I Heart Michael Flatley?

Last Friday I willingly walked into a movie theater and experienced (in 3D) the phenomenon that is Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been a Riverdance fan for a long time now but, contrary to popular belief, this does not automatically make me a Lord of the Dance fan or a Michael Flatley fan.  I actually happen to have a Lord of the Dance coffee mug due to this popular belief.  A family friend found it in the trash somewhere (really, I'm not making this up) and thought, "Hey, isn't this that thing that Katie likes?"  It showed up at my house when I was in high school and I've been using it ever since- you know, ironically.

Anyway, Michael Flatley did choreograph most of the original Riverdance show as well as star in it; however, right around the time the show was gaining popularity here in the United States, he had already parted ways with Riverdance due to "creative differences"- I can only imagine what that means.  He went on to produce the outrageously showy Lord of the Dance (and later Feet of Flames and Celtic Tiger).  Before last week, I had never watched the show all the way through because I never felt the need to watch Mr. Flatley prance around wearing nothing from the waist up but a headband and body paint.  But when I saw the previews for Lord of the Dance 3D I didn't see any shots of a shirtless Flatley so I decided to make an artist date of going to see it (which means I went by myself) because I didn't see any point in dragging my husband along and buying him a ticket if he was just going to sit and roll his eyes the whole time- I did plenty of eye-rolling for both of us.



I've been trying to think of a way to describe what I saw through my 3D glasses and the best I can do is: "Riverdance collides with Las Vegas in a sparkling explosion of sequins and tap shoes resulting in a dance extravaganza of epic proportions.  Oh, and did I mention there was a suggested flying saucer, out of which the entire dance troupe exits wearing galactic Irish influenced fashions of the future?"

I will admit that I found Michael Flatley to be slightly more appealing than in the past.  I'm not exactly sure why.  Maybe it had something to do with his hair cut, or maybe I was just glad his shirt stayed on (even if at one point, it could barely be described as a shirt), or maybe he has just aged well like a fine wine or a big block of cheese.  Whatever the case, Flatley is above all a showman doing what he loves- putting himself at the center of attention and being worshiped for it.  I could go on and on about the outrageousness of this show but I feel like this review (which made me laugh out loud) pretty much sums it up.  This little snippet from an article by Kristen Page-Kirby, which can be found here, nailed it pretty well too:

So, there's this disco-jester-pixie thing who plays the hymn "The Lord of the Dance" on one of those Irish flutes. And Michael Flatley is the Lord of the Dance because he has a belt that says so. But there's this evil dancer guy, and he has minions, and there's a chaste dancer-lady in white and a sexy one in red, and they're around. Then the evil dancer breaks the flute, but Michael Flatley fixes it, but then the bad guy catches him and conveys that he is beating him up through the Power of Dance, but then the pixie saves him, but not before the bad guy takes MF's belt! But then Flatley comes back and takes the belt BACK and dances the bad guy down! And then everyone dances together.

Well, when you put it that way, what's not to like?!