Act One: The show begins with the portrayal of the passion of the Irish spirit in a fight for freedom. The journey begins before Christianity and chronicles historic events that depict the power and courage of the indomitable Irish spirit throughout centuries of hardship and oppression. From a darkened stage, the pulsating sound of taps signal the opening of a production that combines music, choreography, staging and costume design. Images from history fill the first half of the show, culminating in the birth of Ireland, the nation state, and a people emerging victorious from the jaws of defeat.

Scene 1 - The Heartbeat of the Tiger: The first sound heard even before birth, the sound of a heartbeat has always brought a sense of oneness and connection, drawing all those who hear it together into a common awareness of life, of humanity, of our common blood. A visual image accompanies the sound, as the beats are blazed across the big screen; the heartbeat speeds up and with a roar, the show begins.

Scene 2 - Dancing in the Dark: In darkness the feet are heard, rows of tapping feet in hard-shoe in a complex rhythm.

Scene 3 - St Patrick: In AD432 St. Patrick “banished the snakes from Ireland” and brought Christianity to the country. The “snakes”, a metaphor for the pre-Christian Celtic religious beliefs, are represented by sensuous women, confronted by a by barefooted monks. The still-young Christian faith is embodied in young male dancers; enraptured by the vibrant music of the Angelus, they disdain the temptation before them.

Scene 4 - The Sleeping Tiger: The focus remains on the past, as the big screen runs through nostalgic views of the Irish countryside. The Sleeping Tiger calls upon the hearer to look to the past for understanding of the present and of the self.

Scene 5 - The Vikings: The Vikings terrorised the Irish coasts through the ninth and tenth centuries, controlling Limerick and raiding far up the Shannon, aided like the Romans before them by Ireland’s lack of unity: with the island divided into feuding kingdoms, the invaders found allies in some areas while others suffered the brunt of the attacks. With Ireland finally united under the High King Brian Boru, Norse power in Ireland was ended at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. Boru, who died in the battle, is regarded as one of Ireland’s greatest heroes, and it might be expected that a dance number about the Viking age in Ireland would focus on this conflict, given how well Irish hard-shoe dance adapts to dramatisations of conflict and battle.

Scene 6 - Celtic Fire: With Ireland safe for the moment at least, the historical sequence is given a break as the energy of the show shifts into high gear with a live band performance number.

Scene 7 - The Garden of Eden: The dancers are costumed as flowers, butterflies, bees, and other denizens of the meadows and fields; despite its Biblical title, this is a classic pastoral number, a romanticised and idealised view of a world in perfect natural harmony. In one figure, the dancers wield clusters of ribbons in gestures reminiscent of Morris dancing, another dance form associated with the countryside; in others, they weave ceili-style patterns, their movements forming a living interlace as complex as the tree-of-life patterns from the Book of Kells, as interconnected within the dance as the living natural world is in truth.

Scene 8 - The Red Coats: The English intrusion into Ireland began in 1169, long before the era represented by the soldiers’ red coats and wigs; but from the beginning it followed a pattern of colonisation, dispossession and repression that varied little from the British colonialistic practices on other continents in later centuries. From Colonial-era America to the India of the Raj, the Redcoats represent a particular institutionalised brutality, arrogance and racism felt first and longest in Ireland; and the visual image of this costuming has resonance in every former colony.

Scene 9 - The Famine: Behind the thatched cottage the green fields and hills of Ireland have gone red, scattered with the gaunt black forms of blasted trees. Now the dramatic potential of the screens comes into full play: as the troop leader sets a torch to the cottage, flames dance in the thatch and glare out from the windows. One soldier kicks in the cottage doors, and smoke follows the dancers as they stagger or are dragged out a few at a time, ragged and desperate. The sky behind the cottage turns black, and attenuated spirit faces are seen rising like smoke from the blighted land. As the programme book details, the population of Ireland plummeted after the beginning of the Famine in 1845, with some two million people dying or emigrating in less than a decade, and another three million over the next half century; the current population is still only half its former total. The soldiers watch unmoved; when the ragged dancers approach them, appealing for help or seeking escape from the circle of starvation, they are pushed roughly back. Although the British rulers of Ireland did not directly cause the famine, during the years of starvation the country produced more than enough food for its inhabitants – produce that was sold overseas to the enrichment of mostly Protestant English landowners, while administrative bungling and intractable policy failed to address the suffering or prevent the devastation. Last to emerge from the cottage is Michael, dressed as a Catholic priest, carrying a rosary as he prays over the dying flock with a voice-over recitation from the Lord’s Prayer:

". . . as we forgive those who trespass against us; and deliver us from evil."

