This is DANCE + Makenzie & Phillip Chbeeb

Makenzie and Phillip Chbeeb are the dynamic duo behind the new Netflix coming-of-age dance comedy movie, “Best of the Best” (Premiering September 18, 2026). In this episode, we unpack what it means to choreograph across cultures, across dialogue, and three weeks postpartum. If you’re into being impressed, this episode is for YOU!

Three weeks after welcoming their first child into the world, they walked straight into their first pre-production meeting of their on Best of the Best, a film that asked them to hold two things at once: honor the specificity of Western hip hop and South Asian dance forms like Kathak, and build choreography that could survive dialogue, alt takes, and lines that changed on the spot. What they found, again and again, was that the tightest constraints produced the most original ideas.

We explore:

• The shoes-on, shoes-off problem between Chicago footwork and Kathak, and the jump-out-of-your-sneakers solution that turned a limitation into one of the film's best moments

• How they built "cushion" choreography, loop-able movement with matching in-and-out points, so a scene could breathe as long as a director needed and the music could be solved in post

• Making a Netflix film three weeks postpartum, and the very literal system they invented for handling a body and mind that felt, in Makenzie's words, "scrambled"

This one's for anyone who thinks creative limits are the enemy of good work. For Phillip and Makenzie, the limits were the work.

Watch the full episode here.

Show Notes:

Connect with Mckenzie on IG

Connect with Phillip on IG

Listen to Phillip’s episode

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