Editor's Note: This article mentions self-harm.
American University’s Department of Performing Arts kicked off their spring season at the Greenberg Theater with a staging of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated play “Dance Nation,” written by Clare Barron and directed by performing arts professor Tara Giordano.
The emotionally-charged, dynamic coming of age play follows a competitive preteen dance team out for blood, or more specifically, the chance to win the “Boogie Down Grand Prix” in Tampa Bay, Florida.
“Dance Nation” performances ran from Feb. 14 to 15 and featured two casts: “Team Akron” and “Team Tampa,” named after the towns hosting competitions the dance team must travel to in order to win it all.
Both “Team Tampa” and “Team Akron” had standout performances within their casts, which included single and double-cast actors. The double-casting used in the production brought a unique perspective to their characters, offering audiences two distinct visions of “Dance Nation,” depending on who took the stage.
The electric pack of preteen dancers in “Dance Nation” are led by a cringe-inducing Dance Teacher Pat, played by Dan Zailowitz, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, whose performance was undoubtedly inspired by the abrasive, infamous dance teachers in pop culture and reality television.
The preteen dancers who make up the troupe are humanized and expertly portrayed by the University’s own student performers. Their portrayals of teenagers stayed true to the emotionally tumultuous preteen experience, but at times also grew exaggerated and animalistic as hormonal outbursts took over their bodies and minds.
Between disarmingly amateur tap and contemporary dance routines inspired by the United States Navy and Mahatma Gandhi, respectively, came jarring moments of rolling music, intense red lighting and eerie fog created on stage.
Against the deceptively simple dance studio set, the teens thrashed their limbs, gyrated and howled as if their bodies were trying to reject the way they were being forced to change and the intense, emotional state they found themselves in.
Barron masterfully captures the growing pains young girls experience in “Dance Nation” by illustrating the injustices and unwanted attention women grapple with as men and society perceive them and their changing bodies.
Barron doesn’t shy away from visceral language and imagery. She highlights the way girls experience shame when they explore their developing figures and get their first periods and depicts the way some young women unfortunately turn to self-harm to cope with self-hatred, harassment and debilitating perfectionism.
The primal metaphor for puberty is taken a step further when Zuzu, a girl heartbreakingly lost in her aspirations played by CAS senior Sedona Salb, grows fangs and bites a strip of skin off her forearm, in a moment of pure emotional distress and self-deprecation.
A large part of “Dance Nation” challenged the archetype of the “female perfectionist” and explored the toxicity of women’s struggles with self-image going unnoticed and unseen, only to be healed by love and connection through a shared female experience.
Barron uses lead characters Zuzu and Amina, two young girls constantly pitted against each other on the dance team by Dance Teacher Pat and played by CAS seniors Salb and Laura Dodge, to force the audience to confront the ways society pits successful women against each other, and the toxicity it can create in female relationships.
Weaving together contrasting themes of self-expression, self-hatred, growing pains, togetherness, vulnerability, perfectionism, female empowerment and unconditional self-love, “Dance Nation” serves as a testament that pain, change and love are what allow us connection not only with others, but also with ourselves.
The DPA’s next event, “A Game of Love and Chance” by Pierre Marivaux and directed by University performing arts professor Karl Kippola will take place at the Katzen Studio Theater from Feb. 25 to Mar. 1. Tickets are available here.
This article was edited by Jessica Ackerman, Marina Zaczkiewicz and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks, Olivia Citarella, Emma Brown and Ella Rousseau.
