Irish step dancing in Strip showrooms, Las Vegas Sun, June 30, 1998

No Mean Feet Lisa Ferguson Tuesday, June 30, 1998 | 10:40 a.m. You can almost hear the tap, tap, tapping echo from one end of Las Vegas Boulevard to the other. To the south, the roar of shuffling feet is caused by "Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance," a production show featuring the Irish dance phenomenon that has taken the world by storm with its incomprehensibly fast-paced stepping. It settles into its new permanent home Wednesday at New York-New York hotel-casino. From the north, the ruckus will come later this week courtesy of "Tap Dogs," the Australian-born, award-winning production featuring a cast of tap-dancing, construction worker hunks, which kicks off an indefinite run at the Stratosphere hotel-casino on Friday. Let the fancy footwork begin. But is it just a coincidence that two wildly popular dance shows -- both of which have been staged in Las Vegas before ("Lord of the Dance" over last year's July 4 weekend and "Tap Dogs" last April) and have packed venues around the globe -- are scheduled to open here within days of each other? To hear representatives from both Strip properties and both productions talk, it sure seems that way. Still, the threat of competition doesn't have anyone from either camp shaking in their dance shoes. "I think they're both going to do exceedingly well," Tom Willer, Stratosphere's vice president of marketing, says. He attended "Lord of the Dance's" performances here last year. "But they're very different shows." Marty Moore, New York-New York's vice president of marketing, agrees: "I think they're going to do very well down there (at the Stratosphere) and I think we're going to do exceedingly well here." According to Willer and Moore, only the circumstances which brought the shows to either hotel were similar: After mulling over a number of high-profile productions, they say, a decision was made. "Tap Dogs" follows six well-physiqued, blue-collar workmen types as they tap against an industrial backdrop (heavy on the metal pipes) to a high-energy contemporary soundtrack. It replaces hypnotist Marshall Sylver as the headliner in Stratosphere's 300-seat Images Cabaret. "We were really impressed with the success of 'Tap Dogs' as a touring production ... and felt that in our venue it would do quite well," Willer says. "It features an aggressive style of tap dancing which, if you look at the whole genre of tap dancing -- 'Lord of the Dance,' 'Riverdance' (which formerly starred Flatley) and, of course, 'Tap Dogs' -- there's a tremendous amount of excitement and public appeal in that form of entertainment at this time." And it's perfect for the venue, since "Tap Dogs" premiered in 1995 in an Australian cabaret, according to the show's co-producer/presenter, Keith Stava. And in this corner ... "Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance" was created by -- and for -- Flatley in 1996, following his departure as the star of the similarly-styled (and even more popular) Irish dance spectacular, "Riverdance." It takes the New York-New York stage previously inhabited by the now-defunct street performance production show, "MADhattan," which closed in May. With its storyline of good versus evil, "Lord of the Dance" features 40 male and female dancers -- but not mega-star Flatley, who is preparing to film a movie and will continue to perform in Europe with another of the show's tour troupes until his retirement later this year. They tap their feet at breakneck speeds in updated versions of traditional Irish dances. Following "MADhattan's" departure, Moore says the hotel sought an "upbeat" show. "We started looking around and 'Lord of the Dance' is one of the most world renowned shows that we could find. It's got a great track record; it sells out everywhere it plays. "It's just a great combination of traditional Irish dance and ... it's just something that appeals to people." Barry Thornhill, production manager for "Lord of the Dance," explains that a third troupe of mostly understudies was assembled for the Las Vegas run. Flatley's role has been filled by 21-year-old Conner Smith, a business major at the London School of Economics, who has understudied Flatley for nearly two years. Rest assured, Thornhill says, that these dancers will actually be dancing: Recent reports from London revealed that the tapping of previous "Riverdance" casts was pre-recorded to intensify its thunderous sound. "They are tapping live," he assures, explaining that "Lord of the Dance" features only musical recordings. One in the same? Lewis Segal, dance critic for the Los Angeles Times, has reviewed touring productions of both "Tap Dogs" and "Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance" in Southern California. He contends that while they appear diverse on the surface, the shows are really very similar. "Both shows are about percussion; both shows are about hard-driving energy; both shows are about a new kind of man on stage -- not your elegant ballet (dancer) or Fred Astaire in a top hat and tails," Segal says. "They're about these rough, hard-driving, shirts-off kind of men." It's a trend he's noticed with other successful dance shows of late, including "Stomp" (which is scheduled for a second round of performances at the MGM Grand in September following dates there last July), and the Broadway hit "Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk." "These shows, although they had different subjects and used different styles of dancing, they were getting at the same kinds of things, kind of re-hooking the audience with percussion," Segal says. Stava disagrees. "Tap Dogs," he says, is "not really like 'Stomp' ... where people create interesting percussive noises with brooms and cans and things like that. 'Tap Dogs' ... it's the rhythms that the guys are creating." In any case, Segal says, "they were all very amplified, they were all kind of high-energy, they all use some kind of MTV attacks and they were all immensely successful. They get dance audiences; they get theater audiences." And Stavo says that "Tap Dogs" and "Lord of the Dance" will share the same audiences. "In fact, if anything, the shows kind of complement each other," he says. "It's a transition of our society's appreciation for dance as an entertainment value." Segal, however, is concerned that with Flatley's name attached to the title, "Lord of the Dance" show-goers will be confused -- maybe even disappointed -- that the star is not part of the production. "It would be like a Michael Jackson video with somebody replacing Michael Jackson. "'Lord of the Dance is a spectacle made for one star, by that star for himself," he explains. "Are people going to come and think they are going to see Michael Flatley and feel cheated?" "Tap Dogs," on the other hand, is a "concept show, and so the show is the star," he explains. "It could change from week to week and nobody would know." Name values aside, if it's the dancing that audiences are most concerned about, neither show will disappoint. archive