Reviews / 22 March 2007

Cat Dancers

Cat Dancers
USA  /  2007

Ron Holiday takes us around his Floridian home during his morning routine: watering the flora in his garden, a session with some gravity boots, brushing his dogs’ teeth, selecting the wig he will wear for the day. At 70, Ron looks decades younger than he is. He speaks of a renowned career as an exotic adagio dancer in the 1960s, and later as a part of Cat Dancers, a provocative stage performance that incorporated wild tigers, panthers, and leopards. Ron would eventually settle with his beloved animals, tending to them at his private ranch. We see how ferociously they’ll devour helpings of raw meat for lunch, and later how Ron approaches them so nonchalantly, as pets and not wild animals. They are essentially his last friends, simultaneous reminders of his accomplishments and his losses.

He speaks of his days in Cat Dancers with conviction, and his hyperbole is justified with the 16mm footage that accompanies his thoughts (in an incredible instance, a leopard jumps some thirty feet into his outstretched arms). The nostalgia that his remembrance should conjure is disabled by the absence of the two people Ron speaks of so fondly — his wife Joy, and their younger co-partner Chuck. The three lived and performed together for the greater part of two decades.

Cat Dancers will elucidate the sudden and proximate tragedies that ended Ron’s eponymous stage show in the late 1990s, and the nature of Joy and Chuck’s deaths will not be unexpected. As much as this film is the story of their fates, it is also — and more disarmingly — a portrait of an extraordinarily compassionate man who is left with little to care for. He is an effortlessly unique person who has found his calling in spite of mounting debilitations, nourished it, and he now persists despite nearly unbearable heartbreak.

Cat Dancers concerns a theme I am partial to in film: how human compassion transcends human relationships. Ron Holiday’s compassion ensures a bountiful garden, his well-nourished animals, and even his own unnaturally fit body; I sense these are the results of tremendous loss, as Ron’s face will break into tears easily, his material comforts and health obscuring an emotional void that nothing remains able to console.

Comments / 3 total / Submit Comment

  1. Amazing Goth
    2 April 2007
    9:34 AM

    Ron , What can I say. My Mentor, My Friend, My Inspiration, My Hero. A man with dignity, Love, compassion for animals and all around wonderful man who knew how to treat and care for animals. Joy, My Friend, My Inspiration, My Hero, My Mentor, A woman of compassion for Animals, love for all around her. Chuck, My Friend, My Inspiration, My Hero, My Mentor. A man with Love and a great heart for animals, Magic, life, etc. The CAT DANCERS these people were my friends, my Mentor, My inspirations to this day. I worked with them, toured with them for years, I lived their life, I lived their love for animals, I lived knowing them as friends til’ the tragic days. Ron I admire you to this day still and love you as a dear friend. I miss Joy & Chuck and all the cats. This act should have a great film made about them one day and be seen by millions. They are LEGENDS. They are true Americans. They are A blessing From God, because He gave us them to admire and see for years. Whenever I become as big as you all were my act everyday will be dedicated to the GREATEST ACT EVER AND THE GREATEST INSPIRATIONS, AND FRIENDS EVER IN MY LIFE TO THIS DAY ”THE CAT DANCERS” Ron, Joy & Chuck and all the great felines that were stars along side them to this day. LOVE YOU RON, AND LOVE YOU JOY AND CHUCK AND I MISS YOU ALL TO THIS DAY. LOVE AND PRAYERS ALWAYS Jeff A.K.A. THE AMAZING GOTH

  2. Janaye C. Marcil
    17 July 2007
    11:27 AM

    Ron is such an awesome person. He is my dance teacher right now and has been for several years. He basically saved my dancing career. He’s taught me more than dance though. He’s helped me achieve my goal of helping raise tigers. He’d just done so much for me and for everyone he’s touched.

    Je t’aime, M. Ron! Tu es fantastique! Et tu es un bon prof. :D

  3. ty randazzo
    12 December 2007
    10:10 AM

    tell ron i said hello and im living in milwaukee wisconsin address is 6160 south 6st 53221 lot:31 trailer court i met the holiday back in the 80’s .give ron my love?!.

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Credits

Directed by
Harris Fishman

Review by
Rumsey Taylor

Source
35mm print

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Features: The 2007 South by Southwest Film Festival

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