Feel the immense power and thunderous rhythms of Irish dance brought soaring into the 21st century with this fresh take on the traditional when Emerald Storm appears at The Hawth, Crawley on Thursday 4th October and the Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells on Thursday 18th October.
With an exhilarating mix of original scores, twelve incredible dancers (Lord of The Dance, Riverdance, Ireland’s Call) invite you into their world – from traditional soft-shoe choreography to explosive Irish Tap routines and from the sensual fire of Salsa and the smooth coolness of Jazz to the prim precision of Ballroom.
World class vocalists, John-Philip Bowen (Las Vegas residency, USA Tours) and Helena Gullan (Once musical – West End, Walk Right Back musical) perform classic songs such as Danny Boy, Carrickfergus and Shenandoah right through to more modern, contemporary acoustic music in the style of Ed Sheeran, with original songs written by West End superstar Steve Balsamo.
In ancient Celtic mythology, Heaven, known as The Otherworld, isn’t in the clouds, it’s here on Earth. Us mortals cannot see or hear The Otherworld as it exists separately from our time and space. It is an alternative dimension running in parallel with our own. Fairies, Shades, Demons and Gods all live in peace to maintain harmony and balance. No mortal is permitted entry to The Otherworld without the Queen’s blessing. This blessing is given by way of a silver branch, a key, but she has never given it.
The Otherworld is under threat. Sinister new elements have fallen upon the realm. Peace and tranquility have been overshadowed by confusion and turmoil. Sunshine and light are being overrun by thunder and darkness. Has the evil of the mortal world found a way to defile this heaven? Fearing that hope is almost lost, the Queen risks everything by breaking the greatest rule of Heaven World. She invites mortals into the realm. Mortals to fight for The Otherworld’s very existence. Mortals called… The Emerald Storm.
This is dance, singing and music at its best. Will Heaven be saved? Will the mortals succeed? Emerald Storm will rise!
As Emerald Storm prepares for it’s opening night on October 3rd, I was lucky enough to have some time talking to the Creative Director, West End and International Tenor Vocalist Duncan Heather, and I asked him…
Where did the idea for the show come from?
Well, if we go right back to the beginning, I was approached and asked to produce a small Irish Dance act for the corporate entertainment world so I said yes and the act appeared at a big Celtic ball last year and, to coin a phrase, it went down a storm. I had deliberately made it a little bit more edgy, a little bit different, because there are lots of other Irish acts out there and it went down so well that I kept getting asked, “What will you do with this?”, “Is it going to be developed?”.
So I sat on it for a while and then decided, yes, let’s do it and from there it quickly progressed into a full blown show. As with a lot of the shows produced by Slamdunk Entertainments, we wanted it to be a little bit different and it is. It’s still got all of the traditional Irish elements that you would expect, but we’ve made it a lot more modern and edgy. We still tip our hats to the traditional but we’ve also tried to bring it into the 21st century.
So are we talking a Riverdance type show, or something very different?
Well, to be honest, I don’t think that we will be able to avoid the comparison to Riverdance, Lord of the Dance and Spirit of the Dance or any of those shows because the whole point of us doing it is because it is so popular and just totally enthralling when you go to see it. We will have the cannon lines, we will have the thunderous Irish Tap routines, that is all in there, but what we haven’t got is them wearing short skirts and tights and dancing very rigidly.
Our choreography is much looser, there’s some street dance and ballroom dance pieces, various genres really but it’s also the music that makes the show. We’ve got Whiskey in the Jar and The Fields of Athenry and other very traditional pieces in there although it’s much more urban sounding and modern in the way the music is played.
So a bit of history and maybe a bit of fantasy too?
Well, yes. It took me a while to come up with the concept for the show which came together when I looked into the Celtic myths. There is a thing called The Otherworld and people back in Ireland used to believe this. They thought that there was an alternative world, parallel to our own, almost like a “Heaven” of some kind. It ran alongside our world and was a very peaceful and tranquil place.
So that’s what the show is based around. It’s kind of a climate change show really because The Otherworld is under threat from all the elements. There’s rain, ice, thunder and all that and each element is portrayed in a different style of dancing and that is attacking The Otherworld so the Queen has to get the Emerald Storm to come across and defeat these elements in dance.
Are we talking singing as well as dancing?
We are, yes, we have our lead vocalist John-Philip who’s going to perform for our debut tour. He has done many musicals out in the states and now he lives and works here. He’s a wonderful vocalist with a real raw edge to his voice. He’s a very unique character and the original songs that he’s going to sing are written by the wonderful Steve Balsamo, who people will know from his performance as Jesus in the revival of Jesus Christ Superstar in the 1990’s. He’s critically acclaimed as a songwriter and his original compositions are just amazing.
We also have our female vocalist, Helena Gullan, who appeared in the West End production and the International tour of Once, so she is just perfect for the show. She has a wonderful voice, she plays the violin live and it’s her who is playing our Queen. So we’ve got lots of vocals and some wonderful dance routines which create a very unique Irish dance show as it has more a thread to it to tell the story. That was the idea behind it.
Our audiences will really feel that they are getting a touch of the traditional, but we’ve shot it forward a couple of centuries because, what we have found is that, there are lots of people that have been waiting for a new take on this genre but we have also thrown in songs like Shenandoah so that the regular Irish dance show audience can enjoy the show as well. It’s certainly not all ripped jeans and street dancing, there are some very beautiful Irish soft shoe routines in there as well.
For the performance at The Hawth, Crawley on Thursday 4th October at 7.30pm tickets are priced at £25.50 and are available from The Hawth box office on 01293 553636 and www.hawth.co.uk.
In Tunbridge Wells on Thursday 18th October at 7.30pm the tickets are priced from £23.50 (plus £2 per ticket booking fee or 85p online) and are available from the Assembly Hall Theatre box office on 01892 530613 or online at www.assemblyhalltheatre.co.uk