Director Brad Macdonald, principal dancer Jude Flurry and lead choreographer/ dancer/ singer Vienna Flurry told David Hennessy about their show Celtic Throne- Psalter of Ireland which has been described as a combination of Riverdance and Hollywood or a West End show.
An Irish dance show with a difference is about to take the UK by storm.
Celtic Throne—Psalter of Ireland, a US-based Irish dance show, will embark on its UK tour beginning 22 June in Birmingham.
The show tells the epic story from the mysterious Irish annals: The incredible history of Ollav Fola, an ancient sage and legislator who brought the legacy of one of the world’s greatest kings to Ireland.
The music has been written by Brian Byrne, the Golden Globe nominated composer who has worked across theatre, Hollywood films, and with performers such as Bono and Sinead O’Connor. Byrne also wrote the music for the acclaimed Irish dance show, Heartbeat of Home.
Celtic Throne also combines the spectacle of Irish dance shows and fused it with acrobatics and martial arts, innovative choreography, an elaborate set, dramatic lighting and special effects, and cinematic video storytelling to create a show unlike any you have seen before.
Celtic Throne has previously toured the US to great acclaim.
It is led by siblings Jude and Vienna Flurry who have been mentored by a former world champion Riverdance star.
Director Brad Macdonald, principal dancer Jude Flurry and lead choreographer/ dancer/ singer Vienna Flurry told us all about the show.
Where did the show come from?
Brad: “Well, Celtic Throne—Psalter of Ireland is the second Irish dance show that we’ve created.
“We had- We call it Celtic Throne 1- The Royal Journey of Irish Dance.
“That originally came about five and a half years ago.
“Jude and Vienna and a bunch of families here in America were all doing Irish dance.
“We have 30 or 40 kids that do Irish dance and we’re associated with a theatre here in Oklahoma.
“Mr. Flurry, who runs the overall theatre programme and the dance school just thought, ‘Could we do a dance show?’
“And we actually reached out to some composers, some musicians.
“We can dance but to dance, you need great music so one of the musicians that we reached out to was Brian Byrne.
“Brian replied to our email and we learned that he lives about 30 minutes from our dance studio here in Edmond, Oklahoma which was a shock to us all.
“We thought he would live in Dublin or maybe Hollywood.
“Brian was super positive and he wrote a track for us which was incredible.
“And then we said, ‘Well, we want to do a show. Would you be interested in writing all of our music?’
“And he said, ‘Yes’. And that’s how Celtic Throne came into existence.
“We toured the first show around the states for five years.
“And then 2023 we thought, ‘Let’s do another show’.
“And that’s how Celtic Throne- Psalter of Ireland began to take off.
“We developed the narrative and Brian wrote all of the music.
“Celtic Throne really began in England.
“We were all living in a little a little town called Wootton Wawen about 30 minutes south of Birmingham.
“Jude and Vienna and my kids attended a dance school, the Carey Academy in Birmingham, for about eight years so it kind of has English roots in some ways.”
Does it feel like coming full circle bringing your tour here?
Brad: “Yeah, it is.
“There is something poetic about it.
“We drove down the M40 four or five times a week for years and I don’t think any of us ever thought, ‘We’ll have a show in 2025 and we’ll be performing in Birmingham’.
“But it makes those late nights driving to dance class worth it, pretty rewarding.
“We’re bringing a show back in June.”
What is the Birmingham connection? You were based there for a number of years, is that it?
Brad: “We were there from 2014 until 2021 and then the dance school, Carey Academy, led by John Carey, the eight time world champion Irish dancer, was in North Birmingham.
“The guys would travel up there three or four times a week in the evening to take lessons from John so Birmingham was kind of like our stomping ground for nine years.”
Jude and Vienna would learn from world champion and Riverdance star, John Carey.
Vienna: “But being able to take lessons from someone who’s just so good at what he does, we learned a lot.
“And I would say that he taught us a lot in preparation for the show.
“I mean, he didn’t know that we were going to do a show, and neither did we, but he was just so good at what he does and so passionate that I would say that both of us learned a lot from him and things that we could put into practice in choreographing and making a new show.”
Brad: “Honestly we couldn’t be doing what we’re doing without John Carey and his experience.
“I mean, Jude is a top five dancer in the world.
“He’s a very good dancer and we have a couple of other top 10 in the world dancers.
“And a lot of the credit for that goes to John Carey and our time at Carey Academy in Birmingham so I think without those years living in Birmingham attending Carey Academy, I don’t think we’d have a dance show to be honest.”
You describe this show as combining something like Riverdance with the drama of a Hollywood or a West End show..
Brad: “Yeah, that’s spot on.
“These two, all of us really but these two in particular grew up on Lord of the Dance, Heartbeat of Home, Riverdance, all of the musicals so it’s years of watching and enjoying Irish dance and theatre converging into one show.”
What have the reactions been like?
