Rousing 'Riverdance' at Academy of Music
More than a dozen years ago, before anyone ballroom-danced with the stars, Riverdance was telling people that dancing could be cool. And Riverdance went mainstream with an unlikely dance form, too - Irish step dancing, which previously had been performed mostly competitively or as a folk dance.
More than a dozen years ago, before anyone ballroom-danced with the stars,
Riverdance
was telling people that dancing could be cool. And
Riverdance
went mainstream with an unlikely dance form, too - Irish step dancing, which previously had been performed mostly competitively or as a folk dance.
Spun off from a seven-minute intermission routine choreographed for the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest, Riverdance opened in 1995 in Dublin.
Soon more step- and tap-dancing tours followed - Lord of the Dance, Feet of Flames, Tap Dogs, Stomp. And more recently, TV has been satisfying its audiences' appetite for fancy footwork. But it was Riverdance - seen live by 21 million people all over the world and countless others on TV and video - that started it all.
Now on its farewell tour, Riverdance brought its Boyne company (one of three that tour) to Philadelphia Tuesday night to open an eight-performance run at the Academy of Music with a rousing show that enchanted the packed house.
The program is slick at times, with its fog machines, blinding lights, and corny projected images, but it's also highly entertaining. It traces the roots of Irish music and dance, and also touches on other dance styles that have intersected with it - tap, ballet, flamenco, Russian folk dance. History, mythology, and the migration of the Irish people provide a vague story line.
A large, talented cast rocks the stage, and the principals are excellent - particularly Marty Dowds, the male Irish lead on opening night. (Three casts alternate the principal roles.) He seemed more delighted to be performing his hummingbird-fast taps and amazing high kicks and jumps than delighted with himself, as has been the case with some in that role.
He also had plenty of personality in the "Trading Taps" section, in which three Irish dancers (Dowds, Liam Ayers, and Brian Mullane) challenged two Americans (Jason E. Bernard and Kelly Isaac) to a dance-off. This was a welcome change from some other sections, which seemed choreographed to the point of eclipsing dancers' individuality.
Though the female Irish lead, Caterina Coyne, danced beautifully as well, step dancing is a percussion form as well as dance, and her taps often were drowned out by the onstage band.
The real joy of the show comes in the thundering group numbers, when young people in updated jewel-toned Irish costumes fill the stage with motion and music and demonstrate undeniably that Irish dancing is cool. This may be called the farewell tour, but it probably isn't the last we've seen or heard of Riverdance.