The Business of Fancydancing

In this daring film, directed by poet and novelist, Sherman Alexie, who previously wrote and directed Smoke Signals, a mixed up world is revealed through the eyes of a mixed blood Indian.  Alexie has become a prize possession of the American literary establishment. A Native American of mixed heritage who made it through the pearly gates – with considerable achievement and lots of angst.  The Business of Fancydancing is a ground breaking film that says out loud what many tribal peoples on the North American continent often like to keep to themselves.

In Rochester the film screened at the ImageOut Gay and Lesbian film festival in the Dryden Theater at the Eastman House – the prestigious archive for photography and film.   It received a warm reception for good reasons. Its appeal is universal.

The character of Seymour Polatkin is a tea brewing amalgamation of author Alexie and lead actor, Evan Adams. Adams,who is gay, has a bee line to Alexie, who is straight. Together they worked out the nature of Seymour’s character through an exchange of emails and improvisational character work. Which all goes to show you what a straight and gay man can do together, if given half a chance. And what a gay and lesbian film festival can do when stretched beyond assumed boundaries.

Seymour is a famous poet. A Native American who left his reservation for  bigger and better things in Seattle.  He quotes Shakespeare with a sense of personal resonance. And he plays with the routines of being a darling of white men and women, who eat up his words like pan cakes. They are wonderful words. Words with wicked end runs.  Intimate statements at home with truth and fear of the truth. Words given equal impact in a medium that postulates visual metaphor as its ground floor.

When Seymour’s cousin, Mouse (Swil Kanim), a talented musician, dies,  the newly hatched writer heads back to the reservation; to get in touch with himself and to rediscover where he came from.  He is met with something less than a welcome. Another old childhood buddy of his, Aristotle (Gene Tageban), who left Seattle to go back to the “rez”, reams Seymour up and down for being a sell out.

Aristotle is a reverse mirror for Seymour,  bitter, resentful, and despairing.

Seymour’s carefully worked out perspective gets worked over in the flack of Aristotle’s invective. Only Seymour’s friend and former lover, Agnes (Michelle St. John), a teacher on the reservation, of mixed Indian and Jewish heritage,  knows Seymour well enough to give him the ear to steady himself with. The mixed blood, mixed sexuality theme is further infused in the fertile sediment of the film.

An interview format locks the story into place. A talk show host of dubious integrity grills Seymour on his literary ambitions, Indian heritage, and homosexuality. In an age when talk show hosts have become a disease, feeding on the malnutrition of celebrity, the film goes beyond its ostensible format.  It crosses borders with effective associations that remind us of the diversity of the human spirit.

In one beautifully realized scene, Mouse plays a haunting violin, a fiddler on the porch of a reservation, his arm wrapped around a naked lady; who later complains how badly he treated her - with stars in her eyes, of course.  And what is it that Mouse is playing on his soaring violin? It is the Kol Nidre, the Jewish Prayer for the Dead; full of memory, pain and yearning. Music embraced from an unexpected source in an unexpected way. Music that brings to life a spiritual and physical bonding with striking sensual means and original daring. 

Alexi’s vision of double identity, cross-cultural and gender dilemmas plays with the possibilities of the medium for intimacy and revelation. Much is  made out of full bloods and old time Indian peoples disappearing. The melting pot is constantly being knocked as something Indian peoples should never give into. Yet the projection of being lost at the roots takes on a portable perspective in The Business of Fancydancing.

Seymour appears throughout the film, dancing in flying colors a native women’s shawl dance,  the distaff side of the men’s fancy dance. A double metaphor evoking cyclic healing and self knowledge. Knowledge about who you are in the human community. And knowledge about how to keep your balance by keeping your eye on the prize.

We all know what the melting pot looks like now. It has become increasingly difficult to separate one root from another as the tree of life expands. It is a tree of many branches, with leaves of many colors. More than a loud mouth talk show host can grasp juggling amalgamated clap trap.

Alexie takes on the issues courageously and doesn’t flinch at the possibilities of we are all one, despite our differences. Aristotle move over, Socrates has arrived, full of spirit and pride. 

©2003 Ned Bobkoff

For more commentary and articles by Ned Bobkoff, check the Archives.

Ned Bobkoff is a playwright, director and teacher.
He has worked with performers in a variety of community
and cultural settings throughout the United States and overseas

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