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Her name is Erin-Kate Mcilravey. And she is now only the fourth person -- after Caroline Gray, Sarah Clark, and the legendary OG Bernadette Flynn -- to be immortalized on film as Saoirse. Filming a new #FeetOfFlames video is a unique challenge because it has to appeal to three audiences: A.) The hardcore fans who have seen all the commercial video releases (and likely seen the show live at least once, if not multiple times); B.) The casual fans who saw the '96 and '98 videos and may have never seen the show live; C.) Someone who's brand new, and this is their first introduction to Lord of the Dance and the world of Planet Ireland. Each one of these three groups has their own unique set of challenges. A hardcore fan probably has an emotional attachment to the classic music and costuming. A casual fan who has never seen the show live will only have David Mallet's videos in their mind when they picture #LordOfTheDance. And someone who's brand new needs to be so enthralled with what they see that they keep watching, rather than hitting fast-forward. So: on video, how do you present the show so that it achieves the goal of “feeling like“ Lord of the Dance while still introducing new elements? The answer is threefold: 1.) The music and costuming speak for themselves. They provide the elements that are different -- and any time you do something different, some people will like it and some won't. That's to be expected. What's most notable here -- because it hasn't been seen before on film with LOTD -- is that this is the first time you've seen a female lead dance in trousers. Purists will undoubtedly cry out for the classic white dress of old, but once you get past that, it's fascinating to see how it subtly affects your perception of the character of Saoirse. This is not an innocent girl; this is a *woman* in the flower of her youth and fully in control of her destiny. (Notably, this is also the first time you've ever seen on film a Saoirse with a navel piercing.) These are the elements which feel the most different from classic LOTD, especially for those who have only seen the videos from '96 and '98 -- and these elements are important for moving things forward into new territory. 2.) The editing, like the stage set, is a fusion of old and new. For those who have only seen the '96 and '98 videos, the 2020 Feet of Flames stage set looks and feels very familiar. For those who have seen all the videos (and perhaps having also seen the show live), including the wildly different stage sets from the 2011 and 2014, the 2020 set will feel like a wonderfully nostalgic throwback. Likewise, as you've probably noticed by now, the Feet of Flames Impossible Tour video (which you've seen a few pieces of so far) is deliberately edited in a style reminiscent of David Mallet's 1996 video. It's not a precise stylistic match, which is also deliberate; if you go back and rewatch Celtic Dream from the original '96 video, there are only six(!) hard cuts in the entire number; all other transitions are long crossfades, often to overcranked slow-motion insert shots that deliberately take you out of the onstage flow of action. For the 2020 video, while there's still some crossfading happening, there are far more hard cuts and no slow-motion shots. This has the psychological effect of making the number feel faster and giving you a sense of the actual pace of the onstage action. Our goal with the 2020 video is to make it feel familiar, to pay tribute to the past, but still push you forward into a new experience. 3.) The performer herself. Erin-Kate Mcilravey is amazing as Saoirse. She was trained by the Team Lord OG legend Caroline Greene-Parfery, and she is very emblematic of her generation. The first generation of professional Irish dancers -- the legendary OG Troupe -- grew up in a world where there was no professional Irish dancing, and the genre of the professional Irish dance show simply didn't exist; as such, there's a unique energy specific to the 1996 video because it captured a bunch of innocent kids onstage -- the legendary Bernadette Flynn was a teenager at the time the video was filmed -- doing something that had literally never been done before. Today, meanwhile, second-generation professional Irish dancers -- the amazing Team Lord troupe you see in this video -- have grown up in a world where commercial Irish dancing has always existed. It is a completely different dynamic the New Generation brings to the show, in the same way that modern Formula One drivers bring a very different feel to the sport than what you got with classic F1. Both are good; they're simply different. And what you get with Erin-Kate is very, very good indeed. (You also get a brand-new version of the haunting wind-up doll sequence, featuring the amazing Jessica Aquila Judge as the Little Spirit!) This is Feet of Flames: The Impossible Tour. This is the New Generation. And this is Celtic Dream. #FollowYourDream
