REVIEW: Sex Dalmatian’s Hot Holiday Spectacular is a peppermint-coated acid trip

iPhoto caption: Connor Mitton and members of the company of 'Sex Dalmatian’s Hot Holiday Spectacular.' Photo by Jeremy Mimnagh.

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/By Liam Donovan / Dec 19, 2025

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In my review of director-choreographer Alyssa Martin’s Sex Dalmatian, the Rock Bottom Movement dance-theatre romp that dominated at the 2023 Dora Awards, I employed the word “hallucinatory.” But Sex Dalmatian’s Hot Holiday Spectacular, a new spinoff produced by Citadel + Compagnie at the Ada Slaight Hall, is such an acid trip that it makes the original look almost straightforward.

Rock Bottom Movement’s surrealist mandate is on full display in this 15-dancer fantasia, which begins with an invitation to let go: “The only thing you need to know is not to know anything at all,” pronounces the Mayor of Sex Dalmatian (Brayden Cairns), the evening’s narrator and the mayor of the titular canine’s mind.

In the original, Sex is a girlboss wellness influencer (and dog) who faces off against a dirty-minded rat named Mr. Meeks. Hot Holiday Spectacular tells the origin story of Sex’s hatred for Meeks, with the cast trading around both key roles. The plot is essentially that Sex falls in love with a hunky Human Boy (Connor Mitton), but Meeks tries to steal him.

This conflict serves as an excuse for a winding journey through an array of vibrantly ridiculous visual and choreographic worlds. A party at the mayor’s house features a swarm of dancers gyrating in candy-cane jumpsuits (no costume designer credited). Sex and Meeks each sing a ballad. A character named Butter scurries around in all-yellow garb. A cowgirl shows up and speaks in a drawl that’d make Blanche DuBois proud. Penises with orbed feet trap Meeks in jail. Marine life gets a showcase. A character dies via substance transmutation. And Citadel + Compagnie artistic director Laurence Lemieux makes a lovely cameo-on-wheels. 

Hot Holiday Spectacular’s dialogue and choreography are more fully integrated than Sex Dalmatian’s, which is a good thing. As in the original, the performers deliver their lines in an ironic, so-bad-it’s-good register. In a vacuum, I’m not sure this choice would be especially interesting — but in both Sex Dalmatian productions the virtuosity of Martin’s jazzy, chameleonic choreography counterpoints the broadness of the script and acting: a contrast that’s all the more evident (and generative) when these two elements are constantly chafing.

Still, many of the funniest moments are movement-only. My favourite scene depicts a battle raging inside Meeks between his inner businessman (a group of silver-jumpsuited dancers) and his lust for Human Boy (another group in all-red). Although dialogue introduces the showdown, the riotous final sequence is wordless, video-game-esque, and brilliantly clear: Out of nowhere, chintzy electronic victory music plays, and all the performers in red start robotically waving their arms back and forth above their heads as the silver dancers lie on the ground and cover their faces in despair.

Beyond being trippier and larger in scale (the original had a six-person cast), the spinoff is also sillier and more frivolous, which it’s hard to be miffed about, considering this is a show entitled Sex Dalmatian’s Hot Holiday Spectacular. Even the script’s stance on Christmas — sorry, “Mizzmas” — is proudly nonsensical. Nearly every time a character references the fact that it’s the holidays, they seem to be firmly against Mizzmas… but then when the mayor delivers a speech wrapping up the evening, he implies the production has demonstrated Mizzmas’ wholesomeness.

If we’re going to analyze Hot Holiday Spectacular (and we shouldn’t), the show’s topic is irrationality itself. Through the aforementioned stylistic disjunction between movement and text, Martin riffs on the fact that an increasing percentage of the words we hear every day — in the mouths of politicians, chatbots, and, yes, influencer CEOs — don’t correspond with reality. This extends to the very notion that the show is “hot”: though Human Boy is the shirtless object of Sex’s and Meeks’ affections, both animals’ chemistry with him feels entirely superficial, because Martin’s pelvic-thrust-littered renderings of sex don’t read as erotic but (intentionally) satiric.

Hot Holiday Spectacular does luxuriate in one type of attraction: self-obsession. How else are we to take the fact that Sex’s and Meeks’ minds house several clones dancing in matching outfits (spotted leotards and chiseled rodent suits, respectively)? I interpret the show as a roast of our truth-poor, image-obsessed culture. 

But, wait, when did I start ignoring the mayor’s advice? Perhaps all you really need to know are these prophetic words from the paws-on-bowler-hats closing number: “Sex Dalmatian is here, and she’s not going any-woof.” Merry Mizzmas!

Sex Dalmatian’s Hot Holiday Spectacular runs at the Ada Slaight Hall until December 21. More information is available here.

Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.

WRITTEN BY

Liam Donovan

Liam is Intermission’s senior editor. He lives in Toronto. His Substack newsletter is available at loamdonovan.substack.com.

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