Riverdance 25th Anniversary Show

I was invited to a new show

at the Point Theater in Dublin.

And it turned out to be one of the most memorable nights

I've ever spent in a theater.

The force of the music, the primal power of the dancing,

the beautiful symmetry of so many bodies in motion.

I think anybody who was in the audience that night

realized that they were watching something

unique and original.

The show of course was Riverdance.

Well I suppose Riverdance the show

and then there was Riverdance at the Eurovision.

So 25 years ago we already had Riverdance

at the Eurovision

which happened in 1994 as a six minute,

40 second piece that surprised people.

Ladies and gentlemen, Riverdance.

The interval act in Eurovision

is normally something of cultural value from that country.

They're normally quite boring.

But when Riverdance came on the stage,

it was an electrifying moment.

The audience are on their feet.

And the audience as one jumped to their feet

and for like a sustained four or five minutes applause.

That in my experience of the business was unique.

At that moment I suppose we knew

that Irish dance was never going to be the same again.

And that maybe Irish culture

was never going to be the same again.

When we had the initial set of tidal wave response,

that was the time that we all thought, well,

Riverdance has really had an effect.

We have the number one record.

We should make a show.

Bill Whelan, John McGolgan and myself

put our heads together around the table.

And we really worked out what the shape, form, concept

of the tour piece was gonna be.

I think actually, you know

Maria will bring something to it

not only just with her talent of her dancing

but also just her personality.

She has that kind of warmth,

which you know in a company context is very important.

The theme was immigration

and the theme was multicultural

and the theme was changing, interchanging ideas

and being able to work with each other.

So all of the dancers didn't just sit

in their own saddle.

They interacted with each other

and the choregraphy was mixed up with each other.

One year later, we had a full show

in the same venue.

Please welcome Riverdance.

What we're doing is telling a lot of good will,

a lot of high energy

and we love what we're doing.

The best thing about our show is that

all of us would do it for nothing,

without any audience there.

And I think when you have a show like that,

it'll live for a while.

It exploded.

We just dragged on, held on by our knuckles

to the coattails of Riverdance

and traveled with it.

So straight from there we went to Hammersmith

which was a 6,000 seater in London

and we played Hammersmith for a record number of weeks.

Then we went off and started our American tours

in Radio City Music Hall

and we held the record there for the longest run

of any single show.

These dance forms were cultural dance forms

that were used to express through history

life and death and celebration, and challenge.

It's a river of emotions.

Pathos, sorrow, joy,

it brings us great joy.

It brings the audience great joy.

So bringing all of that into a Broadway stroke

mainstream entertainment stage

is I think what caused the real excitement.

This was the show that announced to the world

that Ireland was a cultural force

to be reckoned with in the popular sense.

It made Irish dancing sexy

and it made it cool.

Irish dance, or as they call it, the Riverdance,

is now recognized all over the world

as a genuine art form

and employs thousands of people.

I think we are so blessed,

25 years later to be able

to experiment with this and to produce this new show.

My hope and desire is now that with this new treatment,

the show will be reinvigorated,

attractive to people who have never seen it.

Younger people who weren't born when it started,

and even more attractive to people

who have seen it before,

they'll also be blown away.

So it's the next generation.

It's Riverdance, the next generation.

Out of the dark, we came.

Out of the night.

The first of many mornings in this new place.

When the sun rolled back the mist,

we rose like a strong wave on land.

Now we were the people of this place.

What burns through the rain and mist?

What banishes dark?

What makes the children straight and bright?

What makes the mountains sharp?

The sun is our lord and father.

Bright face at the gate of day.

Lifting our hearts we sing his praise,

dance in his healing rays.

Cú Chulainn is dead.

Our great Cú Chulainn.

He was the sun of morning.

He was a fire at night.

He was a powerful story.

He was lightning in forest.

A sudden storm, a short life.

Thunder and lightning batter the rocks.

The winds howl and great storms break on the forest.

Scatter the herds like grain.

Fire leaps from dark to dark,

fear and anger leap to meet it.

We will not go down.

We will not be beaten down like grain.