Ever since I saw this show — oh, maybe ten years ago — I’ve been wanting to see it again. I put it on my Day Zero list as a promise to myself that I would go if I could, but with no real expectations of fulfilling this if the stars did not align.
Enter my parents, who are absolute gems and who took me to see Riverdance when they were conducting their farewell tour last Sunday!
The show was everything I remembered and hoped it would be. It had a good mix of dance, song, and instrumentals, with plenty of Irish stepdancing — the main hook of the show — as well as some brilliant tap and some really lovely flamenco. The music alternated between being hauntingly beautiful and thoroughly vivacious. My favourite part remains the bit where the Irish dancers, having travelled across the Atlantic to reach the United States, meet African-American tap dancers and have a sort of dance-off that ends up becoming a trade of dance traditions.
See for yourself:
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMD_f02gelM]
Of course, the one I saw was a little different, having different dancers — there was moonwalking! — and the music was also somewhat changed, but you get the point.
