Unlike the protagonists of her new film “Fancy Dance,” first-time feature film director Erica Tremblay isn’t a powwow dancer. However, she spent “many a summer evening out at the powwow grounds” as a child growing up in Missouri and Oklahoma, watching the dancers, running around, hanging out under the bleachers, and above all, “trying to scrounge up money to buy food,” she said.
“You want the snow cones, you want the fried bread and honey, you want to buy Cheetos, and so you’re begging your parents and aunties and uncles for change, and then running around with your friends who are begging their aunties and uncles for change,” said Tremblay, a member of the Seneca-Cayuga nation who has written and directed for television serials including “Reservation Dogs” and “Dark Winds.” “Just being at the powwow is kind of powwowing, because there’s so much community coming together.”
“Fancy Dance,” which releases on Apple TV+ Friday, follows the tender but tough con woman Jax (Lily Gladstone) as she searches for her missing sister Wadatawi and cares for her 13-year-old niece Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson), in the days leading up to a powwow where Roki is hoping to participate in a mother-daughter dance with Wadatawi. Powwow dancing is “not just dancing,” Roki tells another character at one point. “It’s a way of being together.”
Gladstone, who was nominated for a best actress Oscar for her portrayal of Mollie Burkhart in last year’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” called “Fancy Dance” the “absolute highlight” of her career while accepting an award from IndieWire. She’d been “dying to see” what Tremblay would do with a feature ever since she starred in the director’s 2019 short “Little Chief,” Gladstone said in a Zoom interview with the Globe, along with Deroy-Olson.
Once Gladstone received the script, co-written by Tremblay and Miciana Alise, she had a “moment of terror” that she “wouldn’t be able to rise to what Jax needed,” despite the character having been written for her. “But then Jax really kind of grabbed me, being like, ‘nope, you’re up,’” Gladstone said with a smile. “It was one of the first times I’ve felt like a character just imposed herself, insisted on herself.”
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Working with Deroy-Olson, 19, was another highlight, she added. “Watching a talent come out of nowhere.”
“Immediately we knew that it was right,” Deroy-Olson said. “I remember we stepped off set for the first day, and you turned to my mom and went ‘this is going to be fun.’ We had that joy, and that laughter, and the connection off screen.”
In the film, Jax and Roki fluently switch between English and the Cayuga language, and the two weeks of pre-production included an intensive course in Cayuga taught by Kisa Parker. “She was the one who formed the lines, helped us learn the lines, but also how to think in the language,” Gladstone said. “It was a really wonderful process.”
Though some elements of the film were drawn from real life, Tremblay described the characters’ easy and casual use of the Cayuga language as aspirational rather than a reflection of reality. There are only a handful of first-language Cayuga speakers on the planet, but there’s also a “massive effort to revitalize the language,” said Tremblay, who participated in an intensive immersion program as an adult. “As part of my effort . . . I was like, ‘I can put it in movies.’”
The two also learned powwow dancing from Hauli Gray, who choreographed the film’s dance sequences in addition to portraying Wadatawi onscreen. Jax dances “women’s old style fancy dance,” Gladstone explained, which takes its cues from the “very big and flamboyant” men’s tradition, while Roki dances women’s fancy shawl. “Younger women tend to dance that one. It’s very light on its feet, very mimetic of a butterfly.”
The story of “Fancy Dance” delves into serious social issues, including the ongoing crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women; statistics show that Native American women and Alaska Native women are at disproportionate risk for homicide, and many cases go unreported. However, Tremblay didn’t want to create a “history lesson” or linger too much on the characters’ pain, she said.
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“It’s really a story about two women who love each other . . . navigating a tricky situation and being able to transcend trauma through love and connection,” said Tremblay.
Gladstone thinks audiences are hungry for that connection. After the release of “Flower Moon,” she said, she heard audiences saying they wanted “a more insular, intimate look” into Mollie’s family. When Gladstone’s mother saw “Fancy Dance” at a Seattle film festival, she said, an audience member there commented that “Fancy Dance” had given him everything he’d wanted from “Flower Moon.”
“I think it’s such a beautiful thing that once audiences were primed and ready and learning and wanting more, we had our film waiting,” Gladstone said. “I think it was waiting for its home.”
FANCY DANCE
Streaming on Apple TV+, June 28.
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A.Z. Madonna can be reached at az.madonna@globe.com. Follow her @knitandlisten.
