Michael Flatley's Feet of Flames: The Impossible Tour -- Cry of the Celts (feat. Matt Smith)

Buckle up. This is the most electrifying professional #IrishDancing you'll see anywhere in the world today.

Remember the first time you saw Cry of the Celts, the opening sequence to Michael Flatley's #LordOfTheDance? The excitement of the unknown? The slow buildup as the Little Spirit summons Planet Ireland into existence? The anticipation as the drums start up and the lights change? The absolute atomic bomb that exploded onstage next?

The message was clear: this wasn't an evening of polite theatre. This was WAR.

This was a rock concert and a dance drama fused together in the wildest way possible, grabbing you by the lapels and shouting primary colors into your eyeballs. It was the absolute raw urgency of having your back up against the wall and coming out swinging in the biggest title fight of your life.

*That* is Lord of the Dance.

And it's back. That raw urgency is *back.*

Aside from the ten-week grind to create the legendary original show, the #FeetOfFlames Impossible Tour was the single greatest challenge in the twenty-five-year history of this production. A stadium tour after nine months of inactivity, with a 90-strong troupe over fifty-percent new, with less than three days of group rehearsal (only one of which onstage) after two weeks of quarantine? The odds of just *getting* the show to opening night were insanely long.

Adding a film shoot on top of all of this raises the stakes by several orders of magnitude. Film shoots are typically planned out well in advance and often filmed over multiple performances; with the Impossible Tour, we had exactly one shot to get it right, with no time on the clock to make adjustments. Team Lord -- cast and crew -- *had* to deliver an absolute slam dunk, or all that money was down the drain.

To quote Battlestar Galactica: "Sometimes you have to roll the hard six."

Let's compound things further. The elephant in the room is that any time you film this show, it's automatically going to be compared to David Mallet's legendary original video from 1996 -- and not just that video, but a quarter-century of *nostalgia* about that video.

And guess what: the New Generation passes the test.

Yeah. We said it. Because it's true.

Matt Smith was handpicked by Michael Flatley to be the Lord of the Dance onstage in Feet of Flames 2020. Matt Smith trained *his entire life* to be the Lord of the Dance. He has *exactly* the right blend of boy-next-door charm and brash flat-out swagger. He has *exactly* the right mix of callbacks to Michael's movements *and* making the role his own. He has complete command of that stage, and he has that critical element of charisma -- the same element that Michael has, that all great performers have -- that makes you want to *re*watch him.

Matt Smith had to deliver the performance of his *life* that night, on the far side of the world, in a 15,000-seat stadium. And he did.

The same is true for every single dancer on that stage. This number is a tremendous showcase for Jess Judge, the Little Spirit. Born on the same date as the OG Little Spirit, the legendary Helen Egan, Jess obsessively studied Helen's performances to fuse together the best of the past with her own unique talents as a performer, crafting the perfect spiritual successor to what came before. What you see with Jess is nothing less than a truly phenomenal performance: the perfect mix of familiar and new.

The New Generation -- personally named the All-Star Troupe by Michael -- is the future of professional Irish dancing: confident, bold, fully invested in carrying forward the artistic and commercially-viable legacy of Michael Flatley's billion-dollar dance show, writing the next chapter, leaving their mark as the greatest Irish dancers in the world in the most successful #IrishDance show of all time.

This is Feet of Flames: The Impossible Tour.

This is Cry of the Celts.

And this is the New Generation.

#FollowYourDream

Видео Michael Flatley's Feet of Flames: The Impossible Tour -- Cry of the Celts (feat. Matt Smith) канала Michael Flatley