DANCE NATION: a reading presented by Parallel 45 Theatre

Dance Nation by Clare Barron

Directed and Produced by Katie Clark

Thursday, April 14th @ 6pm at The Cathedral Barns

Somewhere in America, an army of pre-teen competitive dancers plots to take over the world. And if their new routine is good enough, they’ll claw their way to the top at Nationals in Tampa Bay. A play about ambition, growing up, and how to find our souls in the heat of it all.

A blazingly original play... marvel at how close what you see cuts to the bone.” – The New York Times

“If you were ever a 13-year-old girl, Clare Barron’s daring, raw Dance Nation will probably hit you hard [...] It’s a brave, visceral, excitingly off-kilter barbaric yawp of a play. And it gets at something excruciatingly tender: the burden of modesty on young American women.” – New York Magazine

As young girls, our natural instincts are to collaborate. But we are socialized to compete. The results of this social coding are loneliness, unproductive solitude and in some cases real loss. If we were to listen to our inner instincts, and live in kindness and loving acceptance of one another, we would have access to the power inside us which is supreme in its potential. Barron is asking us to contemplate and understand a word where we give ourselves collective permission to collaborate with kindness. P45 will work with Set Forth Counseling on guiding a conversation about how to reorient and rebuild the coding young girls experience in their most formative years. 

Run time is 100 minutes. Ages 17 and up. 

Play readings will be directed and produced by members of P45's 2022 Resident Company: Sarah Bielman, Katie Clark, Noah Durham Fried, Sara Hartley, Alexandra Herryman, Jeremy Hogue, Micah Mabey, and Kristen Stewart