Talk:Riverdance

Cultural References?

This page really needs a "Cultural References" section. I mean, it's been parodied so many times, it's almost not even funny. Riverdanceman (talk) 03:03, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

While we're on the subject of "Cultural References", what the heck is an "interval act"? For that matter, what's an interval in this context? Ah...Great Britain and the United States: Two peoples divided by a common language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.109.15.55 (talk) 02:45, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

An interval at the Eurovision Song Contest between the competing songs and the voting, which is were Riverdance debuted. Also this is about Ireland not Great Britain--occono (talk) 01:04, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I may be wrong but...

Ehm, no offence but shouldn't this article contain information about the traditional Irish dance, since it is a "tiny bit" older than 1994 and since the band might be named after this dance? ... Or more precisely, why is the band/group/whatever on that site and why isn't there more info on the dance

it is a "tiny bit" older than 1994 - Is it? My understanding is that the original Riverdance act was created for the Eurovision interval act, with the rest coming later to make it a full length show.

It was created in late 1993 and early 1994, with initial recordings of the backing tracks in Spring 1994. the name "Riverdance" was not extant prior to then.194.46.181.201 (talk) 12:21, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Three rocks from the sun

There's a scene in this US sitcom, where the aliens exit the theatre after a performance of RD and do a jig on the sidewalk. Include under trivia. Surprised there's not more input on this article.--Shtove 20:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

DVD versions.

There appear to be several DVD versions - each flawed in their own way, usually related to editing. It might be useful to mention what DVDs are available, which version of the show they contain, and who the leads are.

Secondly, is there a (good) DVD with the Butler/Flatley show? All I can find is the Best Of, which has terrible editing and sync problems. 86.27.79.245 (talk) 23:11, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The original recording of the show was released only on VHS and has never been reissued on DVD, although excerpts of it have appeared on the DVD "The Best of Riverdance"194.46.181.201 (talk) 12:24, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Riverdance.jpg

Image:Riverdance.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 04:37, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Brendan Whelan

Who is Brendan Whelan? The link directs to an economics professor! AKoan (talk) 17:36, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Links

I removed the hyperlinks to the touring companies. The page specifies that Riverdance has three companies on tour, each named after a river. In the context of this page, the river names are in fact names of the Riverdance troupes. The hyperlinks to the articles about the actual rivers are not appropriate on this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Toshea1 (talk • contribs) 23:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup Required

I've placed the 'cleanup-reorganize' tag on the article as all of the information is under one heading that is 'History'. I will try and clean it up in to different sections but there may not be enough information to split it in to too many. I suggest we try and find some more information and references to make this article meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Kai Tatsu (talk) 08:51, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• I've also added a few other tags - the introduction to this article is too short and needs expansion, as well as the new 'Legacy' section, which lacks information and could be expanded. Kai Tatsu (talk) 09:07, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

"Timedance"

Riverdance has its roots in a three-part suite of baroque-influenced traditional music called "Timedance" composed, recorded and performed for the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest.

Riverdance is from the eurovision 1994 not 1981 Eurovision Song Contest unless "Timedance" is? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tcla75 (talk • contribs) 01:55, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Riverdance DVDs

[I copied this section from my talk page. Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(guestbook)} 13:16, 15 January 2017 (UTC)]

Hi Pdebee. I'd like to know, what are you sources for the content you added to the "Recordings" section of the Riverdance article? I'm a little confused by the DVD list as "Riverdance: Live in New York" and "Riverdance: The Show 2002" should be "Riverdance: Live From New York City" and "Riverdance: Live From Geneva" respectively, and the New York recording was from 1996 not 2002. By 2002, are you referring to the year the DVD was released? If so, you should be adding references because I can't find sources to back this up. Your list appears to be original research and is generally not acceptable on Wikipedia. Would you care to elaborate for me? Cheers. DaHuzyBru (talk) 05:00, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Dear DaHuzyBru,

Thank you for your helpful message. You're quite correct: I shouldn't have added some of the DVD releases until I was sure of the sources. What happened was: after adding the section for the CD (linked to the article I had just created for it), I thought it would be helpful to include a subsection for the DVD. Then, after looking at Amazon (mainly), I discovered the different DVD releases and, although I was somewhat confused by all the available releases, decided to list some of them as I found them there. I will work on this more later today but will add a template for now, which I will remove when done. Thank you for calling this out, and please accept my apologies for causing you unnecessary work.

With kind regards;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(guestbook)} 10:24, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Dear DaHuzyBru,
I have now added ref tags to the DVD entries, but only for those DVDs that were not already mentioned in the prose, since the latter are assumed to have been cited already. However, I could easily cite those as well, if required, or for consistency. Please note that I have had to rely on Amazon entries, due to the paucity of secondary sources (press reviews etc.) about these DVD releases. If Amazon is deemed unacceptable, then please remove any of these entries or just let me know and I'll do it myself. Just as an aside, I noticed that several of this article's other citations relied on riverdance.com, which seems like a primary source to me. Also, I thought YouTube was user-generated and therefore unacceptable for sourcing. So, if you wish to clean up those deviations as well, then please feel free to go ahead, as I am not particularly interested in stewarding this article.
Thank you once again for your advice concerning the DVDs, though.
With kind regards;
Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(guestbook)} 13:09, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Not at all clear what it is that you are citing. The Amazon cites look to me to be nothing more than free advertising for Amazon and that, I think, in not an appropriate use.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:30, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Dear Trappist the monk,

What I had hoped to achieve is simply prove the existence of all these DVDs and their release dates, as verifiable. However, if that now appears as mere advertisement for Amazon itself, which was never my intent, then I am absolutely fine about removing those DVDs of shows not already mentioned in the prose. Readers interested in Riverdance can find all those releases by themselves anyway, but I thought it would be nice to be more complete and show as many of them as possible. Thank you for your feedback. I am removing them now.

With kind regards;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(guestbook)} 14:38, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

 Done Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(guestbook)} 14:43, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi Pdebee. I have re-added those DVD titles to the section because I believe they are accurate, but I have moved "The Show" to a VHS section as there are no available DVD copies of that issue. I don't think the number in the parenthesis needs to reflect the actual year of release, because while "Riverdance: A Journey" is available on DVD, it's not clear when it was actually released on that platform – there were no DVDs back in 1994 and the source you cited merely says "see the video". I too have gone through Amazon and E-bay listings of these DVDs and the "Best of Riverdance" and "Riverdance: The Collection" can be backed up by Amazon regarding release dates, but "Riverdance: The Documentary 10 Years" can't i.e. both Amazon and E-bay list no year, making it the only dubious one.

Regarding the references in the article – I was the original editor who expanded the article back in 2015, so I was actually the one who added those references :/ Most of the YouTube links merely back up such performances, while the riverdance.com references were handy when dealing with the show's early timeline – there's nothing specifically wrong with primary sources, and there are a number of independent secondary sources as well. Overall, I appreciate your understanding and willingness to cooperate. I didn't mean to seem over protective of the article, although I do have a particular side interest in Riverdance. I think we have worked well together on this. All the best, DaHuzyBru (talk) 16:08, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Dear DaHuzyBru,

Thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to apply all these improvements and share the details with me directly via the above post. I am sure your greater knowledge of the subject has been most helpful to my efforts, and I agree with you fully that, together, we have added value to this article for the benefit of our readers. I agree with all the excellent tweaks you've applied, and thank you for restoring my earlier entries and for improving on them. With regards to Riverdance: A Journey, there is a release date of '5th August 1996' in Riverdance 20 Years, 2014 Press Information PDF, but I didn't use that because the other source said '1994'; I am very happy to leave you to decide which date (and citation) to use, although the 1996 date seems stronger to me, on the basis that it comes from the press kit issued by the primary source. Also, a "journey" would have to last some time to warrant its own documentary and, therefore, 1994 seems a bit early in the life of Riverdance. In any case, it is clear that a 1994 recording would have been released on a VHS tape (and not on DVD), but there seems to be no way of knowing for sure, unless one has all of these separate products (cassettes, VHS tapes, CDs and DVDs) on hand. Unfortunately, the book Riverdance: The Phenomenon by Barra O'Cinnéide did not discuss either the music or the recordings in any great detail, which I think was a missed opportunity. Maybe, one day, a better researched book will emerge on that side of the project.

As for my earlier comment on the other references, it's only that I would never use YouTube as a source myself, and would also try very hard never to use primary sources either. In any case, very best wishes of success in all your projects here, and very many thanks once again for your great help.

With kind regards;

Patrick. ツ Pdebee.^{(talk)(guestbook)} 17:16, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Publicity release—needs revision

This article is written in the breathless style of a publicity release. Most of it is a catalog of successful productions, casts, producers, theaters, many of which are not explained. It needs major revision to be acceptable as an encyclopedia article. In particular it should have more background and less excitement about personalities, few of whom are given a good reason for being mentioned. Zaslav (talk) 19:30, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

@Zaslav: I assume you are referring to the quality of sections such as "Musicians" and "Recordings"? I don't disagree with removing those sections, but the history section is adequate is it not? I have contributed largely to the article and I have put a lot of work into the history section. The height of Riverdance is between February 1995 and March 1996. Everything after is relatively uneventful notability wise. Any stage show hits its peak and then goes about its routine of performing. There's only so much background and notable occurrences that can be documented. Events such as the 2003 Special Olympics and even the 2013 longest line that you added to the "Legacy" section are sparing. Nothing about Riverdance nowadays is particularly noteworthy. What would you have done to the article? Riverdance is fairly niche – not many people are going to see this talk page post of yours and commit to an overhaul. I personally think it's pretty good – much better than it was a few years ago. It's well sourced, it's written in a neutral tone, there's nothing particularly glossy about it. I have tried to put as much emphasis on the glory of the early days as I can – after all, that is the "background" of the show. DaHuzyBru (talk) 05:21, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

DaHuzyBru: Thanks for your long reply. I was referring to the entire article. (I didn't add anything; that was someone else.) I don't agree it is in a neutral tone; it gave me the impression of being larded with superlatives (implied, mostly?). I think there is far too much detail about performance history, too much detail about how excitedly Riverdance was received (e.g., repeated citation of length of runs), and not enough explanation of, for instance, how it came to be (artistically; there is plenty of scheduling detail) and also what is distinctive about it, both of which would be more suitable to an encyclopedia and more interesting as well. Does this clarify my remarks? I hope so.

