TV gets so much wrong about strip culture, but in one season P-Valley has managed to generate praise for its portrayal of dancers’ lives inside and outside of the club and Southern dance culture. “This show looks like it’s straight out the country and we love every bit about it, from the landscape to the people to the clothes,” Brandee Evans, who plays Mercedes, one of The Pynk’s most popular dancers, told Jezebel.
Even more realistic are the gravity-defying moves Evans performed on set with the help of the stunt double and real dancer who helped her prepare for this role by taking her to clubs. “I went with my double and my teacher, SoSpyda. She came to L.A. and trained me for 10 days,” says Evans. “I did about 98 percent of my stunts, so Spyder was on me. ‘Grip your thighs, hold your stomach, do this,’ you know, ‘Get it right.’”
“She would tell me, ‘That jiggle ain’t gonna cut it because that wouldn’t work in the club, honey. I need you to shake a little harder,’” added Evans, who says she didn’t even consider herself a twerker before filming.
One of the shows most jaw-dropping stunts is the surfboard, a triple-stacked move where two dancers use their bodies to build a platform on the pole for the lead dancer to perform on, mid-air. “That’s my favorite trick—to be at the top—it just felt so liberating and empowering,” says Evans.
In the video above, Evans talks more about preparing for the show, performing her own stunts, and the wig that landed her the role.