Stage Review - Fancy Dancer (Seattle Rep / Seattle Children’s Theatre)
Stage Review - Fancy Dancer
Presented By: Co-production from Seattle Rep and Seattle Children’s Theatre - Seattle, WA
Show Run: September 18 - November 02, 2025
Date Reviewed: Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Run Time: 100 minutes (no intermission)
Reviewed By: Anna Tatelman
Fancy Dancer dives into themes related to heritage, individual resilience, and artistic expression through the lens of an aspiring ballerina. Co-produced by Seattle Repertory Theatre and Seattle Children’s Theatre, this world-premiere production offers audiences a personal yet relatable story about finding your inner power, replete with excellent technical direction and a strong solo performer.
Larissa FastHorse’s Fancy Dancer is a semi-autobiographical solo show about Lara, a half-Lakotan female who is raised by white adoptive parents. Lara is born with a congenital anomaly that causes the bones of her legs and feet to be turned inward. From a very young age, she has to wear corrective braces in an attempt to turn her bones outward, until a few years later when a doctor suggests that she try ballet instead. Lara is reluctant initially, as she does not enjoy traditionally girly things. Through her adolescence and into adulthood, however, Lara finds that ballet is far more about strength, joy, and resilience, in both a physical and emotional sense. She finds these qualities in part by watching the astonishing technique and liberating exuberance of Lakota fancy dancers, and deciding that ballet training could help her become a fancy dancer herself.
As a script, Fancy Dancer excels at tapping into a semi-paradoxical idea: that the more personal a story is, the more universal it becomes. Playwright FastHorse tells us about Lara’s unique struggles throughout her childhood and early adult life: her loving upbringing by white parents after her Indigenous father gave her up for adoption; her experiences being relentlessly bullied, first in middle school by her peers, and later in ballet school by her main instructor; her humiliation and physical pain in wearing her leg braces, and in being unable to perform moves the other girls in ballet school do easily because of her bone structure; her desire to train as a fancy dancer, but not knowing how to interact with fellow Lakotan individuals, despite her heritage. Through these particulars, universal themes authenthically emerge that many audience members can likely relate to: feelings of not quite being “enough,” of struggling to belong, of even knowing where you would belong if you could. Fancy Dancer also fantastically explores the many highs and lows of pursuing an artistic lifestyle: the countless rejections, the self-discipline necessary, the moments filled with the pure joy of creating.
Where the script struggled a bit is in its uncovering of the relationship between ballet and fancy dancing in Lara’s life. As a child, Lara falls in love with ballet because she first falls in love with fancy dancing and feels that ballet training can be a pathway there, but the fancy dancing disappears from the play after Lara begins her professional ballet training and career path. I was eager to better understand the connection between these two dance styles in Lara’s journey as both a dancer and a human. Nonetheless, Fancy Dancer is a powerful exploration of a young woman who feels caught between worlds and identities, and ultimately must learn how to embrace her dualities as all crucial parts of her to lead a fulfilling life.
This world-premiere production of Fancy Dancer features not only a nuanced script, but a visually engaging production. Director Chay Yew, choreographer Price Suddarth, and fancy dance choreographer Maxine Alex collaborate to create a dynamic show that plays in unique ways with diagonal sight lines and different styles of movement. Although Fancy Dancer is a solo show, the one performer moves constantly through the space – not just moves, of course, but dances: first with tentative steps, then with greater fluidity, technique, and grace, as she learns to become unafraid of taking up space.
As Fancy Dancer is an intensive show (emotionally and physically) for its solo performer, this production features two actors who rotate which shows they perform in: film and television star Burgandi Trejo Phoenix, and the playwright herself Larissa FastHorse. I saw the show with FastHorse as the performer and was impressed with her earnest, engaged performance. I actually didn’t know until after the show that this play is based on her own life, but felt immediately how much this story means to her, and her desire to pass it onto us. FastHorse also does a great job showing us Lara’s physical changes as both her dancing and her bone structure improve; we watch her go from struggling just to turn her legs outward in first position to performing beautiful and precise ballet movements.
The production elements of Fancy Dancer all operate at a high caliber. The set places us inside a ballet studio replete with multiple barres (scenic design by Junghyun Georgia Lee), but the overlay of a digital projection across these flats allows the audience to see lots beyond the studio, from a starry night sky to Lakota fancy dances (projection design by Caite Hevner and Ann Slote). The changing landscapes are enhanced by a sound design scheme that can transport us to fields of crickets, a lively diner, or the middle of a thunderstorm (sound design by Robertson Witmer). I also was impressed by the lighting design, especially the way the light would go dim in a sideways sweep to represent the closing of a door in Lara’s face as she experiences a series of rejections (lighting design by Geoff Korf).
Larissa FastHorse’s new play Fancy Dancer follows one young woman’s journey becoming more comfortable in her own skin through the discipline, liberation, and joy she finds through dance. This collaboration by Seattle Repertory Theatre and Seattle Children's Theatre offers audiences a personal story that beautifully encapsulates universal messages related to identity, heritage, resiliency, and self-expression. Suberb technical effects and a strong solo performance round out this dynamic world-premiere show co-produced by two of our region’s most prominent theatres.
Fancy Dancer, presented by Seattle Repertory Theatre in collaboration with Seattle Children’s Theatre, runs on stage at Seattle Repertory Theatre through November 2. For more information, including ticket availability and sales, visit https://www.seattlerep.org/.
Photo credit: Sayed Alamy
