Performing on Christmas Day, we kept the spirits alive. Last minute trickery was being carried out by each of our secret santas.
The excitement grew when our wardrobe department appeared with mandatory tinsel and Santa hats for the finale performance. Our principal performers Callum Spencer and Siobhan Manson reminded me of a very special Mr. and Mrs. Claus sporting their red and white hats!

Dongguan presented an array of choice for the very famous Chinese hotpot. I recently discovered the Chinese translation means ‘fire pot’. It originates back to Mongolia over one thousand years ago and spread to south China during the Tang Dynasty. Featured here is Dan Dorrance impatiently waiting for his pork, beef and chicken to cook in the boiling chili oil! To our ignorance the waiters spoke no English. We were forced to make hideous farm animal impressions to specify our liking.  Upon clucking like chicken and using arms as wings the picked up on our meaning. Literally. Chicken Licken on a plate. Head, feet, the works!

The Guangzhou Zhonghshan Memory Hall was a sight to behold, a fabulous exterior and huge inside! With a full cast of experienced dancers and musicians, rehearsals were short and sweet and it was soon warm-up time for our first show of the tour in Guangzhou. With an expected audience of 12,000 people over the weekend, it was no surprise to walk out to a packed theatre. The reception we got was phenomenal and what Julian Erskine (Executive producer) described as “the best I have ever seen in China!”. It certainly was a good way to kick off what promises to be a fascinating and memorable tour.

As this is my first Riverdance blog, a quick introduction seems necessary! At the end of this Chinese tour I will have been with the company for five years! During this time I have been fortunate to work steadily and travel extensively through North and South America, Europe and Asia. If any of you have encountered life on tour you may be familiar with the warped sense of time that is often experienced by those of us on the road. Memories blur together and suddenly five years have flown by. To combat this blurring of time I like to document my life on tour through photography. Whenever I revisit my collection of images from tour I am reminded of all the incredible experiences I have shared with my fellow company members.

By Fiona McCabe, Irish Dance Troupe
I am happy to report so far that our happy crew , dancers and musicians have slipped very nicely into life in south China. We are not quite eating like the locals yet but we shall bide our time. After all ten weeks is a long time. On next week’s agenda: We will be getting into the festive spirit and begin our secret Santa craze. It’s room decorating, mistletoe scented candles and jingle bells ,em, Chinese- style!

This summer season for us full-time dancers saw a mix of work and play. Weddings, festivals and mandatory beach holidays all draw us away from our duties as dancers at some point during the height of the summer period. This brought back many past Riverdancer’s to grace the stage.

When Riverdance flamenco dancer Rocio Montoya first met tap-dancer Kelly Isaac on a Japanese tour in 2005, they were instantly attracted to one another. There was a slight problem, however — the Spanish beauty spoke no English while the gorgeous American hadn’t a word of Spanish. Happily, by the time they got together in 2008, she had learned a bit of the language, but still found other ways to get her message across.

Sincere thanks to all the cast and crew of Riverdance in the Gaiety from the McCole School of Irish Dance in Galway. We had the most fabulous experience ever at the show and the Meet and Greet with the cast was the icing on the cake for the kids.

Promoting the forthcoming Riverdance dates at Kursaal, Ostend from July 24 to August 5, Riverdance dancers entertained the 20,000 enthusiastic fans at the Fan Day at Club Brugge KV on 8th July 2012.