I Was a Teenage Riverdancer

Do I tell them? Is it worth it? If I’m feeling resilient, ready for any of the reactions that might come next — laughter, surprise, feigned admiration, real admiration, an impression of Michael Flatley — I brace myself and dive in:

“I was in ‘Riverdance.’”

Divulging this information has never been simple, not during the 4 1/2 years I spent touring, on and off, with the Irish dance extravaganza, and not in the decade since I last set foot onstage with the show. Most recently it happened with a colleague, an artist who knows me mainly as a critic, when she asked how my work was going, and I told her I was writing this story.

“Did you know I was in ‘Riverdance’?” I said.

“What? No!” she replied. “That’s so funny!”

I understand that many people feel this way — especially those from outside the Irish dance world — and I don’t entirely blame them, even as I want to leap to the show’s defense. Therein lies the problem. It doesn’t really matter how my revelation is received, or precisely what “funny” might mean; I’ve entered the maze of my own uncertainty about “Riverdance.”

As the production’s 25th-anniversary tour hurtles toward New York, stopping at Radio City Music Hall March 10-15, I realize I’ve been in a nearly lifelong relationship with this strange cultural phenomenon, one that I struggle to elucidate even for myself. The mere sight of a “Riverdance” billboard — and they’re everywhere in New York right now, that buoyant line of dancers in iridescent greens and blues, arms by their sides and feet lifted in perfect unison — fills me with an uneasy mix of affection and anxiety, embarrassment and pride.

How did I get here? Will it always be this way? Will I ever feel fine speaking the words “I was in ‘Riverdance’”?

As someone who began Irish dancing in the early 1990s, just before “Riverdance” emerged and turned the once-provincial dance form into a global craze, I’ve become accustomed to public perceptions of the show as both an impressive spectacle, requiring real skill, and something to joke about. In its 25 years, the commercially successful enterprise — which began as an intermission act at the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest, starring Jean Butler and Flatley — has been mocked and spoofed as much as it’s been celebrated and more earnestly imitated.

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“His legs flail about as if independent from his body!” shouts a disturbed Chandler in a 1998 episode of “Friends,” explaining why Flatley “scares the bejesus” out of him. A 2001 New Yorker cartoon depicts a judge addressing a lawyer and his client: “No, it’s either community service or jail time, counsellor,” the caption reads. “Attending ‘Riverdance’ is not a sentencing option.” In a 2005 episode of “The Simpsons,” Marge dreams of a “Catholic heaven,” filled with rows upon rows of angels hoofing to the “Riverdance” theme song. “Now dance, ye heavenly gobs!” exclaims their Flatley-esque leader.

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There was a time before I knew that “Riverdance” could be considered anything but flawless when I myself viewed it as the pinnacle of artistry. I first saw the show when I was 9, during its Radio City debut in 1996. I had been introduced to Irish dance on a family trip to County Kerry, Ireland, through a friend who lived down the road from where we were staying. Three years my senior (I was 4), she gave me lessons in the farmhouse driveway, showing me how to cross my ankles and stay up on my toes as I executed the basic step known as a jump-two-three.

Closer to home in Massachusetts, I started taking formal lessons and, like most young people who want to excel in Irish dance, training for competitions. One day my mother, a travel agent at the time, found herself on hold with Aer Lingus, listening over and over to an ad for an Irish dance-and-music sensation that was coming to New York. Intrigued by the endlessly looping excerpt from Bill Whelan’s “Riverdance” score (it was, she tells me, “magical”), she decided we had to go.

The show captured my heart. Compared to the steps I was learning in class, with a teacher who once Scotch-taped my wrists to my sides to correct my posture (it didn’t work), the choreography was modern, alluring, cool. The dancers used their arms and swayed their hips, both off-limits in the traditional style, a folk form that became rigidly codified during Ireland’s nationalist revival of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I didn’t quite understand it at the time, but this was one of the production’s chief innovations: making Irish dance sexy — or at least, sexier.

