At a Broadway studio, the actor busts a move with his daughter, Audrey, who also happens to be his inspiration (and co-star) for his new film, “She Dances.” Brian Seibert reports.
“I love being here,” the actor Steve Zahn said. “This is home.” His twenty-three-year-old daughter, Audrey, spent most of her childhood as a competition dancer, which meant that Zahn spent most of her childhood schlepping her to and from rehearsals and hotels, waiting in parking lots, making props, and sitting backstage or in the audience through long recitals.
Zahn was a dance dad. That experience is fictionalized in “She Dances,” a new film he wrote with Rick Gomez. Zahn stars as a hapless father who’s estranged from his daughter until he chaperones at her final dance competition. Audrey Zahn, in her first starring role, plays the daughter. She was with her dad at the Broadway Dance Center to watch Jamie Harvener, the film’s choreographer, and Haley Fish, who plays Audrey’s nemesis, Marla, teach the slinky, cutthroat solo Marla performs in the movie. Audrey has known Fish and Harvener since her competition days, when they were all students in the same studio, in Lexington, Kentucky. After graduating, Harvener became Audrey’s choreographer. “He lived for a year in our house,” Steve said. Steve and his wife, the novelist Robyn Peterman, met when they were both in a national tour of “Bye Bye Birdie”; when they had Audrey and her brother, Henry, they vowed not to push the kids into show business. But, when Audrey was three, a dance studio near their farm in Kentucky beckoned. After a few sessions, the Zahns were invited to watch Audrey dance. Steve recalled, “I remember both Robyn and I going, ‘Well, we don’t have to worry about this one. She sucks.’ ” But she improved, and eventually she was winning group and solo competitions: Miss Dance Kentucky, Miss Dance Tennessee. The events could be as gruelling for parents as for participants. “You go to some of these competitions and you’re, like, ‘What the fuck is going on? Are they strippers?’ ” Steve said. “There were times you’re, like, ‘I hope they don’t do so hot so we can get out of here.’ ” Mostly, though, he was proud. In the movie, the father’s well-meaning ineptitude is played as cringe comedy. In life, he was more competent. “He was a good dance dad,” Audrey said, noting that he would break rules by smuggling in snacks. “In Chattanooga, they were, like, ‘You can have hot dogs or tater tots,’ ” Steve said, aghast. “These were dancers! It was strange. Hence a lot of stuff in the movie.” In 2021, Steve accompanied Audrey to her final dance competition, at the Gaylord Opryland Resort, in Nashville, where she was a finalist in the Miss Dance America pageant. Amid storms of rhinestones, glitter, and hair spray, Steve sent messages to Gomez about how crazy it all was, and Gomez immediately saw the movie potential. When the competition ended, Steve realized that an era was ending for him, too. “People you’ve known for fifteen years and all of a sudden, it’s over,” he said. “It was a comfortable place for me as an actor and somewhat of a celebrity. Here I was just the dad.” A good number of people from the Lexington dance world appear in “She Dances,” filling out bit parts and crowd scenes. “The film looks a lot bigger than it is because we have relationships with the teachers and parents and those fucking great kids,” Zahn said. As he watched the New York students perform a frenzy of head whips, body rolls, turns, and kicks, his eyes widened in dance-dad appreciation. “A lot of people don’t understand how hard these kids are working,” he said. Afterward, he addressed the class. “This film is made about you guys, in homage to what you do,” he said. Then he reverted to his other job, and started posing for selfies. ♦
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