PARKINSON INTERVIEW
December 2005

Parkinson's introduction:

Michael Flatley is credited with putting Irish dance on the world map
and has returned to the international stage with his latest dance
extravaganza, The Celtic Tiger. A former amateur boxer, Flatley went from digging ditches to dancing for the President of Ireland then exploded into the public's psyche during the interval at the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. Out of the contest,
Riverdance was born and catapulted him to international stardom and
unreal wealth. A great believer in fate, he parted company with the
show's producers following contractual differences and went on to create
his own shows, Lord of the Dance and Feet of Flames.

Michael Flatley is a man with no boundaries. A pioneering and
imaginative dancer, he constantly pushes himself to the extreme,
dedicating his body and soul to performing. He is an uncompromising
artist, who never lets attention to detail drop. Once recognised as the
world's highest paid dancer, earning $1,600,000 a week, Flatley has his
legs insured for £25 million.

He is still fuelled by ambition, and next year will publish his
autobiography and plans to open a hotel in Las Vegas in the future. The
new production, The Celtic Tiger, allows Flatley to fuse his love for
dance and the Emerald Isle, making, what some commentators believe,
Irish history sexy. His epic homage is a hit and continues to astound
audiences with the spectacular that is Irish dancing for the 21st
century.

***

Parkinson: First the boxing champion who became Lord of The Dance. He's a
man who made Irish dancing sexy and at the same time a multi-million
dollar spectacle. It all began with the European Song Contest when the
world first set eyes on Riverdance, remember? Clip from Eurovision Song
Contest shown

Parkinson: The man who revolutionised Irish dance, Michael Flatley.
(Applause) I remember that moment, I remember sitting there that very
moment when you expect something ordinary in that break in the
Eurovision Song Contest and then this thing hit us and we all at home
went, 'Oooh!' like that, an extraordinary reaction.

Michael: It sure brings back memories.

Parkinsonl: I be,t and that was the beginning of it all wasn't it?

Michael: It certainly was.

Parkinson: Before we go any further, just to satisfy my own peculiar
curiosity, I understand your legs are insured for twenty-five million
quid?

Michael (with a grin): Yeah, if you break them I'll share it with you!

Parkinson: I just wondered who they arrived at this total of twenty-five
million quid, I mean how do they work it out, I mean why not thirty
million or twenty-three million?

Michael: I don't know how these business guys work it out.

Parkinson: And was it also true, I read that at one point in your career I
think with Lord of The Dance, which you entirely devised and produced
and all that, you were earning a million quid a week?

Michael: Yeah, I was very lucky, Michael, for a guy that was
broke for thirty-five years, God was smiling on me and things certainly
changed quickly and life is great, thank God.

Parksinonl: Well I mean for a guy who was digging ditches in Chicago
basically, your story is an extraordinary one. Before we talk about your
new project lets go back a bit and talk about that because it is an
exceptional story. Your mum and dad went to Chicago from Ireland in the
nineteen forties and you were born there and you had what four other
brothers there and your dad was a builder there he did all kinds of
building work and you basically worked with him didn't you?

Michael: That's true yes, my father's from Sligo and my mother's
from Carlow and they came to the United States in nineteen forty-seven
with nothing and my dad's my hero, he taught me the value of hard work,
determination and discipline and we dug ditches seven days a week, my
brother and I were in there with dad and I remember one Sunday we didn't
want to work, as kids we naturally wanted to go out and play ball or
something and my dad was in front of me about six feet under in this
ditch and I just got mad I said, 'Dad, why do we have to work every
Sunday?' And he turned around, threw down the shovel and said, 'So that
when you grow up you won't have to.'

Parkinson: That's great.

Michael: It's true.

Parkinson: And had you at that time seen something else you wanted to be,
you didn't want to be digging ditches like your dad, were you a dreamer
in fact?

Michael: I suppose so, all the way through school, all the way
as a young man, I always dreamed I could turn this dancing in to
something special and I always dreamed of putting on big shows and I
always dreamed of having that beautiful line of dancers and you know
even though I might have been labouring at the time my heart was in the
Albert Hall and in Carnegie Hall in New York, my thoughts were there and
I knew if I stuck with it long enough and followed that I could have it.

Parkinson: The only distraction you had it seems to me from reading about
you from your career, to be this dancer, which you've become, the
impresario, all that, was in fact the time you became a boxer. Was it
out of necessity you became a boxer, were you being bullied was that the
reason? It was a tough area you lived in, Chicago.

Michael: Yeah.. we were in a tough part of town, and you know my
dad took us off to boxing lessons to learn how to defend ourselves,
which was a great thing, I loved boxing and that was a great part of my
life and again it taught me the value of preparing and being ready. It
wasn't all great, when I first got in the ring I got hit so many times I
thought the referee was in on the act! (Laughter) But eventually we got
good at it and it was at the time when Mohammad Ali was at his prime and
all those great fights with Fraser and Foreman, so it was a wonderful
time and I'm really glad I did it, it was great.

