Riverdance to tour US with group's first Black female dancer
NEW YORK (AP) — When the Irish dance troupe Riverdance kicks off its 25th anniversary North American tour later this year, someone special will be in its high-stepping cast: the troupe's first Black female dancer.
Virginia-born Morgan Bullock, who says she's been mesmerized by the dance style since she first saw it at age 10, will be making her professional U.S. stage debut in the production. She recently completed a United Kingdom tour with the show.
“Irish dancing in general is just something that I’ve felt deeply since the first time that I saw it — it was something that I was supposed to be doing,” she says. “For one reason or another, it has stuck with me.”
The tour starts March 4 in Salt Lake City, Utah, and will make stops in cities including Boston; Springfield, Illinois; Pittsburgh; Buffalo, New York; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Toledo, Ohio; Des Moines, Iowa; Kansas City, Missouri and Birmingham, Alabama.
“I just feel so honored and so excited to be a part of the show as it’s returning to American audiences,” says the Virginia Commonwealth University graduate who studied at the Baffa Academy of Irish Dance. “I hope that the tour reaches even wider audiences.”
While Bullock was known to producers since she attended a Riverdance summer school in Boston as a teenager, her profile exploded when TikTok videos of her high kicking and tapping to hip-hop songs like Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage” and Doja Cat and SZA's “Kiss Me More” went viral. Those videos helped serve as her audition tape.
“Besides the talent that she is, her personality and what she stands for as a human is what we’re all about," says Padraic Moyles, the show’s executive producer and director. "That is one of the major reasons why we felt it’s time for Morgan to be in the show.”
Bullock's inclusion...