Canada-based dancer Allie Goodbun knew she had the opportunity of a lifetime when she was cast in Moulin Rouge in Paris, but she wouldn’t get the chance to grace the stage until nearly two years later.
Goodbun tells PEOPLE she grew up in a small town outside of Toronto and began dancing at the age of 5, but it wasn’t until she was around 11 that she started taking it seriously.
“I started venturing into auditioning for other teams and going to dance conventions where big dancers from Toronto or big choreographers would be going to teach,” the now 27-year-old explains. “That’s where my eyes opened up to realize that dance could actually take me somewhere and it could take me beyond Canada.”
When Goodbun was 15, she booked a role on The Next Step, a popular Canadian teen drama series that follows a competitive group of dancers as they balance life with rigorous training.
“I was a big fan of the show, and when I booked a role on this dance-based TV series, that’s when everything turned around, and I got my connections and networking started in the dance world,” she explains. “I met all these other well-known dancers that were already on the show. It also gave me an inside look as to what working as a dancer 9-to-5 really looked like.”
The dancer filmed the show for a year, but after high school, she decided to go to the University of Toronto to study kinesiology, something she felt combined her “love for dance and sports and athletics with science, which was one of my favorite subjects in school.”
“That whole experience opened my eyes to the more professional world that I want to go into, something that was more helping athletes as opposed to being the athlete myself,” she explains.
However, midway through her studies in 2019, she had “a crisis where I was scared that I wasn’t dancing enough and ended up auditioning for a bunch of things. I auditioned for the Rockettes in New York. I auditioned for Moulin Rouge in Paris. I auditioned for a few other TV roles.”
Out of all the auditions, she notes that “Moulin Rouge in Paris stuck.”
“I felt a really big connection with the team in the audition room and the director of the show at the time,” she shares.
Goodbun, then “freshly 20 years old,” was signed to the cast a few months later, which forced her to pick between continuing her schooling or moving to Paris.
While she was leaning toward leaving life in Canada behind, the choice was ultimately made for her.
“Randomly enough, COVID hit a month later, and the world shut down, including the theater in Paris, including all the airlines and everything in my school,” she says. “It was a blessing in disguise because I was able to finish my degree and train that much harder before actually moving to Paris, and also going through the pandemic knowing I had a ticket to Paris — I just didn’t know when or how that was gonna happen, but I did know it was there — was really motivating.”
Goodbun was able to finish her degree, train for the Moulin Rouge and then close the Canada chapter of her life.
Once restrictions were lifted, she moved to Paris in 2021, nearly two years after first signing the contract. The cabaret show officially reopened its doors to the public that September following an 18-month shutdown.
Goodbun was 22 when she began her tenure at Moulin Rouge as one of the most recognizable dancers: a cancan dancer.
“You’re doing the hardest part of the show. It’s the most athletic part where there’s jump splits and cartwheels and you’re kicking your face and the French Cancan routine is the most cardio and stamina you need in the show,” she shares. “As a new dancer, you learn that on day one. That’s your initiation into the Moulin Rouge: learning the French Cancan.”
Goodbun was “thrown” into the rehearsal and “then right into the show schedule, which can be hectic, but it’s actually helpful because you really have no choice but to just go for it, and you start doing the French Cancan, and then over time you get asked to learn new roles in the show.”
She notes that the dancers hit the stage “six nights a week,” with “two shows every single night.”
Learning the routines while also navigating her new life in Paris was admittedly “hectic,” but after two years away from the stage, Goodbun notes that she “was really craving to dance.”
“I was in university. I was in lecture halls. I was studying. I was really missing the aspect of dancing as much as I was when I was on that TV show when I was a teenager, and I was really craving it,” she says. “I was thinking about being a professional dancer every single day of those two years in the pandemic, waiting to get there.”
“When I moved, I was like, ‘Give it to me.’ I wanted to be in rehearsals that next day. I wanted to be in there from 9 to 5 or as long as I needed to.”
“Starting my life over in Europe felt like a very natural transition and definitely the right choice,” she adds.
While it was a lot at once, she notes that Moulin Rouge is run like a well-oiled machine, and the whole setup is “incredible.”
“They’ve definitely got it down to a science where it’s been running for over 130 years. They definitely know how to integrate new girls at this point and they have it down to a science where you come in, you get a tour of the theater, you get your shoes, you go up to the rehearsal room and they teach you a little bit of the cancan on day one, you get to go home, rehearse, and then repeat the next day,” Goodbun says. “It’s a good integration and you get to slowly meet the rest of the cast members, which is nice because then it makes you feel like you’ve got a friend group already there and girls you can lean on for help,” she continues. “That helped when I was setting up my life in Paris, needing to navigate life in a different language, set up a bank account, get a new phone number, find an apartment… there are all those life logistics you don’t really think about until you actually get there.”
The thing that she finds “most challenging” about being in the show, however, is “maintaining 100% energy and performance for six days a week.”
“That can be very tough and come day five, you are exhausted,” she admits. “Allowing yourself to have a day and go and explore Paris and enjoy your day outside with the girls and making sure you still have enough energy to maintain a good performance every single night, that’s definitely the most challenging.”
On the other hand, she says the most rewarding part is “having a live audience there to cheer you on” — especially after particularly tough days.
“It’s definitely a rewarding feeling to feel the energy from the audience come right back at you while you’re performing, and the best part is, it’s a fresh audience every single night, so you have that freshness every single time you step on stage,” Goodbun says.
Now, five years in, Goodbun encourages other dancers to “take every single opportunity that comes your way,” as you never know where it will take you.
