INTERVIEW: ‘Riverdance’ will celebrate Irish culture at Radio City Music Hall
Photo: Riverdance will play Radio City Music Hall, March 28-30. Photo courtesy of Riverdance / Provided by Polk & Co. with permission.
Riverdance, the Irish dancing phenomenon, is currently celebrating 30 years of choreographic excellence on a tour of the United States. One of their most anticipated engagements will come March 28-30 when they take over Radio City Music Hall in Midtown Manhattan for five performances. Audiences will have the chance to experience the new show, called Riverdance 30: The New Generation.
Many of the dancers on the stage this year were not even born when Riverdance first began in 1994. In fact, in their younger years, they looked up to the legends who graced the stage and exported this slice of Irish culture around the world, and now they are the “new generation” who is carrying on the torch of Irish dancing.
One of those performers is Amy-Mae Dolan, a principal dancer for the company. She recently talked with Hollywood Soapbox after a busy few weeks on the road. Although Dolan has performed in many theaters around the world for Riverdance, she has a special eagerness to dance at Radio City Music Hall, one of the most hallowed grounds in the dance world.
“It’s undeniable,” Dolan said of the Radio City engagement. “It’s going to be some of the biggest shows of the entire cast’s lives. As a performer, you just hope that some day you get to perform in Radio City Music Hall, so I can’t believe we’re seven days away now. It’s incredible.”
Here’s how Dolan described what audiences will see in New York City in a few short days: “This is Riverdance 30: The New Generation, and this cast grew up watching Riverdance and just dreaming of being in the show some day. So I think they have literally watched it almost every single day, trying to be good enough to be part of the show, so the energy that brings into the show, it just brings it to a whole new level. Everybody really wants to be here, wants to push boundaries and be the best dancers in the world. We have new costumes in the show, and the video wall is absolutely sensational. And it was upgraded. We re-recorded our Grammy Award-winning music a few years ago, so that’s another special touch of the show. It’s the Riverdance that everyone knows and loves, but it’s even better.”
Dolan said she was born in 1997, three years after Riverdance first premiered. She had three videotapes in her house. One had episodes of Barney, and another one was her mother and father’s wedding video. The third one was Riverdance, and she gravitated to this tape over and over again.
“So it’s just a complete honor to be part of the show,” said Dolan, who hails from County Tyrone and danced for the Carson Kennedy Academy in Belfast, Northern Ireland. “I love it so much. I’m so passionate about it, and that’s a shared feeling amongst the entire cast. I don’t know if there’s a show in the world that the performers are this connected, the way we are to Riverdance.”
There are many challenges when performing in an expansive tour for Riverdance. For starters, there are the physical demands of dancing so many times per week, but for Dolan, the real difficulty is being away from home and not seeing family on a daily basis.
“I would say the toughest part of being on tour is definitely being away from home,” she said. “Sometimes you can be carrying a little injury or sickness. The schedule is really tough. We dance eight shows a week, and we have Mondays off. But we’re usually traveling, so although we have that quite tough schedule, we are looked after really well. We have physio-massage therapists, and we all do whatever it takes to make our body feel good. And that’s just a huge part of being an athlete and the performers that we are. I also think that we are just living our dream. We are out there having the best time of our lives, so no matter what, no matter how you’re feeling, once you hear the music, you’re just so excited to be on stage. It’s hard not to give your best self every single night, so I think we are fueled by adrenaline, passion and just our audiences.”
Irish dancing is a unique style that relies on coordinated steps, high kicks and perfect posture. These techniques can cause pain in the legs, so Dolan needs to be mindful of injuries and muscle pain.
“It definitely 100 percent hurts,” said Dolan, a past winner of the World Irish Dance Championships. “At the end of the show, your legs are throbbing, your ankles, your knees. I would say this dance style in particular is really demanding because it’s very, very unique, and we’re hitting the floor as hard as we can. We’re jumping as high as we can, but we have to maintain that really good posture. So I think that our bodies go through a lot, and every single night, you don’t notice it on stage. And then you come off, and you’re like, ‘Whoa, I’m really sore.’ You get into the ice, and you stretch. And you drink enough water, and you take the protein. And you’re looking after yourself so that you don’t feel bad the next day.”
If prospective theatergoers buy a ticket for the RIverdance engagement at Radio City Music Hall, they will see Dolan in the cast. However, her role as principal dancer sometimes changes; this is meant to keep the performance fresh and ensure minimal chance at injuries.
“So I am one of the principal dancers in Riverdance, and when I’m not performing the principal role, I’m also a troupe member,” she said. “So we rotate the principal role so that it stays really fresh because it is very demanding. … One of my first numbers is called ‘The Countess Cathleen,’ and it’s a number of true female empowerment. It shows the female troupe, and they’re dancing in a forest. They’re really beautiful. The queen, the Countess Cathleen, appears, and then all of a sudden she’s attacked by these dark forces. And she fights them off, and she wins. So right from the very beginning, the female principal role is painted as this really strong, fierce, independent, elegant, soft woman.”
Dolan, who has been with Riverdance since 2016, is also included in the Act-I finale, simply called “Riverdance.” This iconic number is like a greatest hit for the dance company and usually has the audience clapping, cheering and standing.
“We sometimes see a few tears in people’s eyes, and often we’ll have a standing ovation at the end of the first half,” Dolan said. “And then the second half, we kind of tell the story of people leaving Ireland in search for a new, better life, and they go to America. And the male principal meets the American tap dancers, and they learn from each other. This is often everyone’s favorite number because the audience is interacting, and they’re laughing. You can really, really hear them roaring and laughing from backstage, and then it ends showing this new generation coming back to Ireland [with] what they’ve learned. They’re new. They’re more modern. They’re having fun. They’re having a huge party at the end, and the audience is, every single night, on their feet. We always have a standing ovation, and I think that’s just a credit to how incredible the show is.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Riverdance 30: The New Generation, featuring principal dancer Amy-Mae Dolan, will play Radio City Music Hall in Midtown Manhattan, March 28-30. Click here for more information and tickets.
