BEFORE a foot ever hit the floor, Bill Whelan sat down in his studio to dissect and reinvent Irish dance music. The Grammy Award-winning composer has much to say about the percussive nature of the music and how it drives his show, the international phenomenon "Riverdance," even if he takes a seat whenever the dancing begins.
"We sit down when the dancing starts," composer Whelan said of himself and his musician friends. "I don't dance, but I am very, very interested in dance. . . . I love the rhythms at the root of dance music."
More than 11 million people worldwide have seen "Riverdance" live. Three companies perform the percussive dance extravaganza, two on tour and one on Broadway. When it pounds into Wolf Trap for eight performances starting Tuesday, it will spotlight how Irish dance, which relied for years on performances at competitions and festivals, has attained a heightened level of showmanship, with elaborately staged group numbers and athletic solos.
But first, the math. "Basically in its pure form, Irish dance's rhythms are divisible by threes or by twos," Whelan explained via telephone during a brief break at his recording studio in Galway, Ireland.
"Jigs are in three time, reels in two or four time. That was my starting-off point as I wrote the music. With 'Riverdance,' I tried to pull those rhythms around a bit, alternating bars of threes and fours with sevens, perhaps." This interplay doesn't rely on set patterns, so it allowed Whelan to create something that sounds both traditional and new.
"When I took it to the dance floor," he continues, "the choreographers had to adapt to the idioms of the Irish dance and the other forms I used." The rhythmic similarities in percussive dance from Spain, Russia and the African American tap tradition find an equally comfortable showcase in "Riverdance." The tapping, shuffling and pounding of feet remain the root of the show. And the visceral effect of 36 Irish dancers stepping in unison on stage helps explain its ongoing popularity.
Irish step dance evolved from the 11th-century Feisianna -- a public trade fair of music, storytelling, crafts and dance. By about 1750, Irish dance masters who traveled from village to village teaching jigs and reels developed personal repertoires of eight measures that they called "steps." Competitions were held to determine who knew the most steps.
The earliest dancers performed barefoot. But as steps evolved, nail heads or coins inserted between the sole and the toe tip increased the sounds the dancers produced. Today, the heels and soles of the hard shoes are fiberglass, while the soft shoes the women wear for "slip jigs" -- characterized by skipping, light hopping and pointing -- are leather soled.
Whelan describes "Riverdance" as a journey told in the rhythms and tensions of dance. Its popularity can be ascribed to the unspoken universality of the lightning-quick beat. Irish dance, he notes, had become quite comfortable over the years. As a result of "Riverdance," Whelan sees new possibilities for the form. "The question is," he asked, "is it possible for Irish dance to evolve and still remain uniquely Irish? Now the dance is in a very interesting place; does the form have the legs to develop further?"
RIVERDANCE -- Tuesday through July 1 at Wolf Trap. Call 703/218-6500 or check the venue's Web site at www.wolftrap.org.
