The Irish tap dance "Dance of kings" has set multiple performance records around the world: in Australia, it sold out 250,000 tickets in 10 days; at The Wembley Stadium for 60,000 people in London, it sold out 21 consecutive tickets; in Las Vegas, it was resident for 5 years and attracted more than 2 million spectators; at the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the founding of St. Petersburg, more than 500 national leaders, including Putin and Bush, were its guests...
Like "Dance of the Great River", "Dance of kings" was born in the hands of Michael Fraley, the "king of tap dance", after traveling to 60 countries and garnering 60 million fans, this phenomenon-level dance came to China and will be performed in Shanghai Culture Square for 6 consecutive performances in early May. Before taking the stage, Michael also flew to Shanghai to create momentum for the performance.
Stills from Dance of Kings
From the children of the poor to the king of tap dancers
Michael Flelli's parents moved to the United States from Ireland in 1947, and michael was born in Chicago in 1958 as a second-generation immigrant. Chicago at that time remains in people's memory of nothing but the roar of factory machines, chaos and turmoil.
In the 1960s, living in Chicago was a tough thing to do. Michael remembers that the racial conflict in the United States at that time was very intense, social unrest, and his parents were not wealthy. There are 5 children in the family to raise, and their biggest concern is how to survive and support all the children.
Michael's family lived in a racially mixed slum and made ends meet on their father's work in the construction industry. Still, the family still has an artistic atmosphere, the father can play Irish music, and both the mother and grandmother were winners of irish dance competitions.
As immigrants, my grandmother and parents wanted to perpetuate the roots of the Irish through the Irish National Dance, so despite the hardships of life, they decided to send Michael to dance school.
Interactive sessions
At first, Michael hated the decision. He was 11 years old and his family grabbed his ear and dragged him out of the football field to school. In fact, many people started to learn tap dance at the age of 3, Michael started late, but the talent is obvious, and after winning awards and recognition, he really fell in love with this dance.
After graduating from high school, Michael also needed to work on construction sites in order to make a living. At that time, he could not make a living by dancing, probably dancing at Carnegie Hall the day before, and the next day he would fly back to the construction site to continue digging the foundation, "When I was young, the most important thing I learned was to work hard, because my father believed that the only way to get ahead was to work hard, no matter how difficult the times were, and never give up." 」 ”
Every year, the Irish Department of Culture holds a national tap dance level exam and hosts various types of tap dance competitions. At the age of 17, Michael was given the opportunity to change his destiny for the first time, becoming the first foreigner of Irish descent to win the title of World Irish Dance Competition.
In the 1980s, Michael was invited to join the Irish Chiefs Band and began a professional dance career, however, he always dreamed of creating a dance masterpiece of his own.
This dream exploded in 1994. At the halftime performance of the Eurovision Song Contest this year, Michael choreographed and starred in a section of "The Dance of the River", and after the performance, the audience stood up and applauded them. The dance is only 7 minutes, just to fill the gap in the competition, but unexpectedly with the great power of mass communication, created a legend of overnight popularity, and spread the Irish tap dance together with the national culture of the whole Ireland to the whole of Europe and the world.
In 1995, the creative team of "River Dance" led by Michael hit the iron while it was hot and launched the entire tap dance variety show, followed by box office hits and performance contracts around the world. The dress of female dancers in short white dresses once became a popular costume for Irish girls, and to some extent, "The Dance of the Great River" has also become synonymous with irish national dance.
Michael became famous overnight, not only because of his skilled dance skills, but also because he brought refreshing innovations to this folk dance.
Tap dance has a history of thousands of years in Ireland, and one of its characteristics is that the arms are tightly fixed on the sides of the body. From a technical point of view, dancers prefer to concentrate on the skills of the legs and feet; from the religious history of Ireland, catholic Irish have opposed all intimate acts of men and women in public; during British rule, the Irish were once not allowed to dance national dances openly, so they invented this form of dance in which the upper body does not move, only hits the ground with their feet, and looking through the window, they cannot see that they are dancing.
"In order not to let tap dance be lost, many dancers wander between villages and markets, working as free dance teachers, dedicated to passing on this dance from generation to generation. In this way, the Irish danced tap dances through the great famine years, survived the baptism of the industrial revolution and fled to the New World. Tap dance dances a yearning for freedom and light, and is a weapon of the Irish against darkness. ”
But at one point, more and more young people stopped liking traditional tap dances and preferred more rhythmic dances, such as hip-hop. So Michael made a change to tap dancing — he freed the dancer's hands and arms, let the dancer's upper body move, the dance steps retained the tradition, but increased the speed, and at the same time added some new movements - tap dance became trendy, cooler.
