He is a successful boxer, flute player, excellent dancer, choreographer, and even a tutor: he himself teaches six groups of dancers that perform all around the world. His name is Michael Flatley.
Irish stomp dance is rooted in traditional Irish dances. Its main features are a rigid upper body and fast, precise leg movements. Irish stomp dance has both a solo and a group version.
Irish stomp dance is popular in areas with significant Irish population, but today many dancers aren’t the descendants of Irish ancestors. In addition to dancing shows, Irish stomp dance contests are held worldwide with great success. The fancy costume is always an indispensable part of the performance.
Irish stomp dance was made famous by Michael Flatley’s Riverdance featured in the 1994 edition of Eurovision. Following this event, the popularity of Irish art reached unprecedented heights and countless people started learning to stomp dance. Even though later the interest has fallen, as it turned out that a lot of work has to be invested in success, Riverdance is still performed with great success worldwide.
Interesting facts about Michael Flatley
Flatley was born in 1958 as the second child in a family of five children. His parents and grandparents are from Ireland. Since the whole family was very musical, Flatley learned to play flute at his father’s wish and he has won countless honors, including the “Irish Flute Champion” title.
Michael often visited a neighbor family from where he occasionally returned home with a bleeding nose, so his father encouraged that he learned boxing. He invested a lot of energy in the sport, and at the age of 17 he won the Golden Glove Championship.
Flatley started dancing when he was only four. He learned not only from his parents but also from his grandmother, Hannah Ryan, who was the leading dancer of an Irish dance group at the time. At age 11, he requested admission to the Dennehy School of Irish Dance team, but he wasn’t admitted on the grounds that he was “too old”. However, he did not give up and later he to pass the exam. As a result of intense practice, he became increasingly successful and won every competition in the US. At the age of 17 he won the Irish Dances World Championships at the All-World Irish Dance Championship, according to Wikipedia.
For Flatley, the breakthrough happened during the 1983 tour with the famous successful Irish band “The Chieftains”.
Today Michael Flatley works as a director, producer and choreographer. The dancer has beefsteak every day; he needs a lot of energy as loses loses almost three kilograms of weight and four thousand calories during a performance.
In 2011, Flatley’s legs were ensured for a record sum of $ 40 million.