Erica Tremblay crafts Native story, characters to care about in 'Fancy Dance' (2024)

If a filmmaker can make moviegoers care about “their” characters on the big screen, that’s a triumph.

When you see Erica Tremblay’s first feature, the shot-in-Oklahoma film “Fancy Dance,” you’ll care about the characters.

“Fancy Dance,” which stars Lily Gladstone and Isabel Deroy-Olson, is premiering Friday, June 21, in select theaters before becoming available June 28 for global streaming on Apple TV+. One of those select theaters is Circle Cinema, where Tremblay — a native Oklahoman and Native filmmaker — will return to familiar turf for a Friday night screening at Circle Cinema.

“I love Circle Cinema,” Tremblay said. “Circle Cinema has been a huge supporter of my career. I love Tulsa. I’ve been so lucky to see many films in Circle Cinema, so it’s going to be a real homecoming.”

“Fancy Dance“ tells the story of Jax (Gladstone) and her niece, Roki (Deroy-Olson). Jax has cared for Roki since the disappearance of Roki’s mother.

Jax feels as if law enforcement hasn’t prioritized finding Roki’s mother, so Jax decides to take matters into her own hands. Though moviegoers will see that Jax has flaws, there is no question how she feels about Roki, who is looking forward to being reunited with her mother for a powwow.

“What I love most about Jax is her very wry sense of humor and the way she connects so deeply with Roki, trying to anticipate her niece’s every need,” Gladstone said in production notes for the film.

“But I also love that she’s imperfect. This is a human being who is accepting a role maybe she wasn’t ready for — this role of being Roki’s caretaker while trying to keep her family and her people going. And even though she doesn’t necessarily feel equipped to take any of this on, she does it with remarkable resilience and determination.”

A complication arrives when child services questions whether Jax is the right person to provide Roki with the kind of home a young girl needs.

Tremblay, while taking part in a press junket to promote the film, said she wanted people who see the film to care about Jax and Roki.

“And I wanted them to care enough about Jax and Roki, and to recognize their humanity enough, that, maybe afterwards, they would think about what their relationships are to their Native neighbors and to think about how they could potentially be better citizens,” she said.

“The genocide of Native people is ongoing. These issues that we’re facing in Indian country are ongoing and are very real. And so hopefully Native audiences will recognize their humanity in the film. And I’m hoping that non-Native audiences will also be drawn to these two characters and care about them enough to maybe care about their human counterpart — or their real life counterparts in the real world.”

From short film to Sundance

A synopsis for “Fancy Dance” said that what begins as a search gradually turns into a far deeper investigation into the complexities and contradictions of Indigenous women moving through a colonized world while at the mercy of a failed justice system.

How long has Tremblay (born in Stillwater, raised in Seneca, Missouri) had this story idea kicking around in her head?

Tremblay said she previously made a short film (“Little Chief”) with Gladstone that, like “Fancy Dance,” was set on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation.

“And after the success of that, I was like, ‘hey, do you want to do something bigger?’” Tremblay said. “I was doing a (Cayuga) language immersion program at the time, and I was really inspired by matrilineal kinship and relationships, and so I was like, ‘let’s tell an auntie-niece story — a mother-daughter story by way of an auntie and a niece.’”

Tremblay said she called a friend, Indigenous writer Miciana Alise, and asked if she would help write the story. They were “off to the races” with the venture, and “Fancy Dance” made its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, where it was a finalist in the U.S. Dramatic Competition.

Tremblay, asked when she knew she was hitting the right notes with “Fancy Dance,” said, “You know, I think we got such a strong response to the screenplay. People really responded to Miciana and I’s screenplay, and in the world of Hollywood, we were financed very quickly. We started writing in 2020 and we were shooting in 2022. In Hollywood, that’s a very short amount of time to be shopping a script around, but we had producers and financiers that really believed in the script. And then when we premiered at Sundance and had so many people coming up to us and applauding the film and the critical success — it’s all a blur. But you know you did good when an elder is squeezing your cheek, saying, ‘Good job with the Cayuga.’”

Jax and Roki sometimes speak the Cayuga language in the film. According to production notes, there are fewer than 20 first-language Cayuga speakers left in the world. Tremblay said her community in Oklahoma (the Seneca-Cayuga Nation is headquartered in Grove) lost its last fluent speaker in 1989 and she didn’t grow up surrounded by the language. In 2019, she moved to the Six Nation Reserve in Canada and began a Cayuga language program.

