Riverdance: The New Show

The New Show is just about half as impressive as Michael Flatley's Feet of Flames. Angles and perspectives of the camera were almost annoying at times and the show itself lacked the spark of adventure and mystique I saw in Feet of Flames, Possibly because this seems to be set up in NY and not in forests of England? :) The set and special effects could have been better too. However the music and dance lived up to expectations, though it lacked the master himself. This isn't a must have for every Riverdance fans, but still fun to watch it for the music once or twice.

This is a "revised" Riverdance presentation, staged at Radio City Music hall in New York City. Of the three Irish "dance" musicals that I watched during the mid to late '90s (which includes the first "Riverdance" and "Lord of the Dance") I liked this one the best.

I thought it was better than the original, held in Dublin, Ireland, because it adds segments that are mostly good, it has a more varied and colorful stage setting and it eliminated apiece for two from that original that wasn't good to begin with. This is just a very solid show with few weak spots. To be certain, there are some songs/dances that are just "fair" but none that are poor, which is amazing considering there are 20 numbers in all.

The cast is similar to the first Riverdance with the main exception of Colin Dunne replacing Michael Flatley as the featured dancer. Both are extremely talented. The major difference might be in their looks with Dunne a little, goateed black-haired guy while Flatley is the clean-shaven blond. I prefer Dunne because Flatley's ego is so big he gets annoying at times. The female lead, Jean Butler, thankfully, is still there and is great to watch: what graceful beauty and talent! Butler and the rest of these women have the greatest legs I've seen on dancers. I also enjoyed the dancing of Maria Pages, a Spanish flamenco performer, and two guys: Daniel B. Wooten and Ivan Thomas. One number - with those two pairing off against Dunne and two other dancers -0 is called "Trading Taps" and is terrific fun to watch, maybe the highlight of the whole show. I have no complaints about violinist Eileen Ivers, either.

The "fast" Irish songs here appealed to me the most. I appreciated the audience not getting in the way of the performance either with shrieks and screams like the women do in the "Lord Of The Dance" video.

This production must have been edited by some psychotic MTV speed freak. I don't think there was a single stretch of film that lasted more than 15 seconds long before an editing cut was made, which completely destroyed the flow of the dance. RIVERDANCE was a wonderful show, but this tape was a butcher job. See the original 1995 video, with Michael Flatley as the primary dancer, and get an idea of what it was really like.

The dancing is amazing, the sets are beautiful and the music very good. Unhappily the editor chose to limit cuts to a few seconds, so that just as interest was aroused the image shifted off to a view of the auditorium or some other distraction. The musical continuity is perfect, but the visual continuity is sometimes puzzling. This may be a necessity in this live recording in Radio City Music Hall (perhaps this is a composite of several performances), but the choppy cutting is not.

Well, after seeing Feet of Flames, this was a VERY very big disappointment. For all those who didnt, then go ahead, its worth it. But if you can, please so what you can to get FoF. Its far superior to this Riverdance. I saw it for the first time 1 year ago and normally, i re-view it every month maximum. sometimes, every week. This Riverdance lacks some of the features seen in FoF. And they're SO much comparable, that one cannot escape from the fact that it is... inferior in a whole variety of ways.