In This Issue
Doing the Bird Dance
OVC staff member's macaw bobs its way into TV ads
BY ANDREW VOWLES
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| Nathalie Lemieux, a staff member in the Department of Pathobiology, coaxes her macaw, Lacey, to show off the dancing moves that have made the bird a TV ad star. Photo by Martin Schwalbe |
They're all dancers in Nathalie Lemieux's family. Tap and hip hop are after-hours favourites for this teaching lab technician in the Department of Pathobiology. Her husband teaches ballroom dancing, and all four of their daughters attend weekly classes at a local studio. Now they've added another dancer — one that comes complete with blue and gold feathered costume — to the family conga line.
This new-found talent is so good, she's now starring in a TV commercial. Unlike many macaws, Lacey doesn't say much, but the six-year-old bird sure can dance.
Lacey appears in a new Telus ad that also features a scarlet macaw and what appear to be several of its blue and gold cousins. But most of the latter images are a single bird — Lacey, bobbing up and down to the beat of Jamba by Toronto R&B singer-songwriter Anjulie.
Currently airing in Western Canada, the ad has also recently popped up on YouTube (gtpc.ca/news.html). It's one of the popular Telus series of ads starring fish, frogs, hippos, rabbits, monkeys and other “spokes-critters.”
The shoot last fall at a Toronto film studio involved six psittacine actors. Among them, Lacey was the only dancer. But thanks to editing magic, the Guelph macaw ended up playing most of the birds that appear in the commercial — bobbing, dancing, walking in circles, lifting her feet and wings. “They liked her so much, they just cloned her over and over,” says Lemieux.
Shooting started at 9 a.m. and ended at 8 p.m., but it was worth the time and effort, she says. Besides gaining TV and Internet fame, Lacey received $600 for her work.
She'd been recommended by a Toronto animal handler who regularly lines up birds for film gigs. The commercial producers had initially arranged to use another bird but then decided they wanted a blue and gold macaw.
Lemieux ended up working, too — singing, clapping and encouraging her macaw on the set to keep dancing. “I was a one-time animal wrangler.”
She says the YouTube clip has been popular at home. “My daughters have made us play the ad a gazillion times. We're a dancing family. Lacey was a perfect match for us.”
For most macaws and other parrots, dancing is less of a claim to fame than speaking — or at least mimicking their owners' speech. But Lemieux says it's easy to get many birds to show off their terpsichorean tendencies. “A lot of birds love to dance. They will respond to the beat. It's also part of their mating ritual.”
It takes her no time to encourage her pet to perform its bobbing routine on her forearm. Try to get the bird to speak, however, and she remains mute.
“For a macaw, she's very quiet,” says Lemieux, president of the Golden Triangle Parrot Club and a longtime participant in the former Wild Bird Clinic and WEEP (Wildlife Education and Environmental Programs). “She's more a dancer than a talker.”
Lemieux has kept parrots for years. Besides Lacey, she has five other birds at home, many of them regular teaching aids for students at the Ontario Veterinary College.
This month, a production company called her about another gig for Lacey, this time for a lottery commercial in Atlantic Canada.