Riverdance may have made Irish Dancing cool, but a new east London outfit has just made it even cooler. ‘Up & Over it’, a collaboration between two champion Irish dancers and a filmmaker, has received almost seven million hits on YouTube and has now become a fully fledged stage show.
Set to get the Hackney Empire toe tapping and hand slapping on Friday night, the show’s main feature is two former Riverdance stars performing Irish dancing with their hands to electro-pop music.
Irish dance novices may find this rather peculiar, but any Irish dancer will tell you that before going on stage they will always practise the dance with their hands. But who would have thought last-minute nerves would become a global internet phenomenon?
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Jonny Reed, the filmmaker behind the YouTube hit, was working behind the scenes on Irish dance show ‘Magic of the Dance’ when he met Suzanne Cleary and Peter Harding. The two dancers had already met when they were headhunted for Riverdance aged 17, and went on to become the youngest ever understudies in the show.
The idea of ‘hand dancing’ came about when one of the trio suggested turning the typical practice moves into a performance as they sat backstage. What began as a mere hobby has now amassed celebrity fans like Perez Hilton, Ellen DeGeneres and Justin Bieber.
“Suzanne and Peter were very successful competition dancers, winning championships all around the world. I’m a filmmaker and I always wanted to look at new ways to look at Irish dancing. We put videos together first, and it was so different. It was such an original idea. Videos were our main thing because we wanted to reach a much wider audience,” said Jonny.
“Irish dance is a difficult one to sell”
After making a few videos, most of which were filmed on location in and around Hackney and exhibited as video art, the trio set about putting together a performance to take to the Edinburgh Fringe festival in 2009. Despite having no plans beyond the Fringe, the show was met with approval from audience members of all ages and reassured the group that they were on to something good.
“Irish dance is a difficult one to sell. It’s difficult for people to think it could be different. We take the mick and it’s a bit tongue in cheek,” said Jonny.
“Before, these shows were static and about either the famine or America. We wanted to comment on the world now rather than looking back.”
‘Up & Over It’ soared to internet stardom in 2010 when their video ‘We No Speak Americano’ (featuring a hand-dance routine set to the tune of the same name by Yolanda Be Cool and DCUP) went viral, amassing over six million hits on YouTube. Since then, the trio has appeared on television several times overseas, cementing their international fame.
“The last six months have been a whirlwind. We’ve been really fortunate as we’ve been on lots of TV shows such as Good Morning America, CNN and even an American McDonald’s commercial. We’re not that well known in Britain though so we knew it would be a risk to put on a show at the [Hackney] Empire,” said Jonny.
Hackney is close to the hearts of all three performers. Suzanne lives there, while Peter and Jonny both used to work at the Hackney Empire.
“Because it’s St Patrick’s weekend and it’s Hackney we wanted to do a live show. We’re doing more live shows this year and we’ll hopefully be part of Greenwich dance festival as well as other festivals.”
Michael Flatley will be wondering why he never thought of the idea, as will all those Irish dancers who hand-dance before hard-core, sweat-inducing performances on stage. Hands are clearly the new feet.
