If you can't cancan, you can't cut it in the Moulin Rouge, according to dancer Marcus Burke, formerly of Balgownie.And he should know. Yes, he.It's not widely known, but male dancers make up almost a quarter of the 90-strong troupe - and about half of them are Australian.After a dance career that included stints on Mornings with Kerri-Anne and Australia's Wonderland - alongside another Illawarra export, Natalie Bassingthwaighte - Burke signed up with the 120-year-old Moulin Rouge almost three years ago.In September, fellow Edmund Rice College graduate Cameron Robinson, 20, will join him and Wollongong dancer Laura Watchorn, to continue the Illawarra's infiltration of the Parisian cabaret.Burke, 33, said he had seen many dancers leave the show from exhaustion over the years, but was looking forward to mentoring Robinson."We do two shows a night, six nights a week," he said. "The French cancan is the hardest thing - it's about 16 minutes long and you do constant kicks and constant leaps - and if you can't do that, you are out. "It is very agonising on the body."Robinson, who studied and taught at Albion Park's Danze Gallery, said he was happily surprised to learn the troupe had male dancers, because it meant he could join his girlfriend, who already has a place on the Moulin Rouge stage."Our costumes are not as raunchy as the girls'," he said with a bit of relief."We go shirtless ... but we are covered up below the whole time, with pants."