Stuffed with stories & humour: 'How to be a Dancer in 72,000 Easy Lessons'
- Janejira Matthews
- Sep 23
- 2 min read
Michael Keegan-Dolan’s How to Be a Dancer in Seventy-Two Thousand Lessons is an amusing biographical romp through the formation of a dancing identity. Packed with wit but bloated with anecdotes, Keegan-Dolan navigates a collage of stereotypes, xenophobia and, of course, dancing from childhood to grown choreographer.
Present throughout the work is an assortment of items you might find in a bric-a-brac. Disco ball, bicycle, balloons, a mirror, concrete blocks and more, all unpacked from a wooden crate by Keegan-Dolan and dancer Rachel Poirier. Like much of How to be a Dancer, the props are a kooky jumble promising light-heartedness and positive puzzlement. Some are used, many are not, but rather than wasteful the effect is charming. Indeed, How to be a Dancer is plentiful with charm and loveliness as Keegan-Dolan invites us into the small moments of realising his dancing identity. In his first ballet classes, he discovers that “For me, I’m in the right place.” (until it is heavily implied that musical theatre might be a better fit). It is amusing to hear the pitfalls and successes of a good career, and Keegan-Dolan does well to avoid slipping into dreaded self-indulgence. Instead, How to Be a Dancer is well-paced with sudden switches from one subject to another. Pop music cuts out halfway through, putting an end to a limb-shaking, carefree jam. Or classical music – Blue Danube, Great Gates of Kyiv – makes an appearance sometimes sung by Poirier to comic effect, to be shut off before the next story.
Stuffed with content but maybe too much – the endless anecdotes, although amusing, begins to wear at some point. Like being force-fed too many sweets, some sour, some sugary, the novelty tips into excess. All this verbal discourse needs something to balance it out. As the work progresses, more movement intercepts the dialogue; dancing at a club with a friend, Poirer’s solo to the entirety of Ravel’s Bolero lined with sarcasm (pointed glares at the audience) and rich with twists and turns, smooth hips or shuffling steps. What is spoken was far from unimportant, but amongst words infused with underlying Irish rage, is an emotional silence that could have been leant into and transformed into noise. Keegan-Dolan addresses family tensions around Irish history, racial slurs and stereotypes that contradict reality. All done with good humour but only a suggestion of frustration, I find myself laughing because much of his experience is despairingly relatable and widespread still, even for those of us who are not Irish. Although acknowledged, there is much left to be deeply examined, and I wonder if How to Be a Dancer tries to be too broad in all that it broaches.
Quirky and loquacious but oddly unfulfilling, How to Be a Dancer is light-hearted and entertaining but calls for further weight to cement its heavier themes. Its funky assortment of props and quick-switch pace play to a comedic touch, but I’m left longing for something more.
