Review of Adapt Theatre Production's Dancing in the Storm in association with Redtwist Theatre

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Dancing in the Storm. It was written, directed and choreographed by Tonia Sina. It was about this woman (Katie Reynolds) who has a blog and she has aHUS and kidney failure and she wants everyone to see what it is like to see things through her eyes. She expresses her feelings through movement and blogging. The dance showed everyone how she felt about being taken away from her life because of her sickness, not necessarily what actually happened. I thought this was a great way of telling a story, not just having it be a dance show and not just having it be an acting show. Overall, I thought this was an amazing play and I think people should definitely definitely go see this show. This show showed me what it would be like if you were taken away from something you loved and couldn't go back to it at that moment.

I liked the scenes in the college and I liked it how you got to know the characters even though they never said anything and you didn't know their names. You got to know them because of the way she described them in her blog or the things you saw them doing. She spends college taking a bunch of pills to make her not have to have a kidney transplant. And everyone else is like partying super hard and doing a bunch of fun stuff that she is not allowed to do. And then when she finds out that she needs a kidney transplant, it makes you feel sorry for her because she is in such a bad position and she can't get out of it.

Then the Mom (Angela Horn) decides to give her daughter one of her kidneys. And it shows her remembering all the things she has done with her daughter over the years by you seeing her rocking a baby and then playing hide and seek with her. And I think that was really beautiful and sweet. It made you feel really sad, because you didn't really know what was going to happen. And you knew if she died you wouldn't be able to bear it. I thought that the part where they were playing hide and seek was probably the sweetest scene I've ever seen in my life. It reminded me of a video I've seen of me and my mom telling jokes and my mom laughing at them even if they weren't very funny.

So her crush (Eric Feltes) is in her fight class with her and then, as they are dancing, everyone else leaves, and you realize they are in love with each other. And then they keep on dancing and it is just a really beautiful moment I think. I thought it was kind of cute how they weren't really sad and depressed about everything but when they had to get ready for a dialysis or a transplant they took pictures of each other and made the best of it. I think that it is okay that they weren't all sad and depressed and everything when they were getting ready for dialysis, because you should make the best of everything. They thought of life as a blessing, that it would only happen once, and if you don't try to cram everything in that you want to do, you've missed a chance.

There was a scene where there were these doctors who were also clowns wandering around and trying to give her medicine but she didn't want to take it. I think that this was one of the instances where they were exaggerating everything to show you what she felt like. And then they gave her an overdose which I was very mad about because it is such a dumb mistake to make. And you feel like, how can this happen?! How could the hardest thing to go wrong actually go wrong? They showed it by basically having this dance sequence where they all were in these clown noses and dancing to basically the Harlem Shake. And once they had stopped, she continued freaking out because basically nothing could help her. She just had to wear herself out enough until she either passed out or fell asleep. I felt like that was very sad. I think that was a message to people about what is going wrong with overdoses of medicine. If I was a nurse I would have jumped up on the stage and said, "We need to stop these clowns from killing this woman!" Probably everyone would try to help, but she felt like no one was there for her.

People who would like this show are people who like dance, blogs, and moms. I think that people should totally go and see this show. I loved it so much because it was fun but also moving at the same time.


Photos: Korri Werner