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Edited and Published by Robert W. McDowell
March 2, 2023 Issue |
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A FREE Weekly E-mail Newsletter Covering Theater, Dance, Music, and Film in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill/Carrboro Area of North Carolina Since April 2001. |
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PART 4A: TRIANGLE THEATER REVIEW BY JOEL HAAS |
The Riverdance Dancers Perform with Breathtaking
Precision, Energy, and Charisma -- at a Gallop!
The Durham Performing Arts Center will present Riverdance on Feb. 24-26 (photo by Jack Hartin)Since 1995, the Riverdance company has developed a show that audiences universally love and enjoy. Go see it today and tomorrow at the Durham Performing Arts Center!
You may be familiar with Riverdance* through TV broadcasts, but there is nothing like seeing its 25th-anniversary production live. The program reaches beyond traditional Irish tunes and dances to include Spanish flamenco, tap dancing, and Balkan folk dances -- all with a Celtic flavor, of course.
Dancers don't constitute the entire program. The musicians have their own performances between the dance numbers. A glance at the program reveals the musicians -- a fiddler, a drummer, a soprano sax, and an uilleann pipes player -- are every bit as top notch as the lead dancers.
Americans may not be more familiar with the uilleann bagpipes. Unlike the more familiar Scottish ones, uilleann pipes are strapped to the musician and played with the musician sitting down. Rather than the musician, a small bellows under one arm pumps air into the sack. This writer once heard an uilleann pipes player comment, "It is the safest instrument in the world to play -- it has a seat belt and an air bag."
"Firedance" is the fiery flamenco segment of Riverdance at the Durham Performing Arts Center (photo by Jack Hartin)The Irish fiddle is energetic, and the percussionist turns the hand drum (called a bodhrán) into an entire symphony.
The dancers move with breathtaking precision, energy, and charisma at a pace that probably keeps the backstage costumers, lighting and sound engineers, and stage manager almost as breathless as the dancers themselves. I wonder if the group has a professional cobbler, given the number of ballet slippers and tap shoes used.
The set is simple -- it has to be to accommodate the number of dancers. Impressive landscapes, animations, and crossfades projected onto a stage wide scrim provide effective backgrounds.
It is impossible to watch Riverdance without tapping your toes or clapping. As the show ends, you may leave feeling tired from just watching all the energy and wondering if maybe when you were 20 you would have been up there dancing....
"Countess Cathleen" is a highlight of DPAC's Feb. 24-26 presentation of Riverdance (photo by Jack Hartin)A large number of the cast are Irish, but the flamenco dancer is from Madrid and most of the Balkan dancers are from Moldova. Impressively, when not dancing, many of the performers hold degrees, such as civil engineering, architecture, nursing, and mathematics. Click here to read the U.S. Tour cast's bios.
Snippets of videos of past performances can be viewed here.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic forced Abhann Productions Ltd. to postpone the start of the show's 25th-anniversary North American tour from 2020 until March 4, 2022.
Riverdance dancers "Reel Round the Sun" in this eyecatching production number (photo by Jack Hartin)RIVERDANCE (In Person at 8 p.m. Saturday and 1 and 7 Sunday, Feb. 25th and 26th), presented as part of WRAL Greatest Hits of Broadway at DPAC (Durham Performing Arts Center in Durham). TRAILER/VIDEOS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5geKLSLN0w and https://www.youtube.com/riverdance. WRAL GREATEST HITS OF BROADWAY AT DPAC: https://www.dpacnc.com/events/category/broadway. THE PRESENTER/VENUE: https://www.dpacnc.com/, https://www.facebook.com/DPACNC, https://www.instagram.com/DPACNC/, https://twitter.com/DPAC, and https://www.youtube.com/user/DPACLive. DIRECTIONS: https://www.dpacnc.com/plan-your-visit/directions. PARKING: https://www.dpacnc.com/plan-your-visit/parking. DPAC COVID-19 REQUIREMENTS: https://www.dpacnc.com/events/vaccination-and-covid-19-test-requirements. THE TOUR: https://riverdance.com/, https://www.facebook.com/Riverdance, https://www.instagram.com/riverdance/, https://twitter.com/riverdance, and https://www.youtube.com/riverdance. TICKETS: $29.50 and up, plus taxes and ticket fees. Click here to buy tickets. INFORMATION: 919-680-2787 or CustomerService@DPACnc.com. Susie Potter's Triangle Arts Review Review.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Joel Haas first acted in Raleigh Little Theatre's 1968 production of What Price Glory. Then in 1973 he was in several Theatre in the Park productions, including Cyrano, in which he played Le Bret. It wasn't until 1990 that he appeared on stage again, this time as a homeless veteran named Lou in The Speed of Darkness. Haas' mother, Douglas Haas Bennett (1927-2018), was a professional theater costumer, the first full-time costumer that RLT hired. She later founded her own theater supply company, Raleigh Creative Costumes, in 1975. Between 1981 and 2021, Joel Haas worked as a freelance steel and general materials sculptor in the Triangle. Since 2020, he has been writing magazine articles and a blog called Our War with Paraguay and How to Sit in a Hoopskirt: The U.S. Between 1848 and 1868 as Told by the Newspapers of the Time. (And, yes, the United States almost went to war with Paraguay in 1858.) Click here to read Joel Haas' reviews for Triangle Review. |
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