Theatre Review: Dance Nation Shows Being A Girl Is Not Easy

The most exciting thing about being young is that everything feels exciting. Emotions run so high within you that even a dance rehearsal can make you feel like having a feeling is the equivalent of having an emotional earthquake. Directed and choreographed by Lee Sunday Evans, Dance Nation is hilarious, thoughtful, and shows that being 13 is 100% a sentimental ride, but being a 13 year old girl can feel like an emotional odyssey.

From getting your period to gnawing at the opportunity to make the parents that annoy you exceedingly proud, there are a lost of pressures to being a young woman, and where to put those “pressures” or how to sift through them is not always clear. Clare Barron’s writing is not only witty, but a confrontation of how society’s stapling of little girls as “too emotional” or dismissing them as “feeling too much”, we never teach them how to feel better or learn how to treat them better. By setting her plot to follow a batch pre-teens trying for a national dance competition, The Boogie Down Grand Prix, Barron and Evans’ display the fears, dreams, and the programming of little girls to recoil from having both.

There were moments watching Dance Nation that I cringed at recalling how raw and completely awkward it was growing up as a girl. To be so aware of your body, mind, and soul is exhausting, and, somehow, Zuzu (Eboni Booth), Sofia (Camila Cano Flavia), Connie (Purva Bedi), Ashlee (Lucy Taylor), Maeve (Ellen Maddow), and Amina (Dina Shihabi) manage to do it everyday. Booth’s Zuzu is gut-wrenching as a sweet girl, passionate about dancing, but not really that good at it. I could not help but remember all the girls, including myself, who joined a dance class, picked up an instrument, or even took an art lesson and thought, “Yup, I am and will be the greatest at this!” When you are young, every move you make seems to spark a millions dreams, and Booth presents Zuzu’s journey as the tragic realization that certain dreams are not for you.

Contrasting Zuzu’s journey is Shihabi’s Amina whom is not only ambitious but also talented. While the other girls dream of being dancers or see dance squad as a hobby, Amina could actually make this her career. Her capacity to turn her dream into a reality puts her on an emotional collision course with her fellow dance-mates and Zuzu; leaving the audience to wonder, “Should you dim your greatness for your friendships?” While nothing makes you happier than your friends, nothing empowers you more than your talent and creativity. Thus, to feel strong on your own or happy with others becomes a surprising conflict in Amina’s/ Dance Nation’s premise. It is a clash I never truly realized, but witnessed as these young girls’, played by adults, try to find paths to inner calm and confidence. Still, not EVERYTHING in Dance Nation is serious.

Thomas Jay Ryan’s Dance Teacher Pat is absolutely ridiculous, outlandish, and deliciously serious about being both. Ryan’s Pat, Flavia’s Sofia, and Maddow’s Maeve gain the biggest laughs and serve to keep the air of light-heartedness that one would expect from a play called Dance Nation. In addition, Christina Rouner as The Moms or the “one woman show” representing each of the girls’ moms is scarily but funnily accurate on how certain parents live vicariously through their kids. I truly believe Rouner saw every season of Dance Moms for this role. Such laughs help you absorb how characters like Lucy Taylor’s seriously determined, fiery Ashlee and Bedi’s noble, heartbreaking Connie go through suicidal thoughts and depression. Their particular storylines helped me realize that there is certain things I do not miss about being a young girl like, how easy it was to get sad.

Seeing a classroom or recital scenery, designed by Arnulfo Maldonado, automatically makes your heart flutter with nostalgia. Yet, what I LOVE about Dance Nation is that it shows how painful it is to be young. Often, we look upon those days with longing; completely forgetting how much we PRAYED to grow up. In some ways, Dance Nation helped me understand why my 13 year old self wished to be an adult. As you grow up, you start to learn how to not let yourself down or let “the world” drag you under so easily. Thus, you will cry and you will laugh as you see a batch of 13 year old girls be so present in their heart and learn how to strengthen that presence.For More Information On Dance Nation Click Here

Dance Nation plays until June 3, and is located in Playwrights Horizons’ Peter Jay Sharp Theater (416 West 42nd Street).