“During production, I was able to bring a language adviser from my program down from Canada to work with the actors on the language,” Tremblay said in production notes. “On the first day of filming, we passed out lanyards to the crew with Cayuga translations for phrases like ‘action,’ ‘cut’ and ‘that’s a wrap.’ By the second day, the crew knew all of the words, and we made all of our set calls in Cayuga. It was such a wonderful experience to bring the language to life in so many ways. I hope this film can be used to encourage language revitalization and show the beauty of our words.”

The Gladstone impact

Similarly, the Osage language was part of the Martin Scorsese shot-in-Oklahoma film “Killers of the Flower Moon.” The “Fancy Dance” shoot took place after principal filming wrapped on “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

Gladstone’s place in the film universe was elevated by a “Killers of the Flower Moon” performance that netted her a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar nomination.

“Lily’s enduring advocacy of (‘Fancy Dance’) and continuing to talk about us on the red carpet and in speeches is, I’m sure, part of the reason why we’re sitting here talking today and how our film got this beautiful distribution path,” Tremblay said during the virtual junket.

Tremblay said she is lucky to be friends with Gladstone and was lucky to witness some of Gladstone’s big moments firsthand. Tremblay and Deroy-Olson were invited to go to the “Killers of the Flower Moon” Cannes premiere by Gladstone.

“I was at Cannes when she got her standing ovation,” Tremblay said. “I was able to cheer Lily on and do so as a friend. And it was such a wonderful journey to also be an Indigenous person witnessing all those incredible Indigenous actors on those red carpets and getting the attention and the spotlight that they’ve so long deserved. Lily has been acting for years and is a true professional in this industry and deserves every flower that she has received.”

Tremblay said she was wonderfully lucky as a director to have Gladstone and Deroy-Olson to direct in “Fancy Dance.” She said it took a “journey” to find Roki.

“We were casting for many months when we found her,” Tremblay said. “I just knew once I saw Isabel read for this part that she was the right person for this role. And the moment that Lily and Isabel met in prep and started doing language courses and dance lessons for two weeks before we shot, their chemistry with each other as human beings and friends was so palpable that it just was going to come across on the screen. I always joke that if I did nothing else with this film, I brought the two of them together in this world.”

Deroy-Olson was reunited with Gladstone in “Under the Bridge.” Deroy-Olson played a younger version Gladstone in the series, which debuted in April.

“I will be so thrilled and feel so lucky if I get to work with either one of them again,” Tremblay said.

Cherokee Nation Film Incentive

Moviegoers may recognize some of the Oklahoma locales (including Tulsa) in “Fancy Dance.” A newspaper headline in the film makes reference to Grove. “Fancy Dance” was shot primarily on the Cherokee Nation reservation and was the first film production to benefit from the Cherokee Nation Film Incentive program.

“We were so grateful to be able to shoot in and around the Cherokee Nation,” Tremblay said. “And having worked on ‘Reservation Dogs’ and knowing the incredibly talented and wonderful crew that lived there locally in Tulsa, I knew that shooting in and around that crew base was going to be our best bet.”

Tremblay, talking about “Reservation Dogs,” said she got to work on her favorite TV show of all time. Like “Reservation Dogs,” “Fancy Dance” is a Native story that feels real because the storytellers are Native people.

“Oklahoma is such a vibrant state full of so many incredible Indigenous people, and it’s really an honor to get to tell this very authentic Oklahoma story about these two Native women,” Tremblay said. “I’m really excited that the film will be so widely played there and I hope people will go out and see it and see all these people that they are sure to recognize.”

Tremblay said she is an Okie at heart, but now resides on ancestral land in upstate New York.

“I live now in the land where we were kicked out from and sent down to Oklahoma,” she said.

“It’s great to have these cultural touch points, having grown up in my community in Oklahoma and now living on ancestral lands in upstate New York and having also lived in the Haudenosaunee community for three years up in Six Nations.”

Among questions pitched to Tremblay during the “Fancy Dance” junket: How do you feel?

“I feel very relieved. I feel excited. I feel inspired. I feel nervous. I feel anxiety. I feel love. I feel joy to be reconnected with Lily and Isabel here at the press junket. What a journey it is to make your first feature film and to have arrived here in select theaters and on Apple TV. It’s just a wonderful outcome, and it’s great to be living your dream.”

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