This year marks the 15^th Anniversary for Riverdance: the “Irish Dancing Phenomenon.”

Riverdance was first performed in Dublin in February 1995. The original show had a sold out, five-week run, and set off a whirlwind of success. The song hit #1 on the charts, and the video release of the show was the highest selling music video in the UK. It continued from there; by September of 1996 (only a year and a half later), Riverdance hit its 400^th performance. Over 1.3 million people had seen the show.

At this point? The show has visited 40 countries, and has been seen live by over 22 million people. Incredible!

The Boyne Company, which is the touring company of Riverdance for the United States and Canada, is currently on its Farewell Tour. Happily, one of the stops in the last leg of this tour is Chrysler Hall in Norfolk this weekend.

I had the fabulous opportunity to speak with one of the Boyne Company’s Dance Captains, Maeve Croke.

You are now one of the two Dance Captains for the Boyne Company. How long have you been Dance Captain?

I’ve been in the company for seven years, and I’ve been Dance Captain for four years.

Could you explain what it means to be a Dance Captain? What are your responsibilities?

Well, there is a male and female Dance Captain. We do troupe checks, and so on, and we’ll take warm up before the show, and stretching. And sometimes if we’re not on one of the dances that particular night, we may go out front and watch it and come back and give some notes. And then if there’s new people that come into the show, we’re responsible for training them and getting them up to the standard of the show and putting them into the different dances that they would go on.

Do new dancers come in during tours, or does that usually happen before?

It usually happens before, but say for some reason someone got injured, they may have to leave the tour. Then we would get a new person in. Then we would train them during the day and see how quickly they learn the steps and then they would go on as soon as they are ready.

What was the transition like from company member to Dance Captain? Is there special training that you guys do to take on the new role? How does that work?

Well, when I started doing Dance Captain, I did it with my partner, which is Marty Dowds, and he had already been Dance Captain, so he just kind of talked me through it and everything. But I mean … I think because I had been in the show such a long time, I knew what kind of role to take, I was kind of respected for that.

Are the Dance Captains involved with choreography at all?

No, the choreography has been the same since Riverdance started.

Oh, I didn’t realize that …

What is the typical general exercise regimen for a dancer in Riverdance?

Well, for us guys at the moment, we’ve been on tour for nine months.  So we do cardio, for maybe 15-20 minutes before every show, and then we’ll stretch for like another 20 minutes.  And then everyone kind of does their own individual [thing]; a lot of people would take classes during the day in different cities. They’d go to the gym and take, like, “Body Pump.” The dancers really enjoy doing stuff like that. But everyone kind of does their own individual gym time, and swimming, during the day.

Do you guys ever, kind of cross-train with other dance forms?  Or yoga, or Pilates?

Yoga and Pilates we really enjoy doing, and we will take classes. A lot of the stretching that we would do together as a group is very much like yoga, from yoga classes we have taken ourselves, we would incorporate that.

You mentioned before that you guys do stretches and things before the show; do you usually do it all together?  I guess just tell me [about] right before the show you guys do cardio and stretch …

We do that all together as a group.  And that is a responsibility of a Dance Captain. So when we go into work, we will all go on stage, we all get changed into our warm up gear, then we would do our aerobics for maybe 15-20 minutes, we have a routine that we do, then straightaway after that we’ll do all our stretches and we do sit-ups, and all of that kind of stuff …

So it’s like a specific warm up class.

It is a warm up class. And then straightaway, once we’re finished the show, we all go back to the warm up room, and we will cool down together as a group as well.

That was actually my next question (laughing).

I know that you guys have a massage therapist and physical therapist on staff that comes with you.

Yep …

I’m sure that’s wonderful …

(She laughed).

Generally, of course, that’s always nice to have around.  But I’m sure especially with how strenuous [this] dance is, I would imagine that injuries are always a concern.

Photo Credit | Joan Marcus

Injuries … especially on this tour; usually our tours would be, like, 6 months. But this is the longest tour that I’ve ever done. I think I’m right in saying it’s the longest tour that’s ever been in Riverdance without any break, so it’s like 9 months. So it is really tough, you know? Like you said, we have a massage therapist, so we would get two to three massages a week, mostly two. And then the physiotherapist is there during the show if anything ever happens, you can go straight to him, like, if you twist your ankle, or feel something pull or whatever, you can go straight to him and he can work on you throughout the show. And then after the show, we have what we call “Ice Club.” Most of the dancers do it, but some dancers don’t. It’s quite painful. We have these big huge buckets, and they fill them up with ice, and then you put your feet into them up as far as your knees.

Oooh, that does sound a little painful (laughing).

It is painful … but it works, it totally works.  Prevention is the key.  You just keep on top of it.

Definitely. So how often do you guys perform?  Do you have shows every day? Do you have a couple of days off here and there?

We have shows every day, Tuesday through Friday, every night; two [shows] Saturday, and two [shows] Sunday … so it’s eight shows every  week, and we travel every Monday.

Oh my; how do you rest?

(She laughed). Tuesday through Friday is fine, because if the shows are 7:30 or 8 [pm], we don’t go to work until like 5:30 [pm], so you have the day, Tuesday through Friday, you can rest up if you need to. But the weekends are busy, like Saturday and Sunday, are busy.

And you guys are touring through [summer]?

We are touring until the 7^th of June.

Riverdance will be performing this weekend at Chrysler Hall: May 14^th through 16^th. And I guarantee my toes will be tapping.