Flatley The Re-inventor
Papers over the weekend carried reports that Michael Flatley, a man I don’t like to ignore for too long, has won a court ruling that allows him to sue a woman who claimed what he did to her wasn’t consensual. Well, what he did to me wasn’t consensual.
A few doors down from home, in Dublin, I was babysitting. There was lemonade, biscuits, and tea. The kids were in bed. I had the telly all to myself. And the Eurovision was on. This was going to be an easy four quid.
Even the youngest of the three who only slept with a strange orange light in the room, was actually sleeping instead of doing that Exorcist thing she normally did, with demonic screams and spinning head. Oh she does that every night, pay no attention to her, her parents explained after the first time.
In those few minutes of the half-time break, I remember liking Anuna singing. Flowing robes, choral singing, trees and mist - the ideal Celtic dirty weekend. I didn’t know that Ireland thereafter would pump out dry ice all over the West of the country to boost tourism. And then came the dancers.
Now this article on Flatley finishes with the usual stuff, that Flatley “is credited with reinventing traditional Irish dancing in the mid 1990s and making it popular around the world”. Credited by whom?
When I watched Riverdance live on Irish television, all those years before we would be the richest people in the world and the most miserable, I watched people doing Irish dancing. It looked like Irish dancing. I’d seen a lot of Irish dancing. I hadn’t been to one céilí I’d been to hundreds. I danced. I had friends in competitions. Other friends played the accordion for dancing. My cousins had all-Ireland dancing medals. And now I’m told what I watched was a reinvention.
What was different? Black clothes was probably different - but I was going through my own black phase so didn’t really notice. A great big long line of dancers was different, but only to watch - previously when I’d seen a big long line of dancers, I was one of them. There was that one step that, done by a line of three hundred and sixty-two female dancers in synchronization, made me go all funny inside - like looking down over the edge of the Cliffs of Moher - but that might have been just me.
Oh yeah, and one other thing. There was this blonde fella up the front throwing his arms all over the place and beaming constantly with a smile - from his nose to his chest. Like he actually won the Eurovision, instead of being the half-time entertainment. In 1994 Irish people didn’t smile for prolonged periods.
While the seven minutes of Riverdance caused a national stir, in the days that followed I don’t remember anybody liking Flatley’s performance. Young women would say, Did ya see yer man with the shirt? Yeah, he was blocking my view of those other dancers I wanted to watch, a habit he never lost. Old women would say, I don’t like him, as if he’d shoved a stink bomb through their letter box.
Maybe Riverdance and whatever role Flatley played in its dancing and choreography did popularize Irish Dancing with those it wasn’t popular with all over the world and in Ireland itself, but it wasn’t reinvention. Mini-skirts and hose is not reinvention. Or else I’m spending way too much time re-inventing all kinds of things in my head. And arms had been moving in informal dances for yonks.
For those who saw something new, it simply meant you hadn’t seen Irish dancing for a long time, if at all - so rather than the show’s creators, the credit for popularizing it should go to the RTE producers of Eurovision who gave it the exposure.
Related Entries (honestly):
• Flatley Troubles Troubles
• Ireland Progress in Eurovision (Belgium Don’t)
• Irish Choral Music & Celtic Underpants
• Scottish-based Irish Dancer Faster than God
• Lord of the Dance Insults Eileen Ivers
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