Fancy Dance: We Speak to Director Erica Tremblay

Fancy Dance, an emotionally wrenching meditation about a community in the margins, sees Lily Gladstone deliver yet another sublime performance as a tough and resourceful Native American woman who is forced to navigate a world in which the odds are stacked against her. In this Goggler exclusive, we speak to Erica Tremblay about her feature directorial debut, the importance of native stories, the power of storytelling, and Fancy Dance’s powerful ending.

Fancy Dance is now streaming on Apple TV Plus.

Since her sister’s disappearance, Jax has cared for her niece Roki by scraping by on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation in Oklahoma. Every spare minute goes into finding her missing sister while also helping Roki prepare for an upcoming powwow. At the risk of Jax losing custody to Roki’s grandfather, Frank, the pair hit the road and scour the backcountry to track down Roki’s mother in time for the powwow. 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.

Fancy Dance was directed by Erica Tremblay and stars Lily Gladstone, Isabel Deroy-Olson, Ryan Begay, Crystle Lightning, Audrey Wasilewski, and Shea Whigham.