This week the Seattle Rep (with the Seattle Children’s Theatre) will host the world premiere of Fancy Dancer by the Indigenous playwright Larissa FastHorse. The autobiographical play tells the story of young, half-Lakota, half-white Lara, who yearns to be a ballet dancer after seeing famous Indigenous ballerina, Maria Tallchief.
While FastHorse wrote the part for another to portray, she’s getting an opportunity here to perform it herself, allowing her to confirm that the production is as complete as she had hoped. She’s also “sharing” the role with Burgandi Trejo Phoenix (of Yaqui/Yoeme heritage). Phoenix is not an understudy, FastHorse explained: “Since this production is shared between the Rep and SCT, there are 10 shows a week, and one person couldn’t possibly perform that much.” So FastHorse also gets a chance to see how another actor can portray her life in the way she wishes.
This is an all-ages story. FastHorse said while it started as a children’s tale, it’s “aged up.” “You can bring the whole family,” she said. “I love multigenerational theater where the whole family can share the experience together.”
Dancer to writer
Regarding her career as a dancer, FastHorse noted that she performed “all the things” at that time, like snowflakes and flowers in Balanchine-style choreography, moving later to more prominent roles and “guesting” with a duet partner at various smaller companies. Injuries inevitably led to ending her short but intense career as a hardworking dancer.
“Leaving ballet was devastating,” she said. “You’re so young, and, in ballet, I was old (29-30). You focus everything on dance since you were a kid. It’s your entire identity. Thankfully, there was an organization to help dancers get ready for the transition.
“I tell a lot of that story of becoming a ballerina in this new play. I don’t want to give it away. Dance informs who I am as a playwright. I often have to fight for movement-based scenes in my plays with producers because they don’t understand what they are.
“Fortunately, in this show, choreographer Price Suddarth [a former principal dancer at Pacific Northwest Ballet] and director Chay Yew understand that beautifully. We’re not pretending you’re not seeing a woman in her fifties. It’s me looking back and dancing my feelings about those moments.”
Pathway to Broadway
FastHorse’s most well-known work (so far) is Thanksgiving Play, in which four white actors devise a play about the holiday, trying so hard to be culturally appropriate and getting it all wrong. In 2023, it made her the first known female Native American playwright produced on Broadway, at Second Stage Theater. In 2024, Peter Pan: The Broadway Musical, with a new adapted book by FastHorse, began an international tour.
First produced in Portland in 2018 by Dámaso Rodríguez, now artistic director of the Rep, Thanksgiving Play has become widely staged. Rodríguez also provided initial funding to support the writing process.
“Those plays helped raise the millions of dollars that it takes to mount a play on Broadway,” FastHorse said. “And after I stop rehearsing this play, I’ll stay in Seattle to write my next Broadway play!
“It’s been amazing to get to know the city. It’s welcoming. … I grew up dreaming of PNB as one of the premier ballet companies in the world. The other thing I love in Seattle is that the Indigenous scene is so strong, with art and events. The Rep is having other programming — pop-ups with Eighth Generation in the lobby, and events with Tidelands [Native Arts Gallery], and these were already in place. Not because I’m here. It's been really moving to me!”
Lakota attitudes
Asked if the Lakota tribe has a particular attitude about LGBTQIA+ people, FastHorse said, “It’s more simple and more complicated. People are free to be themselves, and specifically we have ‘two- spirit’ in Lakota culture, and those people are the most sacred, because they possess male and female power. After colonization, that attitude got a bit lost, but it’s been beautiful to see that respected again and [those people] seen as the leaders they should be.
“In 2023, I toured a play [Wicoun, pronounced wih-shoon] that was about … gender identity, about when humans embrace both sides, they become fully themselves, like with superpowers.”
Would FastHorse rather be known just as “a writer,” as opposed to “an Indigenous writer”?
“In the beginning,” she said, “I considered changing my last name to Hogan, my husband’s name, so it doesn’t sound Indigenous, and people could just read my writing and think of it as that. But I realized that it’s a privilege. Only a million people can call themselves Lakota, and we can tell these stories. It has given me more opportunities. It has become my mission. I write about other Indigenous people too, because they trust me to talk about these issues. I’m honored to be known as Native American playwright.”
For more articles and reviews, go to www.facebook.com/SeattleTheaterWriters. Subscribe at https://MiryamsTheaterMusings.blogspot.com
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