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Animal Dance
by Ann Carlson
What do kids (baby goats) and kids (not-so-baby people) have in common? Animal Dance will answer these questions with the help of some curious goats and their animal buddies. It’s a story of the similarities we share with our animal friends in the quest for self-expression and ultimately, understanding. So stomp your hooves, clap your paws and expect the unexpected!
“[Animal Dance] stimulates the imagination, powers of observation, attentiveness, and curiosity of its audience." – Talkin' Broadway
“It's a charming way to introduce little ones to the idea of dance” – Pioneer Press
Details
Playwright: Ann Carlson
Type: Theatre for the Very Young
Pages: 15 pg
Casting Breakdown: 1 Actor plus animals
Estimated Run Time: 40 minutes
Audience Recommendation: Preschool
Originally produced by Children's Theatre Company in 2015-2016
Animal Dance embraces the idea that all human and animal movement is a kind of dance – a celebration of how people and animals use their bodies to express themselves and to engage with their world. Often, dance is a series of choreographed steps and movements that are set and are performed the same way every time. But, in Animal Dance, the animals are not trained to perform certain things, the way they might be in a circus or, say, in a dolphin show. They are just moving and being – naturally!
In the world-premiere production, Ann Carlson created Animal Dance as a human dancer responding with an abstract narrative to the natural movement of the animals on stage. She used her skills as a performer to respond in the moment to whatever the animals were doing. Every day, every performance, was a new "dance" designed to help the very young see and appreciate the unique and special qualities of the different animals and to model a way of using their own bodies to express and explore their feelings and their relationship to the world around them. The animal cast members in the premier included: a rabbit, two goats, two dogs, a tortoise, a goldfish, and a thespi-hen.