Barbara Barsky, Keanu Uchida, and Sterling Jarvis in Dancer.Terminal Theatre/Supplied
- Title: Dancer (A Musical in Ten Furlongs)
- Book and lyrics by: Jim Betts
- Music by: Marek Norman
- Directed and choreographed by: Stacey Tookey
- Performers: Keanu Uchida, Barbara Barsky, Sterling Jarvis, Tyler Murree, Sam Rosenthal, Kent Sheridan
- Company: Oh What A Ride! Productions, in association with Crow’s Theatre and the Toronto Stage Company
- Venue: Terminal Theatre
- City: Toronto
- Year: Runs until Nov. 1
Plenty of great Canadian stage shows got their start at the Toronto Fringe Festival. The Drowsy Chaperone, which played the Fringe in 1999, eventually made it to Broadway; 2001’s ‘da Kink in My Hair was later adapted into a two-season sitcom. I still have high hopes for Iris (says goodbye), one of the best shows I saw at any scale in 2025.
Dancer (A Musical in Ten Furlongs) made waves with its 2023 festival run. It was the next big thing, according to audiences and critics alike. I didn’t see it – as ever at the Fringe, there were too many shows and not enough opportunities to see them all – but friends and colleagues whose opinions I trusted said this Canadian musical about thoroughbred Northern Dancer was bound for the same glory as the iconic racehorse at its centre.
After opening night of the show’s latest iteration at the waterfront Terminal Theatre, however, I suspect much of that goodwill may be destined to be trampled.
Dancer (A Musical in Ten Furlongs) performed at Terminal Theatre.Terminal Theatre/Supplied
I wish it weren’t so. But very little of Dancer in its current state seems salvageable. At present, the show is an origin myth for Northern Dancer, who in 1964 became the first Canadian-born horse to win the Kentucky Derby. The beast was unusually small and famously tough to train, but his agility eventually made the Oshawa-born stallion one of the most profitable sires of the 20th century. His influence lingers over horseracing to this day.
That’s a great story. But Jim Betts’s book and lyrics seem perpetually in search of the tale they’re trying to tell – at the moment, both are stuffed with half-baked attempts at equating the cruelty experienced by Dancer with 1960s-era racism. Dancer’s speaking cast brings little depth to the humans invested in Northern Dancer’s success; Marek Norman’s vaguely doo-wop score slides by with only a few memorable melodies, most of which get garbled in Aaron Hanna’s sound design.
The show’s saving grace is director Stacey Tookey’s choreography, which sees a small herd of contemporary dancers become horses on the Terminal Theatre stage, gorgeous in their gallops and utterly convincing in their whinnies. Keanu Uchida is especially mesmerizing in the title role, graceful and athletic as he wordlessly conjures the racehorse’s unbreakable spirit.
The cast of Dancer.Terminal Theatre/Supplied
But rather than flesh out those too-short dance sequences into a full ballet – and I hope such a conceptual swerve is forthcoming, if there’s any remaining interest in keeping the show alive – Tookey clings to Betts’s awkwardly paced script. When Dancer kicks handler Bill (Sterling Jarvis) in the head, the resulting coma slips away with negligible emotional impact. The moment is instead funny in the worst way: unintentionally.
Tookey clearly has a sense of humour – her choreography makes frequent use of a step called a, badum-tss, “pony” – but her focus on the movement at the expense of the rest of the musical just about renders the whole thing moot. Even Jarvis’s performance, the strongest within the human ensemble, gets lost in the mishmash of Betts’s book.
On a more macro level, Dancer is a puzzling misfire: What happened between the Fringe and now? The Toronto Stage Company is still in the process of establishing itself, and so its decision to hop on a Fringe hit is not entirely surprising. Crow’s Theatre’s involvement, however, is more confounding: In no way does Dancer live up to the company’s reputation for producing high-quality, artistically rigorous drama.
If you squint, you can spot the moments that might have thrilled Fringe audiences in 2023: a slick opening number featuring those gorgeous horses, a costume design by Alessia Urbani that transforms nude dancewear and wigs into hooves and manes. For its premise alone, I was looking forward to Dancer; an equine musical scaffolded around contemporary movement ought to at least have been interesting, if not entirely triumphant.
In another universe, this show might have won the Kentucky Derby (or at least a few Dora Awards). But in this one, it’s my obligation to recommend that Dancer be put out to pasture.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article characterized 'da Kink in My Hair as a musical that got its start at the Toronto Fringe. It was originally not a musical, but was later turned into one.