BERNE — As people age, their experiences, good and bad, can weigh on their minds and make it hard to see the common ground at their feet.

Such is the obstacle facing the adults and authority figures in “Footloose,” a musical in which Ren McCormack, a dance-loving teenager from the big city of Chicago, is transplanted to the small town of Bomont.

It was his father’s death, and the financial fallout, that brought him there, a place where it is believed dancing is evil and can lead to death; and McCormack has to help separate the two.

The musical was first staged in the 1990s — with music by Tom Snow, lyrics by Daniel Pritchard, and book by Walter Bobbie — and will be performed by a large cast of Berne-Knox-Westerlo students this weekend.

Starting in sixth grade, many BKW students sing and dance on stage. It’s one of many forms of expression available to students at the district, said senior Thomas Fisher, who plays the part of leather-outfitted bad boy Chuck Cranston.

“It’s about freedom of expression and having freedom to just express yourself however you want,” Fisher said at a recent rehearsal.

Dancing is actually outlawed in Bomont, something the local teenagers try to impress on McCormack, played by BKW senior Nick Nagengast, who runs into trouble showing off his dance moves, bickering with wrestlers, and showing up late for class.

He and other teenagers in the musical are acting out against the curfews and rules imposed on them and falling in and out of love with one another. And, in their efforts to express themselves as a group, they organize a dance party and rally at a town council meeting.

“They stood up against the law for what they think is right and what they want,” explains Savannah Wagoner, a junior who plays Ariel, the reverend’s daughter.

McCormack is an expressive young man himself, reflecting in song while in church, or sharing a moment under the train tracks with Ariel, who has trouble with the constraints of her father, the main force behind the town’s ban on moving to music.

Reverend Shaw Moore, played by senior Aaron Collins, begins the musical by calling rock ’n’ roll “the music of easy sexuality and relaxed morals,” as he speaks to his congregation. Later, he is found listening to a classical sonata by Joseph Hadyn, “uplifting” music that “doesn’t confuse the mind.”

“I hope the audience gets that sometimes we don’t know what to do so we make a decision and it happens to be the wrong one,” Collins stated. “And, sometimes, it takes someone to point out the source of your struggles in order to find a better solution. Any parent in the crowd can really connect with the struggle of wanting to make their children happy but keeping them within some rules.” 

“A lot of adults look down on kids because they're young,” he added. “Maybe this will help them understand that anyone can be wise sometimes.”

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“Footloose," directed by Coriellen Travis, plays Friday and Saturday in the Berne-Knox-Westerlo secondary school auditorium on March 27 and 28 at 7 p.m., and on Sunday, March 29, at 3 p.m.