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The choreography also put Irish dance into dialogue with other percussive and rhythmically intricate forms: flamenco, tap, Russian folk dance (or some semblance of it). I think people forget, or just don’t know, that “Riverdance” is essentially a variety show; the Rockettes-like lines of Irish dancers are the main event, but there’s so much more.

“Riverdance” — and the many spinoffs it inspired — also created new career paths for Irish dancers. Whereas before a dancer might compete through her teens, then earn her teaching certificate and open a school, she now had more opportunities to make a living performing.

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The relentlessly entrepreneurial Flatley, who left “Riverdance” after less than a year (he was fired over contractual issues), went on to develop and star in “Lord of the Dance,” “Feet of Flames” and “Celtic Tiger.” I’d always had reservations about him — too much ego — and these ventures struck me as increasingly tacky. As a senior in high school, looking toward my dancing future, I figured that if I was going to take Irish dance any further, it would be in “Riverdance” — the original — or not at all. I sent in an audition tape and, for months, heard nothing.

By the time I was invited to audition, during the spring of my freshman year of college, my once-unfettered enthusiasm for the show, and for Irish dance in general, had waned. Not only did I feel out of shape, having stopped competing, but my tastes were changing. My first semester in New York had exposed me to the work of avant-garde choreographers like Pina Bausch and Merce Cunningham, and to the academic conversations around them. In jazz and ballet classes, I was finding more freedom in my torso: progress. Did I want to go back?

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On top of all this, the show had changed. When I saw it the week of my audition in Philadelphia, it looked (and sounded) like a low-budget version of its former self. The cast and band had shrunk, presumably for financial reasons, and because of the downsizing, the sound of recorded taps, amplifying the rhythms of the Irish dancers’ feet, was more obvious than ever.

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I put aside my aesthetic critiques, along with my insecurities, and went through with the audition. That fall, enticed by the promise of a new experience — and a decently paying dance job — I left school for a semester to join the 10th-anniversary North American tour.

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People often ask me if I have “crazy stories” from life on the road. The answer is no, not really. I was 19, one of the youngest company members, and I didn’t always feel comfortable going out drinking with my castmates. I had just one close friend, Mary Jo, whom I had met at the audition. On long days and late nights in unglamorous cities, our version of fun was walking to the nearest strip mall, or cooking mac and cheese in our Extended Stay America kitchenette.

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Our work, which started most days around 6 p.m., didn’t feel like work at first. I looked forward to the evening rituals of doing my makeup, warming up onstage and waiting in the wings at the top of the show. The dancing itself could be exhilarating. In the beginning, I thrived on the extreme precision it demanded and the challenge of delivering this before so many expectant eyes. I had never performed for such large crowds or received such ecstatic applause.

Yet after powering through eight shows a week for a couple of months, the repetition began to wear on me, more psychologically than physically. Pounding out the same steps night after night, as part of the smiling chorus line, I found myself feeling deflated, reluctant to do it again — and again. Recently I found a note to myself from what must have been a desperate moment:

“A revelation today about getting through Riverdance: Act it. Perform it. Ham it up. Be a big, huge cornball.”

(I used an expletive before “cornball.”)

When I learned that my contract wouldn’t be renewed, ending after about three months, I was more relieved than disappointed. In the next few years, I returned to the company periodically when a substitute was needed. I enjoyed seeing old friends and new places, but I never longed to do a full-fledged tour again.

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In retrospect, I realize that I was craving more room for self-exploration as a dancer. I eventually found this in much smaller, scrappier projects in New York, mostly outside of the Irish dance world but with choreographers who appreciated my eclectic training. Working in these environments felt more like dancing with my friend in the driveway in County Kerry.

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If dancing and watching dance have taught me anything, it’s to be comfortable with ambiguity, and not to always seek a tidy resolution. As I anticipate being in the audience at Radio City soon, and the tangled feelings that are bound to come up, maybe I need to apply those lessons here. “Riverdance” has been many things to me: a dream, an adventure, a job; a source of joy and disillusionment; an experience I sometimes miss. I was in it, and I may never get out.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .