Heartbeat of Home

I saw one of the previews last week. Overall I found it to be ok with enjoyable parts.

My main problem with it, is the seemingly lazy way it is put together. It's from the same producers of Riverdance, and if you are familiar with that show then 'Heartbeat of Home', is just a rehash of the the same theme - The Irish travelling away from the homeland meeting other cultures and mixing it up with different dance styles. In fact Riverdance did a much more coherent job. This is more like a variety show of different dance numbers.

Now the dancing itself is highly impressive; the Spanish dance, Latin American dance, contemporary dance - all great. Hard shoe Irish dance will always be a crowd-pleaser, and a lot of the footwork is phenomenal. The Irish dance choreography was a little predictable and I would have liked to see better integration with the other styles.

Lastly, I found most of the music to be on the bland side; also there was a pet hate of mine, the show trying (desperately perhaps) to get the audience to clap along to band numbers and to stand at the end. They really don't need to, it's very hard not to get carried away with Irish music and have a good time. But here there seemed to be a purpose to impose an atmosphere or mood, rather than allow one to grow organically.



I loved this!!!! Highlight of the show, so clever.

Afraid I found it very poor - the Irish dancing was good but a lot of the other styles (the Latin especially) were messy, and the whole show lacked coherence and direction. It was all just a bit of a muddle and unengaging.