Brad: “People are overwhelmed. It’s unexpected.
“The show isn’t really well known.
“We run ads and people see Irish dance and here in America, people love all things Ireland.
“Celtic is a buzzword.
“I mean, you could put Celtic on a loaf of bread and it will become the best selling bread in the world.
“People buy tickets because they love Ireland but they don’t know what to expect and almost everyone at the end of the show will say something like, ‘That was incredible, way better than what we expected’.
“I would say that’s probably one of the main pieces of feedback we get.
“It is, ‘That was so much better than what I expected’, which is encouraging.”
Vienna: “And every year it’s grown in popularity too.
“The first year, it was a very small tour but then the summer after that, it was more cities and being able to perform at the Ryman was a really good opportunity just to promote the show as well because obviously that’s just such a historic theatre.
“There’s a lot of people that would love to perform there but it’s just not possible.
“So every tour has been more successful than the one before.”
The Ryman is something in itself, isn’t it? That must have been surreal..
Vienna: “Oh yeah, it was amazing.”
Brad: “It was incredible. And a lot of our kids are younger so they don’t really appreciate the historicity of the Ryman.
“Our kids were walking around Nashville, and people were asking, ‘What’s the shirt?’
“’It’s Celtic Throne we’re dancing at the Ryman’, and all of these people were like, That’s incredible. Do you know how special that is?’
“And it began to dawn on the troupe, ‘Oh wait a minute, this is a totally unique opportunity’.”
Jude: “We had a group of our dancers go into restaurant and in Nashville they have musicians play in every restaurant.
“And one of the musicians was talking with some of our dancers and he was like, ‘Where are you guys performing?’
“And they said, ‘The Ryman’.
“He was like, ‘Are you kidding? All of us are trying to get into the Ryman…’
“And there’s a little seven year old sitting over there in a T-shirt who has no idea what the Ryman is or why it’s special who’s performing there.
“It’s kind of crazy.”
Martial arts also comes into the story and members trained with a U.S. Olympic Taekwondo coach for some of the sequences. ”
Jude: “There’s some martial arts, acrobatics.
“There’s technology.
“We have a really high tech screen behind us with some cutting edge graphics on the back too.
“And then live music in addition to Brian’s score.
“So my contribution, besides Irish dance, is more in the martial arts and I do some ballet tricks as well.
“And then my co-lead Isaac does more of the flips and acrobatics and stuff.
“But that’s something that we’ve had to develop over the past five years.
“We actually had an Olympic taekwondo coach.
“He’s the US Olympic taekwondo coach who taught us some martial arts for the show and then bo staff fighting as well.
“There’s a whole choreographed staff fight in this show which is really, really high risk and a little bit scary but nothing’s ever gone super wrong in a show.
“I don’t know every show out there but to my knowledge, it’s not been done before.
“When you have choreographed fight scenes like this, it’s usually in a movie.”
Brad: “These guys literally have staffs and you can hear it.
“They’re literally hitting and you can hear.”
Vienna: “We’re not faking it.”
Jude: “If he doesn’t block, I will hit him. It will hurt a lot.
“It’s happened in practice so we’ve choreographed a fight scene with staffs and we’re doing it live, it’s not recorded like it would be in a movie where you can edit it and pick the best take.
“We have to perform it every night and it’s interesting too because the audience at that point in the show, they’re cheering for the show, not like, ‘Oh, this is a great performance’, but like it’s a great sporting event and they’re cheering for their favourite to win.
“That is a really high energy part in the show and I don’t think people have really ever seen that live before our show.”
Vienna: “People are more invested in the story of this show than in any other Irish dance show partly because this actually does have a story.
“I guess with Lord of the Dance, there’s a little bit of a good guy/ bad guy, good facing evil and stuff like that but I feel like we are really trying to tell a story with this show and people get invested in it.”
Brad: “Yeah, it’s more like a musical in that sense.
“Jude is the main character.
“He’s Ollav from Irish history and you follow his story from start to end.”
The troupe consists of more than 30 Irish dancers, ranging in age from 24 to just 5 years old.
Brad: “This is another thing that separates us from terrific shows like Riverdance and Lord of the Dance: We have children in different spots in the show.
“I mean, our audiences just love it.
“I mean Jude is doing these sensational, incredibly difficult Irish dance music.
“Isaac is like doing flips over the stage but then a seven year old comes along with blonde hair, and she’s the one that kind of melts the hearts of the audience.
“The kids are in three or four numbers, they’re not in a lot of the show, but when they take the stage, they really are popular.”
Vienna: “And they love it too.
“They love the showmanship aspect of it.
“It’s as if something happens as soon as they’re on the stage and they just turn it on.
“They really throw themselves into it.”
And they have no hang ups or nerves or anything so they can just enjoy it…
Jude: “We haven’t really had any nervous breakdowns or anything from the kids.
“They handle the pressure really well.”
