REVIEW: Irish dance show is a grave mis-step

It takes a lot of courage – or hubris – to take on an icon and for those who do so with exemplary effort, there is no shame in falling short. However, “Rhythm in the Night,” billed as “the Irish dance spectacular” at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall on Monday night, was not only entirely unqualified for prime time, it did not deserve to be spoken of in the same breath with its iconic predecessor, Riverdance.

(From left) Gregg Senko and Justin Boros, co-creators of "Rhythm in the Night." / Photo by Carrie Seidman

Billed as a “showcase event” featuring excerpts of a soon-to-come international touring show, the program in reality consisted of 20 minutes of talk from the co-creators – Justin Boros and Gregg Senko – about their discovery of and passion for Irish step dance; 15 minutes of archival video of the original “Riverdance,” (ill presented due to technical difficulties), and 15 minutes of amateurish, poorly choreographed step dance with a great deal of flashing colored lights, fog machines and pounding music.

The audience members, who filled more than half of the Van Wezel’s 1,700 seats and had each paid $20 (plus a $7.50 service charge) for the privilege, came in primed for the spectacular step dance that had been promised and, for a while anyway, they were generously tolerant of the self-inflated promotions and technical glitches.

Both Boros and Senko strode the stage for way too long, talking about the birth of their passion – watching Michael Flatley in “Lord of the Dance” – and their quest to create a show that would take Irish dance to a whole new level. This was followed by a spiel from the composers of the score, twin brothers Andrew and Jared DePolo, which seemed unrehearsed and sophomoric.

The audience began to titter.

Still, when an old video interview of Flatley abruptly halted five minutes in, they clapped their encouragement. But when the video was started over from the beginning, only to stop at the same point again, a low roar of disapproval began. One irate patron bellowed, “Can you dance?” and another, “What a waste of time!”

Read more audience members’ reactions here.

When the dancing did finally begin, it was nothing that could salvage the ill will already created. Boros, who looks more like a bar bouncer than a step dancer, led his 20 minions, in black hooded outfits with red and black face masks, through a sequence of very ordinary steps to hammering music by the DePolos. A lyrical passage with two women in soft shoes followed, which stopped any forward momentum and wasn’t at all what the audience was hankering for.

Dancers from the cast of "Rhythm in the Night" rehearsing a week before the event. / Photo by Carrie Seidman

There was a short burst of synchronized dancing in hard shoes to finish, at the end of which a scowling Boros strode the front of the stage making hand gestures to encourage more applause. (Since the event was being taped for promotional purposes, he was quite obviously displeased with the response.) An encore drew even more lukewarm applause after which Boros, apparently operating on the concept that three’s a charm, tried it one more time. By that point, half the audience was headed toward the exits.

It was all over in a little less than an hour, which brought to mind that old joke about the food at a restaurant being really bad “and such small portions too!” By the time I had driven the 10 minutes to my home, my email inbox had filled with invectives, accusations of a scam and demands for refunds.

It was a hard lesson to be learned – and Boros and Senko, who are in their 30s, are late to the game in learning it – but passion can never substitute for professionalism and wanting something will never be the same as deserving it.