Taking to the Riverdance stage: LauraLynn mums dance with the stars
Amy-Mae Dolan from the cast of Riverdance training Anne-Marie Gleeson, right, Kate Early, Monika Cwiok and Alyson Farrell who are all LauraLynn mums.
Last Monday morning was special for Anne-Marie Gleeson. She got the bus from her home on Dublin’s Northside and arrived at Liffey Studios early enough to grab a coffee.
Anne-Marie is one of four LauraLynn mums currently in training to join the cast of Riverdance on stage in the Gaiety Theatre this Thursday evening.
“I tailgated behind someone in a Riverdance t-shirt — it turned out to be one of the other mums,” says Anne-Marie, recalling that first morning of rehearsals: the giggles, shared nervousness, the first-day-at-school feeling.
The idea for the project, which sees the four mums have this once-in-a-lifetime experience, arose after LauraLynn, Ireland’s Children’s Hospice, became the official charity partner of Riverdance.
Michelle Hartnett, the senior play therapist at LauraLynn, says part of her role is to find ways to include families in extraordinary experiences, push boundaries on expectations, and create a space that encourages families/a family member to lean out of “everyday activities” into unfamiliar territory.
“It’s about pushing the boundaries on everyday expectations so that magical experiences can be available for LauraLynn families. A lot of these parents’ lives are lived in a medical environment. This is about giving them a space to be celebrated as a family, as an individual, in a really unique way,” says Hartnett.
For Riverdance executive producer Padraic Moyles, a former lead dancer with the cast, the project is about trying to make something special for parents, who are full-time carers, and who sacrifice so much. The main question on his mind was "what could we do for them that would give them an outlet, something different to think about, a different challenge?”
Anne-Marie’s son, Niall, 2½, is severely disabled, intellectually and physically, and has just survived liver cancer. “He had been through an awful lot, and then cancer came. He finished cancer treatment in March and now he’s slowly getting back to a baseline — a Niall baseline,” says his mum.
Whenever Anne-Marie’s husband, Gerard, stayed in the hospital with Niall, she was home with the couple’s four-year-old daughter, Róisín.
“Part of my routine with her then was to have great fun together — dancing, singing. And in the top 10 of our Spotify playlist was Riverdance!”
It's no surprise that when Anne-Marie heard of a chance to perform on stage with Riverdance, she immediately applied. “I think Róisín’s jealous she’s not going to be up there,” she says, explaining why she was nervous pre-rehearsal.
“I didn’t know any of the girls I’d be doing it with. Riverdance has excellent dancers who’ve sacrificed a lot to get where they are. And I was nervous about my legs, whether I’d be physically able to do it! But it should help that I do an awful lot of yoga. Yoga’s something I can do at Niall’s bedside. You can even do it on St John’s ward, the cancer ward in Crumlin.”
Kate Early’s son, Jack, has been availing of LauraLynn services since he was a baby. The 11-year-old has diagnoses of epilepsy, respiratory and feeding issues. “He’s doing quite well,” says Waterford-based Kate.
Describing how LauraLynn is “a second family, a lifeline” for her and Jack, she says:
“I’m a single mother and full-time carer to Jack. He’s very much to the clock around his feeding and medication. When he goes to LauraLynn, I don’t have to look at the clock. I can just shut off and do something for myself.” Amazingly, Kate saw Riverdance in rehearsal prior to their 1994 Eurovision performance.
“A friend got us backstage to see the rehearsals.” Watching the iconic performance as a 14-year-old at home on TV was huge. “I was blown away. It was so magical. Little did I think I’d be on stage with Riverdance one day!”
Along with Anne-Marie and Kate, the other two mums making up the quartet in training with Amy-Mae Dolan — a Riverdance lead dancer and dance captain — are Monika Cwiok from Meath, and Galway-based Alyson Farrell.
For each mother, arriving at rehearsals the first morning, there was only one familiar face — about a month earlier the group had been put in pairs to try out their dancing shoes. But the team soon gelled, says Michelle Hartnett.
“I watched four mums walk into the studio that first day as four individuals. As the day unfolded, I watched them support each other, saw them leave together as a group with a shared vision.” “Amy-Mae thought we were friends from before — we had that good a rapport,” comments Kate, who did Irish dancing classes as a child, and who always gets up to dance at weddings. Some of the Riverdance moves are challenging, she acknowledges.
“There are a lot of fast-paced steps. There’s one we’ve nicknamed 'the swing step' — you have to swing your leg up and then back, and then up again — a bit challenging! But Amy-Mae’s a very good teacher — she has broken it down really well.” “Amy Mae is really positive and enthusiastic and has a lot of confidence in us,” agrees Anne-Marie.
In total, the mums are doing 10 hours of rehearsals spread over five days. It has been great fun, says Anne-Marie.
“We’ve had an awful lot of laughs, trying to coordinate ourselves, remember our steps, what’s next, right foot, left foot, jumping, hopping. There’s one where we click our heels together. The little sequence moving up to that is very difficult, 10 seconds of it. We call it the Dorothy move.”
Padraic Moyles says the mums have a very challenging task, but who better to face it? “They’re so determined, so focused on the detail — they don’t want to take any shortcuts.” When he thinks of them in two days’ time, on stage in front of a full Gaiety Theatre audience, their families in that audience, he wonders what kind of moment it will be for them, and he thinks it'll be incredibly special.
“It will be a moment the family experiencing it will never forget. It could be a talking point for years to come.”
This is another reason for the step-beyond-your-comfort-zone experience, says Michelle.
“We know from research done within children’s palliative care that our footprint, our impact, is important. It’s about having that narrative of things we have done.” It’s why Michelle has gifted each mum a journal in which to record the experience.
“It’s a keepsake for the mums, allowing them to capture their feelings and thoughts — and to reconnect with the moments long after the experience.”
For Kate, it all feels unreal. “I’m so excited to be doing it, to be on stage with Riverdance, being able to get up and dance with the professionals. I can hardly describe it.”
First-morning butterflies aside, Anne-Marie muses on why she’s embracing something so boundary-pushing. It comes back to being mum to Niall. “Having a LauraLynn child, your outlook on life changes. You just decide ‘I can do this, and I will’. Because you’re able for much more than you think you are.”
- The Riverdance all-day dance-a-thon fundraising event for LauraLynn will feature 400 children from dance schools across Ireland dancing outside the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, on Thursday, June 23.
- That evening, as Riverdance celebrates its 25th Anniversary Show, these proud LauraLynn mums will join the cast on the Gaiety stage - see riverdance.com.
- LauraLynn relies primarily on fundraising to fund its hospice services – visit lauralynn.ie.
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