and end up doing an impromptu tap-dance battle along the top of the bar. That dance is when the film really kicks off. Both dancers are not only superb athletes, but committed to the moment underlying the dance.Despite the increasing violence between the two clubs, Aya and Donny strike up a sweet and tentative romance. Nick and Kaz try to intervene, and it's all quite Montague/Capulet at times. Aya's future is so uncertain, she's not sure she wants to get involved, and Donny takes that "No" for an answer, but asks if they could please dance together again at least?