Riverdance

April 15 to 20

Pittsburgh Symphony Heinz Hall

Student Rush tickets… Riverdance

April 15 to 20

Pittsburgh Symphony Heinz Hall

Student Rush tickets Tuesday and Wednesday are $26.50 with valid student ID

This is no ordinary jig, but a dance that has sprung (literally) from Irish cultural roots, to the Dublin stage in 1995 and then made a worldwide tour, sparking foreign interest in Irish dance.

This is Riverdance, rooted in Irish heritage and cultural ethnicity and molded to fulfill national and international expectations of performance and pride. The dance has a format of group clusters, togetherness and a sense of belonging while the music, and the movements are lively, energetic, rhythmic and majestic.

Riverdance celebrates music, song and dance with emphasis on the Irish culture, which has influenced other forms of dance and given a taste of Ireland to other cultures. Originally, this performance was conceived as a fantastic seven-minute intermission for the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest televised throughout Europe to an audience of 300 million viewers. Since then, producer Moya Doherty, composer Bill Whelan and director John McColgan have expanded the seven-minute piece into a full-length stage production that has attracted 15 million live viewers and has sold more than 6.5 million video versions of the show.

Riverdance’s Whelan won the 1997 Grammy for the Best Musical Show Album for original music and lyrics. He said, “There are two particular problems for the composer writing music in the idiom of any given folk or ethnic function – one is social and the other is technical.” Somehow, he overcame those obstacles and won best of show.

Whelan continued his ideas on composing music and adds that there is deep-rooted tradition music holds in Ireland. For the Irish, the folk music has a distinct link to the past while the music, the song and the feel of the music continues to flow through peoples veins. It is, therefore, utterly impossible for any viewer to not feel what is felt by the Irish – the music in Riverdance portrays the joy and sorrow that can be heard through the piper’s calling, the symphonic tones and the whistling musicians.

The key, according to the creators of Riverdance, is to bring a talented showcase of dancers to the forefront, to fill the auditorium with lively music, to bring the stage thunderously to life night after night. Also, the creators never want to break away from tradition and fall into the trap of new fusions and adaptations – they believe what if they stick with their framework, new will submerge, modernity and invention will evolve within their work and the performance will be as strong as it was the first day in Dublin.

So far, the creators have followed their mission and their dreams have come true. As for Riverdance itself, it has been a contagious spark, magnifying the inner pride that brings Irish dance and music to countries and peoples near and far.