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.
