From Chieftains to Dance ‘Lord’

NEW YORK —  In 1991, Michael Flatley was living in a modest apartment in Beverly Hills and touring as a featured dancer (and flutist) with the famed Irish musical group the Chieftains. It was a nice enough life for an Irish American folk dance champion but hardly the stuff of massive mainstream success.

Yet, just a week and a half ago, on St. Patrick’s Day, there Flatley was, on stage at Radio City Music Hall, preening and strutting like a rock star while 6,000 rabid fans roared his name. It was the end of two sold-out weeks of “Lord of the Dance,” his Las Vegas-style extravaganza, which arrives at the Universal Amphitheatre Thursday night for five performances, hot on the tapping heels of a Monday night Oscar appearance.

The 38-year-old Chicago-born son of immigrants is riding the crest of an Irish step-dance wave that first splashed ashore last year with the hit revue “Riverdance.”

Flatley, who was the lead dancer and one of the choreographers in “Riverdance” when it opened in Dublin, claims credit for creating the phenomenon. But, after six months, he left the show bitter over issues of artistic control. He is now suing the producers for the 2% of the show’s revenues, which he believes they owe him (up to “$5 [million] or $6 million,” according to Flatley).

Merle Frimark, a spokesperson for “Riverdance,” says: “It is the policy of the producers not to comment on these issues.”

But Flatley is not as reticent. “Certainly, absolutely, there can be no question as to who created the original ‘Riverdance,’ ” Flatley said coolly, sitting in a posh midtown Manhattan suite the day after the St. Pat’s performance. “My signature’s all over it, and I think that’s immediately apparent with the new show.”

In fact, the press has eagerly labeled “Lord of the Dance,” which opened June 28 in Dublin, as Flatley’s revenge. If so, it has its sweet side. In “Riverdance,” Flatley had to share the spotlight. In “Lord,” he is the oiled, bare-chested, name-above-the-title hero, leading a corps of 40 in a lightly plotted good-versus-evil battle of dueling dancers. Some critics have dismissed the show as cheesy and superficial, but it has proved to be a revenue bonanza, grossing $100 million so far on its international tour.

Flatley can afford to dismiss any idea of the show as payback, airily pointing out that while “Riverdance” is playing theaters, he has sold out arenas as large as 10,000-seat Wembley Stadium in London. “I have no hard feelings,” he said with a sly smile. “I’m on to different things.”

Dressed in trademark bolero-style jacket, black jeans and boots, the blond, blue-eyed dancer is a curious blend of elfin charm and braggadocio, somewhat muted from his having celebrated the night before into the wee hours.

Flatley clearly sees himself as the benevolent liberator of Irish dance: “All I know is that one day I went to Ireland and everyone was dancing like this”--he holds his arms rigidly at his sides--”and the next day we were headlines all over the world. I must have done something right.”

His opportunity came when “Riverdance” producer Moya Doherty, who had seen the dancer with the Chieftains, invited Flatley to Dublin in 1993 to perform in honor of Irish President Mary Robinson. The tumultuous reception for Flatley’s loose American-style dancing led to his partnering another Irish American dance champion, Jean Butler, in a Eurovision dance contest, which in turn planted the seed for “Riverdance” (in which Butler co-starred) and then “Lord of the Dance.” All of this has earned Flatley admirers, who see him as a purveyor of Irish pride, and enemies, who see him as an out-of-control egomaniac.

“I did it my way, which may be more flamboyant than the British press cared for, but it’s typically American,” he said of his male-diva stage presence. “This is the country of Muhammad Ali, Hector Camacho, Sugar Ray Leonard and Michael Jordan. [Audiences] pay a lot of money, and they want to see somebody out there walking the line, walking the edge.”

The boxing images are apt, not only because of Flatley’s scrappy reputation as temperamental and hot-headed (he’s gone through a handful of lawyers, managers and publicists and is enmeshed in a lawsuit over fees with John Reid, Elton John’s manager, who served briefly as his producer on “Lord”), but also because he first learned to fight with his fists, not his feet.

Flatley grew up in a blue-collar polyglot Chicago neighborhood, the second of five children born to a handyman and his wife who inculcated in their family a reverence and respect for Irish customs and culture, including competitive dancing. At first, Flatley wanted none of it.

“They used to call me ‘Mick’ at school, so I was in fistfights every day,” he recalled. “I didn’t want to know about Irish dance.”

At age 11, at his parents insistence, Flatley enrolled in dance classes and quickly excelled. He soon holed up in the family garage to practice the traditional moves--a ramrod straight body above intricately stepping and tapping feet. Winning was the goal, and by the time he reached 17, he was the first American All-World Champion in Irish dancing.

The jazzed-up version of step-dancing he delivers today, he says, is still echt-Irish.

“When the music starts, and I can hear the dancers moving like a powerful locomotive, my heart starts beating and I feel something passionate and ancient and deep being uncovered in me,” he said. “Frank McCourt [author of “Angela’s Ashes”] told me of a story in which a father, saying goodbye to his son and not finding the words, asks for them to dance together. The Irish dance to reveal something that can’t be expressed in words, all the pain and joy and passion.”

After “Lord of the Dance” finishes its 15-city tour in early 1998, Flatley will turn to other projects. He said his agent, Jeff Berg of ICM, is working on a film deal for him, and he has already completed a screenplay with a British writer whom he refuses to name. He says only that it is “a love story which will involve dance.”

An admitted control freak, he says he has no free time. He spends his rare leisure moments in flotation tanks focusing on his goals.

“I wake up in the morning and I have a big sign on my forehead that says, ‘What’s next?,’ and I go to bed at night and the ceiling says, ‘What’s next?’ ” he said, finishing off his third diet Coke. “The world is full of competition and I’ve never wanted to be second. Ever. That’s just the way I am.”

* “Lord of the Dance,” today-Friday, 8:15 p.m.; Saturday, 2:15 and 8:15 p.m.; Sunday, 7:15 p.m. Universal Amphitheatre, 100 Universal City Plaza. $35-$75. (213) 252-8497.