Michael Flatley's Feet of Flames: The Impossible Tour -- Hell's Kitchen

The fight for Planet Ireland has begun! Here, at last, we see the first real clash of good and evil: Matt Smith's Lord of the Dance versus Zoltan Papp's Dark Lord.

There's a subtle but important inversion here, compared to the classic videos which starred Michael Flatley: in those videos, Michael was the *older* dancer, the reigning king of the ring, dealing with younger upstart would-be usurpers. This fit the meta-story of Michael as the greatest dancer in the world, constantly fielding questions from the press about how long he could continue (he first performed Feet of Flames at the age of forty).

Here, though, we see a complete reversal of this: Matt Smith, in his late twenties, is a much younger Lord of the Dance -- and he's up against the human earthquake known as Zoltan Papp, who was 41 when this was filmed.

In many ways, this hews closer to the standard Monomyth "Hero's Journey" formula: the young hero who encounters antagonist forces often much older and arguably more powerful than he is. And in the Feet of Flames Impossible Tour, the dancers behind both antagonists -- Don Dorcha and Morrighan -- are not only older than Matt Smith, but in fact are married in real life.

It is up to our hero, Matt Smith, to rise up in the face of these trials and prove himself worthy of the #LordOfTheDance title belt. Remember, the Lord of the Dance is a *character,* and that character's interpretation changes based on who's performing it. This is a showcase for Matt -- but it's also a showcase for Zoltan, whose unhinged lunacy has made him, in the eyes of many, the best performer to ever wear the mantle of the Dark Lord.

Hell's Kitchen, as a number, is technically a draw -- but you can plausibly argue victory for either side depending on how you look at it. On one hand, the Dark Lord is denied his objective: at the end he withdraws from the field, the Little Spirit is still alive, and her magic flute is (unbeknownst to him) subsequently repaired. On the other hand, the Lord of the Dance and his entire army of Warlords -- supposedly the strongest clan in Planet Ireland -- while still technically in control, can't actually defeat Don Dorcha and the Warriors: they can only fight them to a standstill. This bodes poorly for the safety of Planet Ireland, setting up the drama that comes later in the second act.

In 1996, Hell's Kitchen was the first time people saw #IrishDance used to portray *conflict.* Like the Jets versus the Sharks in West Side Story, dance is used here to tell a *story.* It told the audience that everything they were used to -- everything they thought they'd expect, based on Michael's first show, the year before -- should be thrown away: it was time to go into the deep end of the pool.

And today, with the Impossible Tour, we've set out to create the most intense version of Hell's Kitchen ever filmed. We've once again intercut dancer-mounted onstage #GoPro cameras to give you a totally new way of experiencing the action. The legendary 1996 OG video and today's Impossible Tour video are two bookends of an amazing twenty-five-year journey -- a journey which still continues today.

It's time to see what today's #IrishDancing superstars, handpicked by Michael Flatley, can do.

This is Feet of Flames: The Impossible Tour.

This is the New Generation.

And this is Hell's Kitchen.

#FollowYourDream

Видео Michael Flatley's Feet of Flames: The Impossible Tour -- Hell's Kitchen канала Michael Flatley