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The Chronicle Herald, Halifax,
Canada - October 31, 2007
OH, THOSE FLYING FEET
Devine, MacIsaac lead Tapeire
in magical music, movement.
By Andrea Nemetz
On a darkened stage,
lit by a single spotlight, a solemn James Devine
began to slowly tap out a rhythm.
As the beat speeded up, and Devine
began beaming, a whisper of recognition went through
the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium, becoming a roar of
approval.
What the audience was hearing was
the unmistakable beat of Queen’s hit Another
One Bites the Dust.
Surprises were the order of the night
Monday when Devine brought his two-hour show Tapeire
to Halifax.
A breathtaking showcase of flying
feet and musical magic, the show earned enthusiastic
clapping, whistles and sharp intakes of breath at
the skill of the performers.
Tapeire — which played to sold-out
audiences throughout its month-long run at the Edinburgh
Fringe Festival in 2006 — breathes new life
into the Celtic music/dance performance genre. It
effortlessly blends traditional and contemporary,
infusing the show with an edgy street feel.
Gone are sequins, ruffles and high
heels, replaced by jeans, camouflage pants and hoodies.
The simply-staged Tapeire has a rawness and innocence
missing from highly produced shows like Celtic Tiger
and Lord of the Dance that have played Halifax Metro
Centre recently.
Devine, a native of Ireland now living
in Edinburgh, Cape Breton fiddler Ashley Mac-Isaac,
now based in Toronto, percussionist Paul Jennings
and harpist Phamie Gow, both Scots, exuded a love
of performing.
The focus was largely on fingers and
feet — their images reproduced in black and
white on a giant screen, like a photography exhibit
in an art museum.
By turns the audience saw Devine’s
blazingly fast steps — he set a Guinness record
at 38 taps per second in 1998 — Gow’s
fingers lovingly plucking the strings of her harp
and Jennings’ hands tapping out the time on
a large block (at various times he also plays pots
and pans, the spoons and a typewriter in addition
to the drum kit and bodhran).
The screen also provided a link for
the story of the show which traced the history of
Irish culture from the Sean-Nos, where informal
dances took place by the hearth in stone kitchens,
through the dancing masters who travelled from village
to village teaching dance to peasants, to the ceilidhs
of a century ago, through to formal dance competitions
and modern experimentation with the form.
Historical photos and movies set the
scene which the performers brought to life in a
show featuring plenty of humour, an abundance of
energy and a blend of musical genres from hip hop,
to traditional Celtic, Broadway style tap and even
classical when MacIsaac takes a solo turn that includes
pieces from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.
MacIsaac, involved with the show since
its beginning last year, stepped in as a narrator,
a friendly, down-home presence getting one of the
night’s biggest laughs when he explained he
was demonstrating the original rap, donning a pair
of sunglasses, turning his trucker cap sideways
and unzipping his jacket to reveal a gold-emblazoned
T then going from what he called ""diddly-dee""
music to a riff on the Pussycat Dolls’ Don’t
Cha.
On the top of his form fiddling, he
also seemed to be enjoying himself immensely in
the theatrical sequences such as a recreated Irish
dance competition in which he’s the emcee,
Jennings the curmudgeonly judge, Gow the accompanist
and Devine the competitor.
The rules for the competition (or
feis) were displayed on the screen including such
instructions as: Thou shalt not raise ones arms,
steps are learned, there’s no room for improvisation
and appropriate underwear must be worn.
And Devine — a three-time world
champion by the age of 16 — gave a dazzling
demonstration of the highly technical dances.
Overall the show, which heads to Broadway
after the conclusion of a 15-date Canadian tour,
perfectly mixed dance and musical styles into a
thoroughly satisfying theatrical experience.
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