Billion-Dollar Blarney?

Around the time that "Riverdance" rocked Europe, an economic boom was transforming Ireland. Dubbed the "Celtic Tiger," and fueled by high-tech industries, it put money into Irish hands. Also in 1994, the Irish Republican Army announced a cease-fire. Ireland was undergoing swift changes, and a vogue for Irishness was touched off. Timed perfectly, "Riverdance" fit squarely into this.

Part of the thrill was in seeing the old dance custom not only revitalized but sensuously cut loose. It was "an epiphany for the body," said Luke Gibbons, a professor of Irish studies at the University of Notre Dame. Irish dance's distinctive upright stance and rigid torso came from the Catholic Church's view that dancing could dangerously excite the body, and the dancer must therefore be "encased" in a disciplined structure. James Joyce, Gibbons said, referred to the resulting "paralysis" of the Irish body, immobilized except in sports. "Riverdance" set the body free.

"Irish dance came in from the cold," he said. "But at a wider level its regeneration has to do with Irish culture seen on a world stage." There was a certain amount of wish fulfillment involved in the country's rapturous reception of "Riverdance" -- what with the global prevalence of kitschy Irishness, the leprechauns, the four-leafed clovers, "here was a version of Irish on the world stage that literally stood for excellence."

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And yet the early promise of "Riverdance" went unfulfilled, as spectacle overwhelmed style -- particularly in the dancing, which fell into generic showbiz patterns, including the deafening chorus line that became the show's signature moment.

"It kind of moves from one straitjacket to another," Gibbons said. The stylishness and originality of those initial seven minutes were lost in what developed later: not so much a Broadway look but Las Vegas. And how free are you when you are welded to a soundtrack?

With the aggressive edge -- and the showgirl sexiness -- came the men. And with the men came a big part of "Riverdance's" popularity, according to Jed Bernstein, former president of the League of American Theatres and Producers Inc. "It was male-acceptable," he said.

In the final analysis, however, "Riverdance" is mediocre theater. It relies on formulaic notions of what excites audiences, it fabricates much of the experience rather than embracing the risks of live performance, it validates, it challenges nothing.

It has spawned some unwatchable offspring, especially the vanity productions by former "Riverdance" star Flatley. Experimental work in Irish dance carried on by Butler, however, seems more promising. She, like Flatley, left the show after a while to work on her own productions, and recently opened a new piece in Dublin.

On balance, "Riverdance's" greater impact has been in its extraordinary ability to seed Irish dance programs around the world, as well as in its native land. Perhaps they will craft another retooling of the art form. Perhaps next time it won't have to be so bleedin' loud.