Theatre review: Dance Nation

Concluding a season of work by female playwrights at the Almeida is Clare Barron’s Dance Nation, a funny, touching and sometimes devastating look at what it’s like to be a pre-teen girl, all framed within a national dance competition. The bullying Dance Teacher Pat (Brendan Cowell) rules the roost over a class of girls no older than 13 (all played by actors from their twenties to their fifties,) and as the trophies surrounding Samal Blak’s set can attest, has masterminded wins in dance competitions across America. Right from the start, when one girl is injured and never seen or heard of again, it’s obvious that failure is not an option, and this year’s crop of girls can either join the hall of fame – perhaps even becoming a legend like the one alumna who got into the chorus of a Broadway show – or be forgotten.

Vying to be the star turn this year are best friends Amina (Karla Crome) and Zuzu* (Ria Zmitrowicz.) Amina is the obvious talent and always promoted by Dance Teacher Pat, but after pressure from Zuzu’s mother he gives her a chance to dance the lead as the Spirit of Gandhi.

Along with their scenes preparing and performing, the girls – always collectively referred to as such, despite the presence of Irfan Shamji’s Luke – all get monologues pouring their hearts out to the audience, but something doesn’t ring true about them: It becomes gradually apparent these speeches come from the adult versions of the characters some decades later, trying to put their 13-year-old selves’ thoughts into words with the benefit of a better vocabulary and a hell of a lot of hindsight. Ashlee (Kayla Meikle) remembers herself having a downright aggressive confidence in her body at the age of 13, but the rest of her teenage years will prove she’s not as tough as she seems, while Maeve (Nancy Crane) still fervently believes she can fly, a fantasy she’ll eventually suppress so successfully she’ll forget it completely.

Bijan Sheibani’s production sensitively builds a picture of what Barron’s trying to say about girls at the awkward age between childhood and their teens – their conversations when there’s no adults around tend towards half-understood sexual fantasies and determined ambitions to become “a professional dancer and astrophysicist” – best demonstrated in a scene where Amina tries to teach herself to masturbate while Sofia (Sarah Hadland) gets her first period and Connie (Manjinder Virk) escapes from the day’s stresses by playing with her toy horses. It’s a time of enough confusion without the added pressure of a dance competition they’re told will make the difference between worthwhile futures and obscurity.

As the adults, Miranda Foster gives a nice distinction between all the mothers, from Zuzu’s full-on Stage Mom to Sofia’s nervously supportive one, while Cowell keeps Dance Teacher Pat fairly enigmatic, a hint of campness in his demeanour but the occasional moment when he seems a bit too touch-feely with his favourite girls. What he definitely is is a bad influence on them, pushing them to win trophies that will ultimately only benefit his own reputation, and filling them with motivational slogans that reinforce a brutally competitive attitude. Dance Nation is at times upsetting as the girls buckle under the strain, some of them in ways that could affect them for the rest of their lives; but there are those among them with the strength to move on from Dance Teacher Pat’s influence. The resulting story is a confusion of ideas, themes, emotions and – of course – dance styles (choreographed by Aline David,) but it feels an appropriate enough way to document a time of equally chaotic emotions.

Dance Nation by Clare Barron is booking until the 6th of October at the Almeida Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.

*we’re not told Zuzu’s last name but Strallen seems a fair bet.