Shake your tails: the history, excitement and impact of the Furry Dance Scene from 2008-now

Original post written by Dogpatch Press Staff

Guest post by Kamen the Lycanroc (Kameno-o)

Furry conventions are known to be a place to showcase the arts, and those include dancing. Alongside fursuit parades, music performances, and raves, dance competitions are a staple of the modern furry convention experience. Let’s look at how they got so loved, with memories from two deeply involved furries: Anthrocon’s long-time competition host Ronnie Noodles, and Tommy Dino, a member of the dance community.

Two ways to please crowds

Fursuit dance performances have gone from a small part of the con experience, to centrally scheduled main event attractions. Main event rooms are filled with people sitting both in chairs and on the floor to see fursuiters show off their dance skills and hype up the audience. Anthrocon, for example, saw over 80 applicants in 2025, with an estimated attendance of around 1500-2000 for the event.

Many people hear about dancing and only think of shows where fursuiters perform on stage, but there’s more to it than that. There are two kinds of dance shows present at furry events: Dance competition and Dance Battles.

Fursuit Dance competitions happen on stage with performers who make it past preliminary rounds, either in person or via audition videos. From there, finalists are selected to perform their own choreographed and rehearsed song and dance for 2-3 minutes, and graded by the judges.

Dance Battles, on the other hand, are teams of 2-3 competitors that face off with improvising to random music. Based on freestyle street dancing, the sides go back and forth, responding to each others’ dance. Then, the judges decide who goes forward from the performance.

The excitement goes beyond the halls of the convention center, as furry conventions are not shy about uploading performances onto social media such as Youtube. Anthrocon’s Youtube channel, for example, uploads the performances of dance competitions and their battle every year, raking in views for the channel. Their most popular video on their channel is the dance competition from 2018, which currently has 1.8 million views. (See above.)

From street culture to the cutting edge of furry culture

Despite their status as a main stage event and major audience draw now, dance battles did not start off as a convention main stage event. Furry conventions have always had performances and masquerades, but the first official dance competitions took place in 2008, with Furry Weekend Atlanta and Anthrocon being the first to host them. From there, the furry dance competitions grew across other cons such as Midwest Furfest and Further Confusion, with the intention to bring out the best of dance stage performance, led by people devoted to raising the bar.

Dance Battles followed suit in the early 2010s, as more furry dancers started to bring in more street culture and street dancing. Freestyle dance battles, the predecessor to official dance battles, appeared at Further Confusion in 2012. Dance battles debuted officially at Anthrocon in 2012, where it’s called “Floor Wars.” From there the subculture grew to what many are accustomed to today. Many furry dancers established themselves and became a part of what are considered the first wave of dancers such as J.D. Puppy, Jibba, Theome, and Neo Pan Tyger.

[Editor note: it’s interesting that now-staple dance competitions were only established as recently as 2008. That was almost a generation after the first furry con, and marked a somewhat key turning point in growth, as remarked in a 2011 blog article: Furry, not an obscure little fandom any more. It’s illustrated with a graph of con attendance that was rapidly spiking then, which continues now. Notice how the aggregated count of around 16,000 attendees for all cons in 2008 was about the same as the single-con record set by Midwest Furfest in 2024, which we can expect to keep rising as we approach another new generation point in time.

Dancers have been at the cutting edge of this boom, paired with the rising quality of fursuit craft. Compare the look of suits then and now, while dancing brings them to life — a perfect marriage of makers and performers. While this story has American POV from looking at the roots, in recent years performers emerging from Chinese and K-pop scenes have been gaining viral views that bleed across national and language lines.]

Dragged in to dance, then to organize: “Really fun but also really frightening”

One of the dancers who were there from the early years is Ronnie Noodles, a recognizable face in the furry dance community. Aside from being one of the main organizers for Anthrocon, Ronnie has served as the host for Anthrocon’s dance competitions since 2015.

An active dancer since 2008, Ronnie never intended to perform at furry events. This changed, however, after he attended his first Anthrocon in 2010. There, he was “dragged” physically by J.D. Puppy and Doryuu Shepherd into his first fursuit dance competition, and his fursuit dancing career began.

“I was physically and literally dragged into the dance competition after being recognized for my dance posts,” said the organizer. “There I was, in the middle of this dance qualifier. Anthrocon 2010 became my first dance competition experience. That became an experience for me that I would sum up as really fun but also really frightening at the same time, but somehow I made it through.”

Ronnie continued to perform at competitions at Anthrocon until 2015, when J.D.Puppy stepped down and offered Ronnie the opportunity to host for dance competitions. Ronnie has been hosting the Anthrocon dance competitions for the decade since.

As the main organizer of the dance competition, Ronnie’s tasks include selecting the judges, scheduling the dancers, and working with the other dancers and staff members to ensure the competition runs smoothly. Ronnie balances both managing the con but also ensuring the dance competitions run without issues. Throughout this, Ronnie kept noticing how with the increase in popularity and applicants, the competition kept growing bigger and bigger.

“As the years went on and people started taking notice, the crowd then started saying “dance competition is cool and all, but dance battles are also cool,”” remarks the dragon. “These statements started picking up, leading to the dance battles becoming too popular. This led to transitions to bigger rooms with proper equipment and AV floors. We just kept on growing bigger and bigger.”

“Who I do this for”: Competing to make community

Organizers and dancers like Ronnie helped to organize and create dance competitions, making them main events that draw many people to not only come in to watch, but to start practicing their own talent to perform and compete to win. One of the people drawn in was dancer Tommy Dino.

Debuting at Furpocalypse 2022, Tommy was nervous and felt unworthy. With encouragement from his friends and mentor, Eden, he was able to not only get on stage, but find a place as a regular furry dance community member. He connected with other dancers to improve his performance and make friends, something that motivates him beyond competition.

“I didn’t get to where I am now on my own, and it’s really heartwarming for me every time I step out onto the stage,” remarked Tommy. “I get to see the cheerful faces of everyone I’ve come to know. The dancers, my local furs who have been my anchor through it all. It’s a hard feeling to describe, but, in a sense it fills me with pride! And seeing everyone’s wonderful faces reminds me exactly why I enjoy performing, and who I do this for.”

Outside of furry conventions, Tommy attends dance classes, which varies from hip hop to contemporary and house. Whatever he learns, he applies to his routines, helping him in planning and choreographing his performances for cons. This helped for his recent performance at Furpocalypse, in which he entered with fellow dancer Toko, as “double T diner”. It was a new experience for Tommy to learn to adapt to his partner’s style after practicing it on his own.

As he prepares for his next con, he has one thought on his mind: to get better and improve his skill. He credits his success and improvement to not only his own talent, but the quality of help from the dance community along the way.

“The dance community is very welcoming and helpful to everyone regardless of their skill level. If you need any sort of tips on how to get started, there’s definitely people that’ll help if you ask,” said Tommy.

The furry fandom is growing bigger than ever, and with it more dancers are coming onto the scene and competing at dance battles and dance competitions. As the new year gets near and dance programming gets ready for next year’s events, the sentiment remains the same for dancers like Tommy and Ronnie: no matter how the scene grows, everyone’s invited to step up and jump in.

Kamen the Lycanroc (aka Kameno-o) is a furry journalist in New England who has a passion for writing about the events, culture, and people of the furry fandom, as well as video and audio editing, LGBTQ history, and Sonic the Hedgehog. His previous story featured New York City furry events.

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