Michael Flatley, the Irish-Chicagoan creator of Riverdance who was fired by producers two days before the London premiere, is alive and kicking and is ready to rock `n’ roll with a brand new show. 

It started modestly in 1994, a seven-minute distraction during the intermission of the glaringly unfashionable Eurovision Song Contest. Two years, 1.2 million audience members, and $25 million in box-office sales later, Riverdance is an unprecedented international success story, and Irish traditional dance — for years the most obscure of blips on the show business map — is as close to a popular entertainment phenomenon as it’s possible to get. 

And the show’s popularity just continues to grow. After a judicious overhaul designed, according to insiders, to fine-tune everything from dancing to costumes to music, the show returned to London in May to advance ticket sales of UK£6 million. Demand is such that plans are already in place for extensive tours of Europe, Australia and — in October — a return to New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Producers Moya Doherty and John McColgan are currently in negotiations with the Walt Disney Company in Hollywood to bring Riverdance to the big-screen, and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ultra-prestigious Really Useful Company is reportedly seeking the rights to clone the show in simultaneous productions across the world. 

Success? If Riverdance was quoted on the stock exchange, its increasingly wealthy shareholders would be doing jigs and reels in the streets. 

So you could be forgiven for expecting Michael Flatley to be more than a little miffed. Currently starring in his own new show, Lord of the Dance, in Dublin, the original choreographer, original star and — depending on who’s talking — original architect of Riverdance’s tradition-busting approach to Irish dance, was unceremoniously yanked from center stage on the eve of the show’s debut in London last year, and permanently replaced by his understudy. 

To anyone who had seen Riverdance Mark I, the news came as a shock. Flatley — in flowing silk shirt, tight black pants, and a hairdo direct from Hollywood Boulevard — towered over the production; all of Riverdance’s passion and electricity seemed to flow directly through him. Expecting something from the stiff-as-a-stick school of Irish dancing, Riverdance audiences were astonished by the swaggering grace and machine-gun speed of his moves and by the Astaire-like ease with which he glided across a stage. His rapport with co-star Jean Butler could melt icebergs at fifty paces, and his effect on audiences was only marginally less fiery. Girls screamed when he appeared in public; boys held their tongues and began to think maybe Irish dancing was cool after all. Flatley was a star; a good-looking, sexy, charismatic star who could dance like sunlight on water and make it look easier than walking down the street. It seemed obvious that as long as Riverdance’s approval ratings remained in the ascendant, he was going to be huge. 

And then he got fired. 

So what happened? How did the show most likely to succeed part ways with the man most likely to make it a success? 

Simple, if you believe the reams of words written in newspapers and magazines about Flatley’s departure — the dancer engineered his own exit from the show. Depicted as an inordinately hubristic, power-hungry narcissist who pushed his fellow cast members to the limit and beyond, Flatley’s demands for more money, more control, more credit and more recognition, so the reporting goes, led to Doherty and McColgan giving him the boot. 

Flatley, however, while currently in litigation with Riverdance’s producers over future royalties, claims the split was due to that old artistic stumbling block, “creative differences.” Not unnaturally, he also denies the accusations flung against him in the media. 

“It’s all garbage, absolute garbage,” he tells Irish America over coffee and Ballygowan in the boardroom of the Westbury, one of Dublin’s most exclusive hotels, and Flatley’s primary residence until he finds a suitable house in the Dublin area for himself and his Polish wife, Brita. “We had several differences, creative differences, and there were a lot of things in the contract that were just unacceptable, but those stories are all rubbish. 

“We had done a deal and I was ready to go to work, but the night before, the lawyers called and said `deal or no deal, it’s off.’ It wasn’t even a question of money, because I didn’t choose my fee, they did.” 

Still panting from the rigors of a just-completed ten-hour rehearsal (at the time of the interview, Lord of the Dance was just about to open), the dancer looks at least a decade younger than his 37 years, 26 of them spent hoofing it out in training halls, in competitions and in theaters. Tanned and muscular, and casually dressed in black sweat pants and figure-hugging t-shirt, he displays a serenity and modesty almost the complete opposite of his monstrous media image. 

“When things are said about you, they certainly hurt, and I was hurt as an artist and sad about leaving the show,” he says, patiently revisiting the split for probably the hundredth time before a journalist. “But Riverdance seems like it was a thousand years ago now. I’m too buried in Lord of the Dance now to be concerned with it.” 

The public nastiness of the separation appears not to have particularly affected Flatley. With the curtain rising on a new, 90-minute production, he has little time, one feels, to grieve over the might-have-beens with Riverdance. He displays no obvious bitterness over the show’s successes in his absence. 