Vienna: “I feel like maybe because you’re older and there’s more pressure on you, but I think we get nervous before shows but I feel like the kids are just kind of happy go lucky.
“They’re just excited to get in front of people and dance.”
Brad: “Like you say, that innocence and not really being aware of what’s really happening here, it does give a nice freshness and innocence to their dancing.”
Obviously you two are siblings, Jude and Vienna and you go back a long way with Brad as well.
Is there a real family feel about the whole troupe?
Jude: “Oh yeah, yeah. It’s totally a family show that is also one of the things that sets us apart beyond just the young people, there’s actually a part of the show where we sort of break the fourth wall and just introduce the audience to all the families and we explain who’s related to who and this is a family: Here’s their cousins, here’s their other cousins and their parents are backstage helping out. Their dad is making food for the troop or whatever it is and that really is the secret to all the personality and charisma that comes out on stage is that we are a family.
“We grew up together.
“We genuinely love each other and love spending time with each other, and then when we go out on stage together, it’s just so much fun because of that.
“It really is a show that’s produced by families and for families as well, families can come and there’s something in there for people of all ages, from grandparents right down to very, very young children.”
Brad: “I was just going to say most of the crew is like a parent of a dancer.
“That’s how family connection it is.”
Jude, Vienna and the rest of the troupe were inspired by Michael Flatley and what he did to bring Irish dancing to the forefront..
Jude: “Another thing that was inspiring early on was a documentary called jig which had John Carey in it.
“We watched that before moving to England and we thought, ‘Man, wouldn’t it be awesome if we could take lessons from John Carey?’
“And then two or three years later…”
Vienna: “We didn’t really know about him until that documentary came out.
“I remember dad being like, ‘Yeah, it would just be amazing if you guys could take from him…’
“And it was kind of like a pipe dream type thing, like there’s no way in a million years that would ever happen.
“And then when we found out we were moving, I think both of our parents were like, ‘What in the world? This could actually come true type thing’.
“So it’s pretty amazing.”
I asked you about reactions to the show before and I nearly wonder if, do you hear the reactions as you go along? Is there audible gasps at times, involuntary yelps, all of that?
Jude: “Yeah, again, it feels like a sporting event.
“It’s that kind of energy in the theatre.
“Yeah, we have people cheering the whole time, not just at the end of numbers.”
Brad: “And we encourage it and we love it because these guys are professionals but they don’t have 20 years’ experience in theatre so to hear the audience hooping and hollering and clapping-“
Vienna: “We feed on it.”
Brad: “It really encourages them and they just get better and better.
“You can see their confidence growing with every round of applause.”
You’re bringing it to the UK, is there plans to take it to Ireland as well?
Brad: “Yeah, we would absolutely love to take a show to Ireland.
“The UK is what we’re calling a landing tour.
“It’s just six shows in the six main cities and I think our hope is that if it goes well and the numbers are there and everything adds up that we can absolutely bring it back to England and then absolutely bring it to Ireland.
“I mean that would be the ultimate, The Gaiety theatre in Dublin.”
Vienna: “That would be amazing.”
This is your second show, will there be a third instalment?
Brad: “I don’t know, a third show hasn’t come along yet.
“I feel like Celtic Throne-Psalter of Ireland has a lot of legs left in it and it is a pretty exhausting process, physically but also emotionally and mentally.”
Vienna: “Making a show takes a lot of effort and time and money but it’s awesome.
“It’s a super cool process to be a part of.
“I feel like all of us that are involved in it are very creative in different ways and so just working together as a team, trying to create something that’s brand new and different from the first show but different from other shows out there as well.
“It’s a pretty awesome process to be a part of.”
I think that was the wrong question. I’m getting a sense that this is your show. You’ve found your show..
Brad: “It’s a really good way of putting it. We’ve found our show.
“Everything we did with Celtic Throne and the Royal journey of Irish Dance, it did really lead to this, culminated in what we’re doing now.”
Vienna: “Our first show was a great show but this one’s just better.
“I think we’re excited to show people something they’ve never seen and I think it did lay a foundation, not only for the dancers but even choreography wise.
“I feel like we grew as choreographers.
“The kids have grown as performers and because when we first started, it was a little rough but every year, it’s gotten better and I feel like there’s just elements and aspects that we have in this show that thinking back five years, we wouldn’t have been able to do, but the first show laid that foundation and then each year we built on it and then just gotten better as dancers and performers so it makes the second show possible.”
Brad: “Yeah, the first show was like a qualifying round and now we’re in the finals.”
Celtic Throne- Psalter of Ireland tours the UK in June/ July.
Tour Dates
22 June Birmingham Symphony Hall
24 June Manchester Bridgewater Hall
26 June Liverpool M&S Bank Arena
29 June Leeds First Direct Arena
1 July Derby Vailant Live (formerly Becketwell Live)
3 July London Eventim Apollo
For more information, click here.