The soldiers encircle the priest and shoot him.

Scene 10 - Four Green Fields: In this song Ireland herself speaks in the voice of a “fine old woman”, lamenting the fate of the four ancient kingdoms of Ireland – Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connacht.

Scene 11 - Bloody Sunday: The notorious “Black and Tans” raided a Gaelic football match in Dublin in 1920, firing indiscriminately into a civilian crowd, an event variously known as Bloody Sunday or the Croke Park Massacre. The Croke Park raid, intended as a reprisal against Michael Collins’ rebel forces, left thirteen Irish dead and further inflamed the country. The scene is brief, the aperture of the cannon gapes larger and darker behind the oblivious innocent. At last he turns to see what is approaching behind him; the ball falls from his hands and bounces away unheeded. Even after the build-up, the blast when it comes is a shock.

Scene 12 - A Call to Arms: After the shock of the cannon’s roar has died down, a different voice is heard: Michael’s voice, reading the first lines of the Easter Proclamation.

"Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom."

The stage lights strengthen to show Michael, dressed in rough workman’s clothing, standing alone in a circle of opponents. The piece that follows presents a series of individual exchanges with the British soldiers, rapid-fire and aggressive; the individual soldiers are plainly outclassed.

Scene 13 - The 1916 Rising: With the Easter Rising of 1916, the Irish struggle shifted again from the slow grind of political negotiation to violent confrontation, as so often on the long road to independence for the Irish. From his base in the General Post Office of Dublin, Patrick Pearse announced the creation of the Republic of Ireland. Behind the dancers, the Post Office now appears on the big screen, and the digital fire of artillery shells and explosions form a chaotic backdrop to the number as the common men of Ireland face off with the British. On stage, as the final explosions roar, the combatants of both sides leap at each other one last time, only to fall and lie sprawled in indiscriminate death.

Scene 14 - The Banshee: Over the field of the dead appears the hovering figure of the banshee, a spirit from Irish folklore whose wailing is traditionally held to be a warning of imminent death, although older versions of the tale hold that the keening of the bean sidhe eases souls in their passage to the afterlife. In a departure from folklore, this apparition is not an old woman in rags, but a lovely young woman with long golden hair wearing flowing white robes.

Scene 15 - A Nation Once Again: Can the dead rest in peace unless Ireland is free? The first act ends not with a dance number but with a vocal performance, in another seamless segue from the preceding piece. Beginning with a single young man’s voice, the chorus of “A Nation Once Again” rings out in hope. The entire company appears on stage, singing. The Redcoats are gone, and men and women alike are dressed as the common folk of Ireland.

A nation once again,
A nation once again,
And Ireland, long a province, be
A Nation once again!

The Republic of Ireland gained its independence in stages, becoming a sovereign nation again in 1937 and finally achieving full independence from the British Commonwealth in 1949, a century and a half after having been relegated to the status of a province, and nearly eight hundred years from the date of the first English conquest.

Act Two: The second half is a celebration of modern Ireland, and new beginnings in America and across the globe. But the binding thread is the invincible spirit of the Celtic Tiger itself, weaving images into an exquisite tapestry of dance drama.

Scene 16 - Freedom: Airplanes cross the screen as a female soloist in the uniform of an Aer Lingus hostess appears, performing what should be the impossible task of step-dancing in four-inch spike heels. Behind her, aircraft hangar doors roll open, the music makes a radical break to a modern rock beat, and a troupe of pilots led by Michael, exquisite in a flawlessly tailored blue uniform and aviator shades. The number is almost immediately handed to the troupe again, the male dancers in airplane formation bearing the woman in flight across the ocean, flanked by soloists dancing in celebration of their own freedom.

Scene 17 - A New World: The big screen parades through a montage of flag images from the different nations whose emigrants have found their way to the US, ending with the flag of Ireland. As the flags on the screen melt into one another, four dancers present huge banners on stage – not the flags of any nation, but white banners, the blank page on which the future remains to be written.

Scene 18 - The Last Rose: Even as the new world is embraced, there is still a note of nostalgia. One of the most common themes in Irish folk lyric is loves separated – by class or circumstance, by misfortune or mischance, by time, by loss, by the ocean only one has crossed, with only memory to reunite them. Here this classic theme is given to the most classical dance treatment of all: a ballet pas de deux. Michael stands to the side and watches as a younger couple, brought to life by the music of the flute, take their turn in the eternal pas de deux. He stands instead as a Faery piper whose music creates a magical world where the lovers of legend return to life, reunited in youthful passion and delight – but only as long as the music lasts.

