‘Riverdance’ stops in Spokane this weekend

The North American tour of “Riverdance,” which stops in Spokane for five sold-out shows this weekend, is billed as the “farewell” tour.

But it’s a mighty long farewell, scheduled to last three years. The Boyne touring company (each company is named after an Irish river) plans to make one final visit to almost every city it has played in North America before step-dancing off into the sunset.

Well, not exactly the sunset. One company will continue to tour Europe and other companies will move on to other continents, including Asia and maybe even South America, where the show hasn’t already played multiple times in every market.

This will be its fourth visit to Spokane, having stopped by in 1998, 1999 and 2004.

The “Riverdance” people must be subscribing to the old show-biz axiom, “Leave ‘em wanting more,” because the local market is still not satiated. All five shows this weekend, totaling about 12,500 seats, sold out weeks ago.

That’s a testimony to the enduring popularity of what seemed, in 1994, like the quirkiest kind of long-shot.

At the time, Irish step-dancing was a quaint folk art, not a multimedia sensation. Irish actress and producer Moya Doherty took a gamble and produced an intermission number featuring Irish step-dancing for the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. It lasted seven minutes.

The audience went crazy. They loved the sprightly music, the intricate footwork and the rigid upper body discipline.

It was soon expanded to a full-length show, with high-end staging and lighting effects, which had smash runs in Dublin and London in 1995. Lead dancer Michael Flatley defected after the original Dublin production to form his own, somewhat similar show, “Lord of the Dance,” but that one did not fare as well as “Riverdance” in terms of longevity and critical acclaim.

“Riverdance,” with help from PBS specials, went on to conquer North America and the rest of the world. You might say it spawned an Irish cultural revival, leading to the popularity of such acts as the Irish Tenors and Celtic Woman. (The latter returns to the Spokane Arena on April 24.)

The Boyne company tour, which arrives here tonight, will include 29 Irish dancers, a five-member band, two vocal soloists, a flamenco dancer and a troupe of eight Russian dancers.

Once again, audiences can expect a dazzling light show, the catchy and evocative tunes of composer Bill Whelan and, above all, the flashing feet of that wild Irish chorus line.