“Riverdance” has thrilled American audiences for the past 14 seasons with precision dance steps executed to pulsating Irish and world music. It began in Dublin as a brief act at the Eurovision Song Contest of 1994, to represent the life cycle of a river from cloud to renewal of the land in its rush toward the sea. Transfixed audiences cheered it into a sensation worldwide. But time hurries by, and the performances at Wolf Trap this week mark the end of the North American touring company.
Fiddler Niamh Ni Charra (Neeve Knee Cara) was invited to return for this season’s closing concerts. She toured for eight years with the ensemble before leaving to pursue her own career.
“My role in the show has evolved in several stages,” Charra said. “I’ve been playing since the age of four, but never intended to be a musician full time, so I went to college and became an electronics engineer. I was recruited by a company in Boston, but after arriving there, I met and played with lots of people from Ireland. More and more I began liking music better and engineering less, so I went back to Ireland to study seriously.
| Onstage |
| ‘Riverdance’ |
| » Where: Wolf Trap’s Filene Center, 1645 Trap Road, Vienna |
| » When: 8 p.m. Friday to Sunday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday |
| » Info: $40 to $80 in-house, $20 to $25 lawn; 877-965-3872; wolftrap.org |
“What I didn’t know is that someone from ‘Riverdance’ heard me play in Boston and thought of me for the show. When I first joined, it took time to learn the technology, the stage directions and the new rhythms. Bill Whelan, the composer, has always been interested in folk music from around the world, so I wasn’t familiar with the 16/15 and other rhythms he frequently used. While I played, I kept running around the stage to avoid the dancers’ feet and smiling at the audience so every person thought I was looking directly at him.”
Charra remembers well the 2003 “Riverdance” performance at Wolf Trap, which also marked the closing of a company tour. She will not forget the excessive heat wave and the game of hurling some of the men in the company had with local players before the concert, defying high humidity amid swarms of cicadas emerging from underground to complete their life cycle of 17 years. Even though this year’s shows end the North American company, it is not the end of “Riverdance.”
“Even though ‘Riverdance’ is leaving this country, I plan to stay here until my visa expires in December,” she said. “In the meantime, I’ll complete my fourth album, a tribute to the late piper Joe Shannon [a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow], who came to Chicago from Ireland as a young man and was a mentor to young Irish musicians in the city. It will feature guest musicians who knew him well.”
