While her class-mates in St. Mary’s Secondary School in Nenagh, County Tipperary, are busy preparing for end-of-year exams in their last year before Leaving Certificate, 17-year-old Bernadette Flynn is savoring the sweet success of a dream come true as leading lady in the acclaimed show, Lord of the Dance. And Bernadette has absolutely no regrets about leaving her school life behind: “This is what I’ve always wanted, it’s a dream come true for any Irish dancer.”
Following runaway success with 13 sold-out performances in New York’s Radio City Music Hall, Bernadette’s dream came spectacularly true as she and her young castmates went on to wow an estimated worldwide audience of one billion viewers with fancy footwork during this year’s Academy Awards extravaganza in Los Angeles, hanging out backstage with Celine Dion and Madonna, and staying in the same hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Tom Cruise.
According to her sister in Ireland, however, Bernadette’s success hasn’t changed her approach to life in the slightest, an admirable fact given the young dancer’s meteoric rise to stardom and the showbiz lifestyle she and her fellow dancers have become accustomed to.
Eighteen-year-old Gillian Norris, from Kilmacthomas, County Waterford, who plays Bernadette’s on-stage rival, still has some trouble believing the incredible journey that has become her life for the past few months: “Being in New York was an absolute dream come true. I always wanted to go there, but I never imagined I’d get there so soon. My family saw me on stage when we performed in Dublin, and my mother came over to see opening night in Radio City Music Hall. They were delighted to see me up there.”
Gillian describes dancing with Michael Flatley as “the experience of a lifetime” and adds, “Michael has such charisma, and he’s tremendous to dance with.” Bernadette also has high praise for the Lord of the Dance: “Michael is an amazing dance partner and one of the best dancers ever to perform on stage. He is so natural and so in control, just incredible to watch.”
Flatley has certainly shown the detractors a thing or two. Those who said his departure from Riverdance was the beginning of the end for the 38-year-old Chicago native have been forced to eat their words. With pre-sold shows lined up throughout the U.S. and videos of the show selling at phenomenal speed, Lord of the Dance looks set to vindicate its creator with remarkable ease.
Flatley’s achievements in the world of dance are all the more impressive for someone who came to Irish dancing at the relatively late age of 11, unlike many of his teen castmates who have been dancing since they could walk.
His young co-stars are united in their praise of Irish dance, Flatleystyle, which has been described as what Irish dancing used to be like before the Catholic Church stepped in: “The music is so fast and wild and the dancing is so different to what I did in competitions. That was very automatic, but this is free and expressive. Every day you learn new things to do with your hands, and you just keep getting better and better,” says Gillian.
Bernadette, who has six world titles and seven All-Irelands under her dancing belt, agrees wholeheartedly: “This is taking Irish dancing to a whole other level, leaving behind the rigid `hands by the side’ concept.”
It wasn’t all so easy at the auditions for the show, however, and Gillian recalled the confusion of trained Irish dancers who were asked to abandon their rigid instruction and dance more freely. for the tryouts: “At the audition, we were told to dance eight bars and to move our hands any way we wanted to, instead of just holding them by our sides. Everybody’s reaction was a kind of puzzled `sorry?’ We just didn’t know what to do.”
Helen Eagan, also aged 17, has studied modern dance since the age of five, and was asked by her dance teacher to attend the auditions for the show. “I was very nervous before the audition,” says Helen, “not about the dancing itself, but about meeting Michael Flatley.” And is she more relaxed now? “When I go on stage now, it’s a feeling like no other feeling. I’m still nervous. I’m nervous every single night, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced.”
Does she miss her friends and family back in Dublin? “The first night in every hotel is the hardest. When you’re away, you make every hotel your home, just like Radio City is a home for us in New York Then you pack everything up and move on to another city. That’s when I feel homesick.”
The cast will have a chance to see friends and family in Ireland for a short break in mid-May, after which it’s on to Japan for a series of shows and then back to the U.S. for further performances.
And what’s the next step for the young stars? “It depends on how the show goes,” says Gillian, “but I think I’m going to be doing this for another while.” “I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to school,” admits Bernadette. “I don’t think I could leave this all behind and settle back into everyday life.” Helen says she probably won’t be able to go back to school either: “I suppose if I had to, I would, but I don’t want to,” she laughs.
And how many 17-year-olds would? Once you’ve dazzled audiences at theaters throughout the world, captivated Hollywood stars on Oscars night, and shared the stage with the King of Dance himself, it would be very hard to slip back into a school uniform and turn up for class.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the May/June 1997 of Irish America. ⬥
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