I'm not one for dancing. I certainly don't like doing it, and I'm not terribly bothered about watching it. Which is not to say I'm completely ignorant about it - I've been to ballets, I admire Astaire and Kelly, I recognise that Michael Jackson in his heyday pushed the boundaries of dance, I even watched the couple of 3D streetdance movies in 2010 and quite enjoyed them (I admired the athleticism, at the very least).
I have always tended to refer to the Riverdance/Flatley stuff as broken-arm diddley-dee dancing (hopefully I don't have to explain what I mean by that).
The ould folks (no, they're not Irish, they're just old)(by which I mean they are in their 80s) wanted to see this, and I'm always up for a bit of 3D, so off we went.
There's this woman in a jester's costume who plays the penny whistle, and I think she's the Spirit of Dance or something. Then there is the Dark General of Dance and his Dance Stormtroopers in black leather and buckles. Then there are the goodies, led by Michael Flatley. And there's some sort of dispute over a belt which has Lord Of The Dance written on it. There's a couple of women who play fiddles from time to time, and a blonde lady who does very high kicks, and at one point all the girls whip their dresses off (I quite liked that bit), and all the girls seem to have extraordinarily long legs.
I'm being a bit unfair - I'm playing it for laughs, and it doesn't deserve that.
Flatley deserves kudos not only for his incredible dancing skills (and sheer stage flash), but also for being the driving force behind putting together this unique spectacle - for a spectacle is exactly what it is - and, in so doing (also with Riverdance before it) having the imagination to fuse traditional Irish dancing with tap, jazz dancing, flamenco and modern dance within a framework to create a unique stage ensemble presentation: a dance genre which didn't really exist before. It is a remarkable achievement.
As I said, I'm not a dance fan, but I have never ever seen 90 minutes of ensemble dancing where every foot movement - and, often, there are several foot movements every second - is exactly simultaneously carried out by every member of the ensemble. The precision is quite extraordinary.
The 3D in this film doesn't make the show any better than it is, but it does give you an idea of the scale of it: it places you at many locations in the huge Dublin O2 auditorium so that you see the show intimately - closeups of footwork - from views which let you appreciate the patterns of movement, from the rafters: you get the best seat in the house, all the time.
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