“Aside from the history of the show and what happened and all the rest, I still wish them the best,” he says. “Don’t forget, I poured my blood, sweat and tears into Riverdance, and I can only love it because I’m the guy who built it. You have to understand that the most important thing about all this is not the producers or me. A hundred years from now, who cares how much I got paid or how much they’re making? Who cares about any of that? If a guy in Cleveland, Ohio picks up the videotape and is proud to be Irish, that’s way bigger than me and them put together. All of us, as Irishmen, should be big enough to see that.” 

Now would the raving egomaniac portrayed in the media really say something like that? Either Flatley is dancing in full spin-control mode (he does have a new show to promote, after all), or he really is a decent guy. 

Flatley was born in Chicago at the tail end of the 1950s to emigrants determined to maintain strong links to the country of their birth. Irish dancing was, in some sense, in his blood. His mother, a County Carlow native, had been taught to dance by her own mother, and passed on a love of traditional Irish dancing to Michael. His Sligo-born father, a plumber and later owner of a construction business, played violin, and encouraged an interest in Irish music. (Flatley is also a world-class flute player). He came relatively late to dancing, taking his first steps at age eleven. But by the time he retired from competition in 1976, he had stunned the traditional dancing world by becoming the first American-born winner in the All-World Championships in Irish Dancing. 

Flatley’s mantlepiece soon became crowded with awards and trophies. He became the youngest ever recipient of a U.S. National Heritage Fellowship, and was presented with the award by President Ronald Reagan. The National Endowment for the Arts recognized him as one of the country’s greatest performers with a Master of Dance Award. In 1991, the National Geographic Society declared Flatley a Living Treasure. He also danced his way into the Guinness Book of Records with a mind-boggling tap dancing speed of 28 taps per second.

But even as far back as the 1970s, he says, he was already thinking about Irish dancing in new, extremely untraditional ways. 

“I just always saw Irish dance differently,” he says. “When I retired from competition I just knew the minute I was done that I would start trying new things that weren’t really allowed in competitions. I actually felt very restricted in competitions, so it was a good time for me to break out and go in different directions. I began doing lots of different shows and so many people seemed to enjoy what I was doing that I just started to realize it really worked. The more I developed it, the more I realized that my feet and my legs moved in certain ways, and I could do fancier moves with them. So I started incorporating a lot of new moves and making them faster and more elaborate than they would normally be. I was putting in double rhythm patterns and intricate footwork, and the more I did, the more the audience responded to it. I judge everything by audience reaction, because the average person is the one you can most count on for an honest response. The more I did big, high kicks in the air, or the faster I went with my taps, the more they loved it. When I came to do the Eurovision, I just brought all that with me. I knew it was going to work because I’d been testing it for the last ten years.” 

Most publicly, Flatley tested his techniques while touring with the Chieftains in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Brought on stage for five or six numbers a show, he learned the value of improvisation and — a key factor in the development of Riverdance — the importance of showmanship. Fans lapped up Flatley’s post-modern traditionalism, and he became a centerpiece of the Chieftains’ show. 

Anyone who can share a Chieftains stage without an instrument and survive had to be doing something right, and after an appearance at the Hollywood Bowl in 1993, he was contacted by Moya Doherty, who was producing the 1994 Eurovision show, and invited to Ireland to perform in the Mayo 5000 Festival. 

“That’s how it all really started,” Flatley recalls. “I closed the show for them and they were very excited about what they saw. I don’t think they had ever seen Irish dancing using the arm movements and different costumes before. Moya and John [McColgan] took me out and I told them about the plans I had for a big show with a full orchestra and a choir and forty or fifty dancers on stage. We got along great, and in July they called me and asked me if I would consider putting something together for the Eurovision interval. I told them over the phone exactly how I saw the piece, and what we talked about on the phone that day was exactly what ended up on the stage.” 

There were 350 million viewers in over twenty countries. When Flatley and Jean Butler took their bows, it seemed as if every one of them drew a deep breath, as if trying to digest what they had just seen. Then they erupted in an adrenalized thunderclap of applause that was probably heard in other galaxies. 

In Ireland, Riverdance was like some national catharsis. The whole country gave a standing ovation, and for days — weeks — Flatley and Butler were national heroes. Bill Whelan’s music became the soundtrack to daily life, and Riverdance seemed to take up more print space than the government and sports news combined. Provided with a high-profile public forum for the first time ever after years of playing second fiddle to Ireland’s more consumer-friendly cultural exports, Irish dancing had gone mainstream with bells on. Riverdance had arrived, and within two years, it would become the hottest entertainment property in the business. 

“It’s certainly nice to see Irish dancing on a world stage at last, to be able to compete with the bigger shows and be successful commercially and artistically,” Flatley says with understatement, a casually arched eyebrow suggesting continued wonder at the reaction. “I guess there was something in the air that night.” 

