Riverdance took its first steps as a contender during a seven-minute segment on Eurovision! Fast forward and the entity is celebrating and touring with Riverdance 25th Anniversary Show. It’s also performing for 25 million fans in the process, a double whammy of impressiveness. Here’s what our review has to say about the show running all-too-briefly, May 31-June 4, at the Buell Theatre in Denver.
For sheer entertainment power, it would be hard to beat Riverdance. On its 25 year anniversary tour, it offers something for everyone – not just lovers of Irish culture.
First, a critique.
A weak storyline weaves through Riverdance, loosely based on Irish history with plenty of Celtic culture symbolism. A disembodied voice offers sporadic narration, supplemented by ethereal vocal work that is beautiful to hear. However, both are difficult to understand. For attendees who want a strong plot or storyline to follow, this would be frustrating. By intermission I gave up on trying to figure things out and chose to just enjoy the spectacle of a show offering ridiculously talented dancers from various genres. Tip: After the show, I discovered the Riverdance website provides the show’s storyline – if you really want to understand the intention of each scene, it is worth a peek before you go.
Enough nitpicking, let’s move on to some show highlights:
(Note – lead Irish dancers may rotate. The following were leads on Opening Night at the Buell, 5/31/23.)
Fergus Fitzpatrick, lead male dancer, has the swagger to command the stage and the gravitas to center the troupe for the large-scale numbers. His athleticism is remarkable, and he doesn’t break a sweat even when his feet are a blur of syncopated motion. Truly a King of Dance!
Amy Mae Dolan, lead female dancer, effortlessly flies across the stage in both hard shoe and soft shoe routines. She teases and taunts the audience with her flips of her curly locks, and wry smile – then transforms into a powerful Queen of Dance, matching the male lead step-for-step.
Rocio Dusmet, flamenco dancer, mesmerizes the audience as she writhes between a graceful swan taking flight and a crouching panther poised to strike. Her whole body artistry is fearless and explosive.
Unlike West Side Story, a dance-off between the American mean-street tappers and Irish immigrant lads is good-natured fun that ends in friendship and mutual admiration. If only all our social conflicts could be so easily resolved… The tap duo Lamont Brown and Dharmesh Patel work the crowd into a fury and feed off it with their bravado and dance physicality. Absolutely fantastic. Both performances demonstrate the commonalities between their styles of dance and Celtic dance, which is very interesting to see and realize.
The Riverdance Russian Folk Dance Troupe (yes, not sure what they have to do with Irish culture) is terrific and adds whole-body physicality to the show through their “dervish” – and offers an important reminder to an American audience that Russian culture is more than Putin’s bombs.
A trio of musicians (Cathal Croke on Uilleann pipes and whistles, Haley Richardson on fiddle, Hannah Riches on saxophone) are on stage most of the time, adding a touch of trad (Irish traditional music) to a craic (fun gathering) in your local pub. They each take turns between dance sets to entertain and mellow out the furious pace of the dancing – as much for the audience’s benefit as the dancers who probably need a break to catch their breath! When Mark Alfred takes center stage, the percussionist thrills with his playing of the traditional Irish Bodhran drum, mirroring the stepdancers’ flashing footwork, beat for beat.
By show’s end, the enormous troupe of dancers and musicians is on stage, the audience is on its feet, and everyone is cheering and clapping and smiling. Happy and joyful-something we all need more of.
After 25 years, Riverdance still delivers a powerful punch of fun and sheer happiness.
-Commentary by Jimmy McDonough
Riverdance plays the Buell Theatre at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts through June 4, 2023. Learn more and purchase tickets here.
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