Courtney Fox spent many of her formative years as part of a competitive dance troupe.
IF YOU GO
“Dance Nation runs July 24-26, FSa 8 pm, Su 2 pm, Allstate Community Theater, 810 Caroline St., 18+ only, tickets here.
So, as the director of Fredericksburg Theater Ensemble’s latest production “Dance Nation”, she’s dealing with familiar subject matter.
“It’s something that’s very familiar to me and it’s something that’s very relatable to me,” Fox said.
A play written by Clare Barron, the story centers on a dance troupe of pre-teen girls that head into a dance competition while navigating their own life issues at the cusp of their teenage years.
Beyond that, Fox said her fascination with the concept of adolescence and how it shapes one into adulthood drew the director towards this particular production.
Although the story is about pre-teen girls, the parts are performed by adult women from a wide range of ages. This allows the cast to portray the more explicit issues of the play which include nudity, discussions of sexual situations, suicide, drug use and other aspects.
In between the serious moments, the play offers scenes of melodrama such as the dance team’s reaction to an opposing troupe that has boys that dance — a scene that got the audience laughing hard.
Assistant Director Liam Thompson was drawn by the combination of drama and comedy. Thompson sought to be involved in the production and originally auditioned for the part of Luke but was more interested in directing which led to his position as AD.
Clarisse Swartley and Jared William in FTE’s “Dance Nation”.
“I love the dichotomy of the two, and this show could easily be done as just a straight up comedy,” he said. “There are so many layers of drama and so much that speaks to experiences at that age that never abandons you.”
Cox explained how the play fits into the ensemble’s theme for the season of reality, reverie and revolution. The idea of reality is represented by the fact that this play looks into the mind of young girls — which isn’t always as clean and pristine as many would like to believe — while also dealing with feelings of insecurity.
In addition, the reverie is mirrored when these girls step out for their monologues and the audience sees how they’re reacting to what’s going on around them from an adult perspective.
“Things that you have done as a teenager, you look back on it and ask, ‘Why did I do that?’” said Fox. “You figure out why, there’s always a reason. These monologues offer a chance to look back and find the reasons.”
For the revolution aspect, Fox identifies herself as a proud feminist and points to one monologue by the Ashley character of owning one’s femininity and owning one’s power as a woman in spite of the fact that they’re a teenager growing into it.
Heather McIntosh in “Dance Nation”.
Thompson also pointed out that while the character of Amina is lauded as a great dancer and is encouraged to succeed, others in the dance troupe direct feelings of jealousy toward her, which the character needs to overcome in order to get to the top. Thompson described it as the psychological burden of being excellent.
The aforementioned character of Amina is portrayed by Becky Brassfield, who also has a background in dance that spans more than 25 years. When she first read the play, Brassfield felt that what was on the page was her life when she began dancing at age 4 and didn’t have to dig very deep in order to find the character.
“I didn’t just relate to my character but I could find parts of almost every character in the play that I could really reach,” she said.
Brassfield opined that the play’s more emotional scenes were true to real life, such as the panic attack experienced by the character of Zuzu. The actress said she had similar experiences and feels that the play does a good job of portraying those deeper emotions.
As for the actress playing Zuzu, Clarisse Swartley was attracted to the heart of the story and being part of a cast that had women of different shapes and sizes was highly appealing. Swartley was also interested in the backstage world of dance which she said is not always open to the general public.
As Zuzu, Swartley portrays the lion’s share of the play’s drama such as the aforementioned nervous breakdown scene and the pressures of measuring up to her potential and literally falling on her face in the attempt.
“Zuzu is probably the closest to my own personality that I’ve played in a long time,” she said. “Although this is my first time ever dancing on stage I think those fears, anxieties and stress are relatable to everyone and we’ve all had moments.
While both Fox and Brassfield brought their experiences as dancers to the production, stage manager Cam Hovey brought something different but just as interesting. His knowledge of body mechanics is derived from his real life job as a video game developer for pro wrestling games.
Hovey found an interesting marriage between video game animation and theater in the way the body moves. The stage manager explained that, in animation, the characters move from their hips as their center point while it varies in the theater. Hovey said that Cox instructed the cast to move from areas such as the feet or upper body depending on the dance.
“It allows me to break down the movement a little bit better because many times when I do fight choreography I’ll sit down with my animation program and make an animation of what I want to show the actor. This allows me to think through a lot of the logistics from any angle we possibly need.”
