Expo 2020 Dubai: Irish sensation Riverdance to make its World Expo debut

Transcript

00:00The Riverdance started back in 1994 as the interval act for the Eurovision Song Contest.

00:13At that time, Moya Daugherty, our producer and our great, incredible female leader that

00:19she is, along with her husband John McColgan and our composer Bill Whelan, they were the

00:24ones who effectively brought what was a seven-minute interval act to the full-scale production

00:29that we know as Riverdance today.

00:31It has toured the world for the last 26, 27 years now, and it has had global fame.

00:39No matter where we go around the world, there seems to be a connection between Riverdance,

00:43its music and its performers with whatever territory we might be in.

00:48And we think that that is what is so unique and so special, and the reason why this global

00:52phenomenon continues to tour the world.

00:55For the first time in our history, we are now including Middle Eastern performers in

01:00this show.

01:01So we have terrific musicians that are going to join this show playing instruments unique

01:06to this area.

01:08So that's going to completely transform how we hear Riverdance, and Bill Whelan, who is

01:12our Grammy Award-winning composer, he's not only excited by that, he's interested to help

01:17the music evolve even more, if that's even possible, because it is a Grammy Award-winning,

01:23timeless piece of music, yet we still have people in the organization who are open to

01:28thinking differently about how we can present it.

01:31So that's one area as to how Riverdance will be different.

01:34There's no intermission in this show.

01:36It's 90 minutes solid straight through, so for the performers, that is an extraordinary

01:40challenge that they are looking forward to being able to do.

01:44So this is a version of the show that we have never done before.

01:47One of the driving forces behind this collaboration between Ireland and the UAE has been her

01:52Excellency Reem El Hashimi, and it was mainly along with her vision and her perseverance

01:59and drive, she wanted to be able to ensure that we could share our culture and that we

02:04could learn from other cultures, and that's where the masterclasses would have come from.

02:08We've done them in other countries, but never here, and it became a pivotal part in having

02:12Riverdance at Expo.

02:14So we're excited to have around 45, somewhere between 45 and 50 masterclasses across the

02:19various different district stages and in Dubai, where we are going to teach people

02:24to dance.

02:25Visitors can catch it on the Jubilee Park stage from November 3rd to November 27th,

02:31and you can find all the information on expo.com.