Scene 19 - Celtic Kittens: Nostalgia is left behind and the raw power of the fiddles is unleashed as the spirit of the Celtic Tiger is reborn into a new era. The music follows the traditional structure of a reel, but the choreography owes nothing to tradition: the tiger’s red eyes blaze again from the big screen as dancers and musicians, men and women alike dressed in tiger-print outfits, prowl the stage in a wild explosion of exuberant energy.

Scene 20 - Capone: Michael’s live solo on stage amongst jets of flame and exploding pyrotechnics. The historical setting of the number, named after the era’s most immediately recognisable figure, provides a style and context for this image – the gangland world of Prohibition-era Chicago was predominantly Irish, a blue-collar, working man’s world under the veneer of high stakes and high living. The solo leads into a magnificent showcase for the female chorus, applying the sexy sassiness and kinetic power and precision of Irish women’s hard-shoe to the brazen energy of jazz music and dance. Behind them, the big screen blazes through a series of urban images of flashing lights and neon signs, a sharp contrast to the quiet rural green of the first act.

Scene 21 - Forever Free: The last of the vocal numbers, “Forever Free”, returns to the theme of freedom on the most deeply personal level. This is not a traditional folk song; it links personal liberty with individual love. To see the complete wording of the song click here.

Scene 22 - Cowboy Cheerleaders: This ceili-style number features costumes modeled after the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders’, and dance moves and figures recalling cheerleading squad acrobatics, with recognisable elements from America’s own folk dance styles: square dancing, contra dance and country-and-western line dancing. The choreography flows effortlessly between styles, always finding common points on which to shift and blend, as the number of dancers in the interlacing figures steadily increases, and the changing stage patterns kaleidoscope effortlessly into even more complexity.

Scene 23 - These Colours Don’t Run: The band launches into a driving rock number as the big screen makes its own pictorial journey from the struggles of the past to the accomplishments of the present. Beginning with blurred black-and-white photos of the Famine years, through a montage of literary, political, cultural and sporting figures, Irish and Irish-American, the sequence celebrates the US as a country that welcomed the Irish, giving them a fresh start and an open horizon for advancement. From Joyce and Yeats to Pierce Brosnan, Bono, and the Chieftains, from Éamon De Valera and Michael Collins to John F. Kennedy, the sequence, like all of Act II, can be viewed as simplistically pro-American; or it can be interpreted as bearing witness to how the Irish spirit, having moved beyond its own past, has encountered and enriched the cultures of the world in general and the US in particular. [Note: This scene is not included on the DVD.]

Scene 24 - Yankee Doodle Dandy: Yankee Doodle Dandy hearkens back to an era in which patriotism itself was a simpler and more innocent emotion, free of partisanship, topicality or ideological agenda. This was Cohan's lifelong trademark, now difficult to recapture. In a world where patriotism is wielded as a weapon, we have all but forgotten what a simple, joyful feeling love of country can be. It is the heart’s pure love for a nation: not its leaders or politicians, not its ideologues, nor their causes and machinations. This is the love that is felt in the very soul of a land.

Scene 25 - Celtic Fire II: The band comes downstage, tearing into an electric medley of traditional pieces. The lead is shared and traded off amongst the instruments, but with a key difference when the guitarist is given the stage to himself for a searing Jimi Hendrix style solo. This solo [ truncated on the DVD] is deliberately varies according to performance and venue; for example US performances used “The Star-Spangled Banner” and in Canada, “O Canada”, played with equal verve, power and virtuosity.

Scene 26 - The Celtic Tiger: After a pause, the sound of the guitar returns – but no longer playing lead. Instead, emphatic distorted chords lay down a rhythm guitar line only: the finale has become a pure rock and roll number, and the lead is carried by the percussion. But the percussion is not provided by the drum set: it is in the sound of the dancers’ feet. The music of the band supports, emphasises, lends build and power – but it is the percussive dance, the sound of the taps, that plays the lead and carries the piece, providing theme and variation, complexity and colour. In this last number, the live sound of the dance has been integrated into the very structure of the music; rather than the dancers following the music, it is the music that accompanies the dance.

With the rebirth of the Celtic spirit as a force to be reckoned with in the modern world, the show and the dance have come full circle: the richly complex syncopated rhythm patterns of the finale include some of the same sequences used in the opening number, transformed by the journey and infused with the electric energy and bright promise of the new era. The show ends as it began, with the sound, the rhythm patterns of the feet striking the floor. We hear and see the spirit of the Celtic Tiger striding into the future, and every step is a dance step.