I don't know much about Riverdance except from advertisements and maybe a review or two (so I can't revise it myself). I'm reacting strictly to the tone of the article. I did get good factual information that helped me know what it was (and what the phenomenon was), but there was a lot more that wasn't needed. Zaslav (talk) 08:04, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

ANÚNA Insertions

For some reason Anúna have been removed from this article except to say when the group left the show. This looks like a deliberate omission, but assuming it is an error I have corrected it in relation to the single and the Eurovision Song Contest. While I don't have a source for correcting Prince Philip as being the royal in attendance at the Royal Variety, I can say that we shook his hand and it was Prince Charles... AnunaChoir (talk) 16:48, 7 March 2019 (UTC) I would also point out that ANÚNA are mentioned as a principal performer in the 2006 article on this site. AnunaChoir (talk) 16:50, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

And apologies - it was Prince Philip. ANÚNA were only present at the original Royal Variety appearance in 1994 and Prince Charles attended that. It was a long time ago.

The insertion of ANÚNA as a one of the featured artists as part of the Eurovision Song Contest 1994 (as confirmed by the actual broadcast itself), was undone by a later editor after I had inserted it. I've re-inserted the attribution. I don't believe that the editor has any justifiable cause for the deletion, nor appears to wish to engage further in any discussion on the matter on their talk page. The evidence of the actual broadcast is enough, but there are multiple sources including the actual programme of the Eurovision and contemporary reviews of the broadcast.Aisling at AnunaChoir (talk) 20:23, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

25th anniversary

Isn't anyone going to add information on the 25th anniversary show? Visokor (talk) 21:22, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

AI-generated tag

@Brezairola: Can you please return to this page and address the concerns raised here by Gurkubondinn. Thanks. DaHuzyBru (talk) 11:38, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

@DaHuzyBru, this is how I identified the WP:NOLLM problems of this user:

• 10:36Claude responded: Removed student theatre section - peripheral to subject's professional career and sourced only from student publicationRemoved student theatre section - peripheral to subject's professional career and sourced only from student publication
  — Edit summary of revision 1358989410 to Draft:Aisling McGlynn

• Revision 1361835238 of Draft:Lucy Champion was wrapped in a ``` markdown code block from a chatbot (evidently this is Claude) response to the user.
• Revision 1347861837 added c. 7 kB of text to the same draft in in c. 5 minutes. There is also currently one reference in this draft that returns a 404 not found error.
• Their next edit was adding c. 10 kB of text to this article a few days later.

There is no reason to assume that they have been using an LLM everywhere else, but for some reason decided to write c. 10 kB of text themselves for this article, and then go back and resume using LLMs/Claude everywhere else.

Unfortunately it was too difficult to undo their edits here, as too many subsequent edits have altered the text since then, so I just tagged the article instead. ‑‑gurkubondinn 11:49, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you very much for pointing out your concerns so clearly. I completely understand why the pattern of recent edits has raised questions, particularly the edit summary and Markdown code block issues on the draft pages. They were errors on my part, and I should have handled them quite differently in retrospect. I just want to clarify my position on this article. The Riverdance edits here were not generated or rewritten by an LLM. Any use of LLM tools was to check citations because many of the original citations were hard copy references and not available in straightforward online sources. In fact, one of them took an entire day to try and find a source for it. I accept that the way it appears in the edit history creates a very reasonable concern on your part. But I definitely don't believe that this Riverdance text itself should be treated as unreviewed generated content.

I won't remove the AI-generated tag myself. I'm happy to go back through my April 2026 edits to this article, section by section, on this talk page, and identify supporting sources for each claim if you wish. If any wording's unsupported, too close to a source, promotional, or otherwise a problem, I'm very happy to remove it or rewrite it. If you can point me to the passages you're most concerned about, I'll start there. Thank you.

Brezairola (talk) 12:08, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Come on now. That's clearly not completely truthful. Just the Claude response alone shows that. And even if it were true, it still would not be allowed by the WP:NOLLM guideline. I think that you should read the WP:USED-AI? essay. ‑‑gurkubondinn 12:16, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Just read as requested and thank you again for taking the time with this. Brezairola (talk) 13:12, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

And did you use an LLM, Claude or otherwise, to write (or help you in any way) this reply? ‑‑gurkubondinn 12:17, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm not a native English speaker so my text input can be a bit idiosyncratic. I always check spelling first and that sometimes reads as a bit odd I believe. As for being untruthful - how so? I'm not arguing with you at all. I shouldn't have used them for text input. But in this case there was considerable confusion as to sources due to the age of some of the references. Sorry if it appears as if I am being robotic.Brezairola (talk) 12:31, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

Tag has been addressed, content from pre-LLM edits has been restored. see here DaHuzyBru (talk) 10:05, 2 July 2026 (UTC)