See pain as a friend rather than an enemy
Just when "Dance of the Great River" is in full swing, Michael, as the soul of the character, chooses to leave and devote himself to the new production of "Dance of kings".
Michael explained that the reason for his departure was that the team did not have a consistent view of the future direction of River Dance, and that as a creator, he was always thinking of new dance steps, new ideas, and if he stayed in River Dance, he would not have had the opportunity to create new tap dances.
"Dance of Kings" tells the story of the battle between good and evil, a showdown between the legions of light and darkness, as for why it is named, it is because Michael likes the power conveyed in dance - when you encounter misfortune, you must fight bravely, and the last thing that awaits you will be success - this is Michael's life creed that he has insisted on for many years, not that you have fallen down a few times, the key is that you have climbed up a few times, which is also what "Dance of Kings" tries to show.
If you want to compare, Michael described "River Dance" more like a national documentary, beautiful, "King's Dance" is like a Hollywood blockbuster, fashionable, cool, thrilling, can let the audience in the theater immersive science fiction movie-like stage effect.
In his prime, Michael had a record of hitting the ground 35 times a second with his foot, so fast that it was difficult for the human eye to see, and had to be recorded with the help of a high-speed camera and a special, sensitive floor.
Michael Freil and Soybean exchange gifts. Courtesy of the organizer
35 times a second, how exactly can it be done? Michael describes his legs as "rubber bands", the result of years of intense and arduous training, "You have to train for more than 10 hours a day to make the leg muscles flexible and high-speed movements, if you must say a data, I think at least 500 pairs of dancing shoes." 」 ”
Speeding up is very slow, only from morning to night repeated practice, "at the beginning you may have to use 10 seconds, and then continue to compress this set of actions to 5 seconds, 4 seconds, 3 seconds, 2 seconds, 1 second, and repeat, with a high-speed camera to capture the fastest second, a second 35 times, this is my record." 」 ”
Nowadays, in the dance troupe, ordinary dancers can do 20 times a second, lead dancers can reach 30 times a second, and more importantly, Michael always requires their dance steps to be uniform and broken, and to achieve uniformity, Michael has also experienced arduous attempts.
"They insist on training every day, but it is difficult to achieve unity, and suddenly one day I came to the inspiration, turn off the lights in the rehearsal hall, let them close their eyes and listen to their own heartbeats, and then listen to the heartbeat of their companions, their attention is not focused on the dance posture, but on the footsteps, and then everyone dances together, slowly, the footsteps are more and more aligned, like a person dancing, no matter how many people join can do uniformity ..."
Almost all the dancers on stage have won international dance competitions, and the male dancers have abs and vest lines comparable to fitness instructors, and the beautiful flesh has a visual advantage in the first place.
In order to create a show that can quickly tease the audience's hormones, Michael admitted that he attaches great importance to body management, no matter which country he is touring, the dance company backstage will have 2 rooms, one is a physiotherapy room, one is a gym, dancers not only practice in the hotel gym, but also in the theater backstage also have to carry out 4-6 hours of special training, and then by professional physiotherapists to relax and treat muscles.
"The body is the weapon of expression of the dancers, and if we want to stay first, we can only sharpen the weapon sharper." In addition to high-intensity training, dancers also have to tour around in chariots and horses, and injuries are commonplace. Therefore, each character in the play has a choice, and after each performance, the doctors of the touring team will be busy helping them with deep physiotherapy and ice, and it is even normal to take painkillers, closes and even the norm.
As a member of the dancers, Michael is even more scarred, from the cervical spine to the thoracic spine, spine, ribs, leg bones, there is no place without tears or fractures, "I have long been sentenced to death by the doctors, they asserted that I should rest in the grave at the age of 50, at least paralyzed in bed and unable to take care of myself, of course, I am lucky to be alive, but the pain torments me all the time." 」 ”
As the highest-paid dancer in the Guinness Book of World Records to this day, Michael earns $1.6 million a week (about 10 million yuan) a week, and he can make so much money by dancing for just two hours a night, and in the eyes of many people, his life is too easy.
"They don't understand that these two hours took me a lifetime of time and effort." Michael said, "You have to see the pain as a friend and not an enemy, you have to face it." You have to realize that being alive is a kind of luck, dancing is a kind of luck, and hurt is a kind of luck, because it shows that I am dancing every night, so these things have a whole new meaning. ”