After all the bickering, claims, counter-claims and disappointments that Riverdance washed up in Flatley’s path, he was hoping that whatever was in the air would still be floating around Dublin’s Point Depot for the debut of Lord of the Dance. Written and choreographed by Flatley, and basically carried on the strength of his name, Lord of the Dance, according to pre-show publicity, takes Irish dance one step beyond the previous show with the form, adding something the show’s publicists have called “rock`n’roll production values.” But with opening night just over the horizon, Flatley was keeping details about Lord of the Dance strangely close to his chest. 

“I can’t give away the storyline but it is a new and more modern showcase,” is all he would reveal. “It’s very Irish and very Celtic, and unlike Riverdance, the entire show is Irish. There are no foreign elements, no outside dancers from Harlem or from anywhere else. Riverdance had Russians from Moscow and Maria Pages from Spain and tap dancers from different places, a Gospel choir from Atlanta, Georgia. Lord of the Dance is entirely Irish, however. All the dancers are from Ireland.” C’mon, Michael. Given the opportunity, most people blare the intimate details of upcoming shows from the highest ramparts. Why all the secrecy? 

“Well, I’d like it to be a bit of a surprise,” he says with a laugh. Then he opens the door a little more. A very little more. “It’s a very simple story of good versus evil. You get to see who wins in the end and who gets the girl — that kind of thing. It’s very simple, but I think it’s pretty entertaining. Naturally, I have hopes for it. I’m hoping for the best, as always, and I’ll settle for half that. As long as we show ourselves well and the show is strong and well rehearsed, I’ll be happy.” 

Obviously, Flatley is reluctant to give away too much about Lord of the Dance. He remains supremely polite, of course, but refuses to offer further details. Is he worried that the combination of the public’s continued appetite for all things Riverdance and the ongoing spat with Doherty and McColgan might overshadow Lord of the Dance? 

“I guess in a way there is more pressure because now I have total creative control,” he admits. “But at the same time, it’s more exciting because of that. I’m getting to try so many new things. There are so many different shades of dance that we see now, so that’s real exciting. Riverdance is a benchmark as I see it. It landed on its own and cut a groove so deep that it’ll be going for years and keep loads of people working. It’s my job to try and take dance another step while I can, and then let the young guys come along and take it from there. Lord of the Dance will be the next Irish dance show, and with any luck there’ll be a third and a fourth and a fifth by loads of different people. I think this will spur the imaginations of the younger minds, which is very important because at the end of the day it’s the young minds coming up that are going to bring us the new things.” 

Despite all the talk about younger minds, Flatley says he’s not thinking about retirement. He believes Irish dance is on the cusp of a huge breakthrough, beyond even what Riverdance has achieved, and wants to be still around when it happens. With such optimism, it’s no surprise he denies that new dance-based shows like Lord of the Dance will be seen merely as variations on a Riverdance theme. 

“I have no fear about that. Look at ballet and opera, or at the big shows like Cats or Phantom of the Opera,” he says rhetorically. “It’s a big world and the thing to do is to get as much exposure as possible for the art forms we have as Irish people. Every nationality in the world is represented in some way or other by their culture and their shows, and I don’t see us as being any different. But this is the type of thing that has to appeal to all people, not just to our own. So many people have enjoyed Riverdance by now though that there’s a genuine appetite for shows like Lord of the Dance. There’s something about seeing forty or fifty dancers — beautiful girls and fine young men — dancing exactly in time to the music with intricate footwork right on the beat of the music. That’s a very appealing sight.” 

Despite the objections of purists who claim the performers in Riverdance have lost sight of the original sources of their art and are hammering nails into the coffin of traditional dance with every arm movement and head flick, Flatley remains convinced not only of the essential Irishness of his dancing, but that his innovations are actually beneficial to the form. 

“We’re bringing a lot of focus to Irish dancing, and don’t forget, on top of that, a show like Lord of the Dance is also employing a significant number of Irish artists,” he says. “I can’t talk numbers, but this is a very big budget production, and that’s not a bad thing either.” 

But the impression is that Flatley is driven by something other than numbers and figures and budgets. Not his ego. Not a lust for power. It’s something else that’s driving him. 

“When I was growing up in Chicago,” he remembers, “there was a big Irish community, and when you’re going to school with all the different nationalities of the world and they’re all praising their own it’s nice to know that we have roots to fall back on and be proud of. I’m very proud of mine — you only have to look around you to see what Irishmen are accomplishing all over the world. I grew up very proud of that and I’m still very proud of that. I think Riverdance was a milestone, and I think Lord of the Dance will go along with that. It will be a shame if, a hundred years from now, people look back and ask `what was your tradition in 1996?’ and all we can say is `well, we just followed the one from a hundred years before us.’ We have to follow tradition but we have to add our own. It’s a responsibility — whether it’s good, bad or indifferent, we must always leave our mark. I always endeavor to do that, and to do it in my own particular way. We can maintain tradition — and I do respect that — but we must always leave our mark.” 

 

 

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the July/August 1996 issue of Irish America. ⬥