Parkinson: But did you pretend to be a different person when you were
doing the Irish dancing than boxing, I mean was there a different
Michael Flatley involved?

Michael: I don't know if it was different but I certainly didn't
go around bragging to my buddies that I was dancing, in fact some of the
times I even fought under a different name because I was afraid to take
too much stick from the guys.

Parkinson: But just before that, what really amazed me was your
determination from a very early age because the ambition of every Irish
dancer was to win the World Championship, which are held in Ireland in
Dublin and you found some resistant to your talents didn't you, you had
to go back there three times and you actually lived the last time in
Dublin until you got it absolutely right and won the Championship, I
mean that speaks of a huge amount of faith and self-confidence.

Michael: Well it does, and you have to believe in yourself, but I
put in the work. I had done the work and the first time I was very
disappointed because I had won so many championships in America, I was
hugely disappointed and I worked twice as hard for the second time
around and no better results really so the third time I began to think
maybe I'm not thinking about it properly, some of my steps were maybe
too far out and the way I danced was, well, maybe a little too cocky, so
I had to go back and rethink the whole thing and so I got a great
teacher, Kevin Massey, one of the greatest Irish dancers of all time and
I went and studied with him and he was so good, he just taught me about
the rules and not to be getting ahead of myself and to focus on what was
going to win the title rather than what I thought was right.

Parkinson: And once you had won the title you were then liberated to take
the dance wherever you wanted to and you did to the horror of some
purists, 'the man who joined Irish dancing to rock and roll' and
'Michael Jackson enters the Irish jig contest' and all that sort of
thing was said about you. I mean what you did was make it sexy basicall,y
didn't you, because it was constrained, it was rigid, it was stitched
wasn't it? Because dancing's sex,y isn't it?

Michael: Well it should be, and you know, you go into any pub in
Ireland, everybody knows it's so full of laughter and fun and joy and
sadness and passion and everything, I couldn't imagine Irish people
dancing with no facial expression and their arms at their sides, so
naturally when I had won the world title I went off and began working on..
I guess my vision of what it should be and luckily I was with the
Chieftains who gave me every opportunity to do that.

Parkinson: And then Riverdance where you had these twenty-five world
champions who you had to convince that you could actually do it and
more, I mean how did you do it, win over their cynicism if you like?

Michael: Yeah, that was hard, the first day I met them I
remember walking down a broken old lane in Dublin, Digges Lane, where they
had this really battered old studio where I was going to meet these
twenty-five world champion Irish dancers and I hadn't even been in
Ireland in years, and I certainly hadn't danced here in years and years
and to say I was a little nervous is an understatement, I had no idea
how to approach it, I could hear them through the window, laughing and
having fun and for some reason that made me even more nervous and when I
walked into the studio everyone stopped and there was silence and I
didn't really know what to say, so I don't know why I did this, but I took
my shoes out of the old brown paper bag and just put them on, and I went
off and did the best stuff I could do for about forty-five seconds or a
minute and stopped and stared at them and then we all became sort of
best friends!

Parkinson: (Laughs) Like a sort of gunslinger, take me on!

Michael: Yeah I guess so, a little bit like that, I had to get
their respect and I didn't know how else to do it.

Parkinson: And you're forty-seven years of age now, I mean dancing is very
physical, it's a short life and a sweet life normally for a dancer so
how much long do you see yourself being able to do this very physical
thing that you do?

Michael: I don't know, Michael, I think I'll know the right time
when it's right, I think you just know that instinctively. Right now I
have to say I feel like a teenager out there, I love what I do, I've got
the greatest dance troupe in the world behind me, it's like living my
dream every day.

Parkinson: But do you ever look forward to the time when you don't have to
diet and look after yourself, where you can pig out?

Michael: That's my dream!

Parkinson: Is it really?

Michael: My one last dream in life is to have a sixty inch waist
and just sit around eating cheeseburgers and watch the ballgame on
Sunday afternoons and drink a few pints.

Parkinson: I don't think that will happen will it?

Michael: Oh I don't know, I'll start working on it right away!

Parkinson: Now this Celtic Tiger, this new show you've got, it's already
been on in New York and you're coming over here, you're doing a world
tour aren't you? And you're going to be here when?

Michael: April 22nd, we start the English leg, I think
we're going to do a preview in Ireland, I think we've just added one, at
The Point, scene of the crime where it all started, and we're at
Wembley on the 26th, but there's a run of dates, Glasgow, Sheffield,
Newcastle, Birmingham, Manchester, the usual suspects.

Parkinson: Alright, well Michael Flatley, we look forward to seeing you
then with your new show in the new year but in the meantime… thank you
very much indeed, Michael Flatley. (Audience Applause)

http://parkinson.tangozebra.com/guest_transcript.phtml?guest_id=106

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