Take a walk (or dance) on the wild side with Dance Nation, a fierce and funny, loud and large play about 13-year-old dancers fighting, laughing and crying on the road to a national dance competition

Clare Barron’s Pulitzer-Prize nominated play, first produced in England in 2018 and inspired by the TV reality show Dance Moms, has a limited run through Sunday at Alderney Landing, Dartmouth, by Keep Good (Theatre) Company in association with Heist. (Tickets are at Keep Good (Theatre) Company – Alderney Landing)

Director Laura Vingoe-Cram is at the helm of this striking, shocking, surreal but also deeply real and honest play with an excellent cast and beautiful design. Rarely have projections been used so imaginatively and in such sync with story.

If frank talk about sex and blood make you squeamish this play is not for you. But, if you recognize that blood and sex are a huge part of women’s lives, it is. When the girls embody their feral, ferocious power in tribal, sexualized dances with gnashing teeth and monster growling, it’s totally liberating for an audience. (The audience is encouraged to be loud itself – not a problem opening night!)

Dance Nation is remarkably true to the 13-year-old experience. Barron gets inside the messy, overwrought mind and emotions of teen girls as they talk about masturbation, periods and sexual fantasies all the while trying to negotiate friendships in a tough, competitive environment. The one boy, Luke, is a less sexual and talkative character and very sweet as played by Kyle Gillis.

Barron stipulates that the actors be a range of ages since they occasionally jump out of the present to be older people looking back at their teenage selves. Some of them have already set paths that will haunt them for years.

Dance Nation has a propulsive narrative arc in its first act, less so in the second act. When the play starts the small-town Ohio dancers are being exhorted by their tough and vain coach – in a hilarious and slightly sinister performance by Richie Wilcox – to work as hard as they can towards the grand championship in Tampa.

Zuzu, played with passion, energy and deep understanding by Riel Reddick-Stevens, is best friends with Amina, the star dancer of the troupe played by Jade Douris-O’Hara, who is a good dancer but also a vivid and powerful actress. As the coach prepares a competition number about Gandhi and world peace (yes, it’s very funny though the actual dance is surprisingly good) Amina flubs the audition and Zuzu is chosen to play the coveted part of “The Spirit of Gandhi.”

Zuzu is full of heart as a dancer while Amina is technically flawless; the two spar and their team-mates are torn in terms of whom to support. Mauralea Austin is Maeve, a soft, fanciful and kind character; Lily Falk, is the intense, provocative Sophia who pulls her top off in a show of female strength and comfort with her body and Sharleen Kalayil is Connie, an injured dancer chosen to play Gandhi because she can sit. Kirsten Alter as Ashlee delivers an amazing triumphant monologue full of fear and triumph about her own beauty and sexuality.

Aaron Collier’s projection design is fantastic; it’s bubblegum and Barbie in colour, comic effect and illustrational style.

Particularly beautiful are a very tender and unforgettable scene of between Luke and his mother (Samantha Wilson), with the actors on an invisible platform behind the screen driving in a car which is a film image. This technique is repeated when three girls are at open windows lit amidst the darkness of the night sky.

The use of stars in the imagery suits the cosmic time travel of the play, its emotional heart of teen angst and the idea that they are reaching for the stars.

The images of dripping blood and giant female genitalia on the screen are comic and disturbing. There are dark undercurrents in this play that are not fully developed including Zuzu’s self-harm, suicidal thoughts and a suggestion the coach is too close to Amina, perhaps teetering on abuse.

Vingoe-Cram, who is co-artistic director of Keep Good (Theatre) Company and artistic director of Ship’s Company Theatre, has done a wonderful job bringing this raw, impassioned, contemporary story to the stage. She gets the most out of her actors; she understands the contradictions in the play; the dance scenes, as choreographed by Abady Alzahrani, founder and director of Halifax’s Eights Dance Studio, work really well.

The unity of all the production elements is spot on with sound design by Jackson Fairfax-Perry, costumes by Diego Cavedon Dias, lights by Holly Meyer-Dymny, props and set by Brenda Duran and stage management by Sylvia Bell. Producer is Luciana Silvestre Fernandes and production manager is Zach Faye.

The show, running about two hours with an intermission, is on tonight, 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, 2 and 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, 2 p.m.

Extra Notes (i.e., get ready for summer theatre):

Vingoe-Cram is off to Ship’s Company for the summer for the company’s 40th season (https://www.shipscompanytheatre.com/). Her mother, Mary Vingoe, was in the audience opening night as was playwright Catherine Banks, whose adaptation of the epic Ernest Buckler novel The Mountain and The Valley premieres (opening June 29) with a cast of 13 at the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts in a co-production between HomeFirst Theatre, co-founded by Vingoe, and Two Planks and a Passion Theatre https://artscentre.ca/two-planks/. It was also great to see Geneviève Steele, who is at Chester this weekend for a remount of Colleen MacIsaac’s Merritt-nominated play A Beginner’s Guide to the Night Sky Saturday, May 25, at 2 and 7:30 (https://chesterplayhouse.ca/cph_events/a-beginners-guide-to-the-night-sky/).

HEIST, with Richie Wilcox as artistic director and Aaron Collier as technical director, bring The Princess Show, starring Collier, to the Chester Playhouse this summer July 20 and 21.

• ‘Accelerated Erosion:’ Clay about Clay (and the Environment)
• Contemporary Art Society’s 49th big on colour and light

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: alderney-landing, Art, dance, laura-vingoe-cram, reviews, theatre