Steppenwolf's 'Dance Nation' a winning exploration of adolescence
“Dance Nation” - ★ ★ ★ ½
In high school, my friend Deidra and I auditioned for an alto solo for a districtwide festival chorus performance of G.F. Handel's “The Messiah.” Deidra got the solo. She was the better alto.
Though happy for my friend, I was also disappointed, and a bit envious.
Playwright Clare Barron understands that conflict, which so often defines adolescence, that period when insecurity, passion, ambition and power roil within us when we are - quite possibly - our most compassionate and most ferocious selves. The prodigiously talented Barron masterfully chronicles those emotions in her 2019 Pulitzer Prize finalist “Dance Nation,” an insightful, fiendishly funny homage to the early adolescent still residing in all of us.
Steppenwolf Theatre's rapturous revival, helmed by director/choreographer Lee Sunday Evans, centers on 12- and 13-year-old members of a Liverpool, Indiana, middle school dance troupe competing for a national championship. It's a familiar trope: teammates working toward a common goal while pursuing individual desires. But Barron's deftly attuned, innovative approach departs from the formula to show an almost imperceptible shift from adolescent to adult. During brief musings, the characters reveal how profoundly youthful experiences resonate into middle age and beyond.
The dancers are played by the exceptional intergenerational ensemble of Ariana Burks, Adithi Chandrashekar, Shanesia Davis, Torrey Hanson (the only male), Ellen Maddow, Caroline Neff and Karen Rodriguez - who range from their 20s to their 60s and are not necessarily trained dancers. Never did I perceive them as anything but teens and tweens: Their performances are that authentic. That's true when they unleash their inner vampires in a deliciously bizarre dance testifying to raging hormones and when they converse in the dressing room about wolf preservation and menstruation. They also interact with adults, including well-meaning moms (the adroit Audrey Francis) and dance teacher Pat, played with well-suited severity by Tim Hopper, who delivers a cringe-inducing pep talk that explains why women are reluctant to take their place in a still male-dominated world.
There are a number of moving performances throughout, including Neff as the self-doubting Zuzu, Hanson's nice-guy Luke and Maddow's wistful Maeve, who speaks of potential long forgotten.
The most electrifying moments, however, come courtesy of the incandescent Davis, riveting in an impassioned expression of adolescent girl power, and from the conflicted Rodriguez as Amina, the reluctant standout transformed to self-empowered star.
Location: Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St., Chicago, (312) 335-1650 or steppenwolf.org
Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 3 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday through Feb. 2. Also 7:30 p.m. Dec. 29 and Jan. 5; 2 p.m. Jan. 8, 15 and 22. No shows Dec. 24-25 or Jan. 1
Running time: About two hours, no intermission
Tickets: $20-$94
Parking: $15 in the lot; limited street parking
Rating: For adults; features mature subject matter and language and brief nudity