Dogs Don’t Do Ballet returned to the North Wall Arts Centre, a sweetly crafted adaptation of a family favourite in my household. If it doesn’t quite match the beauty of the original, it is at least a wonderful example of the craft of puppetry.
Anna Kemp’s story is a sweet and meaningful one. It follows Biff, the titular canine, who isn’t like other dogs. He holds ambitions to dance ballet, but, beyond his child owner, finds himself buffing up to the repeated refrain that dogs don’t do ballet.
Little Angel’s adaptation does venture too far from this narrative, padding out the runtime with some new characters (a scene-stealing pianist by the name of Margaret) and slows the pace down, giving room for the production’s fabulous puppetry to take centre stage. The show is performed a pair of fiercely talented puppeteers, and there are moments where the craft is staggeringly good (as is the case with every production I’ve seen by the Little Angel Theatre). Plus this is a richly humorous 45 minutes, drawing from the ridiculous quality ballet can have. Dogs Don’t Do Ballet feels like a repudiation of the world of ballet, its elitism and rigid expectations for dancers. One critique is that the narrative can feel a tad stretched here but when we reach the finale, the audience are roused into joyful applause.
I attended Dogs Don’t Do Ballet with a seven year old and a four year old, and both remained engaged and enjoyed the piece. My concerns over the slightly stretched nature of the production didn’t seem to affect them; they took part in the audience participation and were excited during the key moments. The four year old even whispered commentary to me, including (adorably) ‘small dog’ when we see a smaller version of Biff.
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