Montreal Comedy Festival: Dance Animal

When I heard that "Dance Animal" was a comedy dance troupe, I felt a lot of things; Excitement. Curiosity. Skepticism. Sure, dancing can be funny, especially when it involves white dudes in khakis and The Phoenix Landing. Yet, I feared for Dance Animal. Feared that they would come across as a ragtag band of dorky neighborhood theatre kids, who spend their free time after Guys and Dolls rehearsal choreographing dances in someone's backyard.

And, at first, that's exactly what it seemed like.

Fuck, I thought to myself. An hour of this? It's so hot in here. And this is stupid. I want a beer and a shotgun.

But then, when the structure of the show unfolded, it got good.

Each dancer has their own animal character - Dance Wolf (Dan Jeannotte), Dance Hippo (Vanessa Kneale), Dance Fox (Stephanie Breton), Dance Hawk (Marc Rowland), Dance Gecko (Stephanie McKenna), Dance Squirrel (Nico Racicot), and Dance Salmon (Anders Yates) - and all give interspersed monologues about how they were just living their quiet animal lives when they were serendipitously discovered by Dance Tiger (Robin Henderson, the creator, director, and choreographer), who encouraged them to DAAANCE! 

Slapstick dance routines combined with monologues delivered by bulging dudes and curvy ladies in leotards, pretending to be animals, only works with perfect comedic timing and stellar dancing. Dance Animal's got it. When Dance Wolf -- played as a hulking womanizer straight outta Queens -- preened that "Dancing is like having sex with everything at the same time," and that, "A lot of people see me only as a cock. But inside that cock, is a heart." I almost dropped my camera. That, plus Dance Gecko's flipping, cartwheeling Spiderman routine, and Dance Hippo's inability to express herself verbally, choosing instead to have her "monologue" of gyrating, hair-flipping, whining, and grunting, "translated" for the audience by Dance Salmon, were gorgeous comic moments that, frankly, I wasn't expecting.

The piece de resistance (that's French! What an effect you have on me, Montreal.) was a burlesque act by a mystery Dance Animal, clad in a full body sheep costume. Peeling off a corset to reveal red-tasseled sheep titties? Strangely erotic. Peeling off the sheep costume to reveal that, underneath the furry suit, is a sweaty guy? Strangely, even more erotic.