Talk:Michael Flatley

Birthplace

Michael was not born in Chicago. He was born in Detroit, as was his older sister Annie. His parents were married there in Saint Monica's Catholic Church on 25 August 1956. Michael's parents moved to Madison Wisconsin when he was quite young, and later moved to Chicago.

Michael's mother Elizabeth (aka Eilish) Ryan is the daughter of Patrick Ryan of Dranagh, County Carlow, and Hannah Lanigan. I don't know where the Mayo bit came from, but she's not from there.

I'm Michael's second cousin. My mother is his mother's first cousin, and my grandfather Jimmy Ryan was his grandfather's older brother. We share a common pair of great-grandparents, Michael and Eliza Ryan of Dranagh.

BillGawne 22:13, 24 March 2006 (UTC) Bill Gawne gawne@cesmail.net

I have heard Michael say in interviews that his father came from County Sligo, not County Mayo. Was Michael mistaken? Could someone else who knows him confirm this?

Cleanup

This article does not seem to conform to Wikiepedia's general format - the list of dated entries in particular. Also, some of the sentiments are unencyclopaedic, most notably the last paragraph. Blaise Joshua 15:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

That was an amazingly fast cleanup! Nice one : o ) Blaise Joshua 14:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Vesperholly 07:26, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup tag

I added a cleanup tag because this article needs copyediting. Mostly missing, misplaced or extra punctuation (especially around the citations), awkward and/or casual language style, and missing or extra spaces (particularly around punctuation). Anchoress 08:37, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 07:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Criticism?

Odd that there's no criticism section here. In fact, the whole thing seems to be a bit of a love letter. Flatley is derided by many for the cod-erzatz-commercial version of "Irish-ness" that the Riverdance (no criticism in that article either) show seemed to put forward. I grew up in Ireland, and many over there consider him to be a kind of self-serving egomaniac that grew fat from the "Celtic Tiger" and the American love for all things decorated with a Shamrock. The Riverdance show is not strictly traditional dancing, and nor is the music (and claims that they are merely "modernising" it are hard to buy - weakening it / diluting more like): it's a kind of money-led "American Idol" version of Irishness - listen to The Chieftans or The Pogues and then to the Riverdance soundtrack. There's a whole bunch of people that have "sold" their "Irishness" to the rest of the world , like a kind of fake plastic mysticism. Even the "traditional" dancing they are supposed to be doing, in a sense, represents repression in Ireland: if they were true artists, perhaps they would have addressed that. To call this art or traditional dance is like calling Justin Timberlake's backing dancer's "ballet dancers". Nothing negative in the article? Nothing about his ego, and the problems it has allegedly caused?

Call this an encyclopedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.158.233.89 (talk) 21:06, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

lol

"Michael Ryan Flatley (born July 16, 1958 in Chicago, Illinois) is an Irish step dancer from the south side of the country. His parents were from County Sligo and County Carlow. As a child, he moved to Chicago - the city which he considers his home town."

lol... Apparently he was born in his home town, and then adopted it as his hometown

"He began dancing lessons at 11 and, in 1975, became the first non-European to win the All-Ireland World Championship for Irish dance."

lol... Flatley is an Ethnic European, a so-called 'Irish-American', born in the United States of North America. His has homes in Ireland, he is or was engaged to an Irish girl and professes his Irishness. His Mother and Father are Irish born immigrants to the USA and therefore he is entitled to Irish and EU citizenship... I'd say he is a European born in the USA. Would'nt you? No lol.. what a mess this article is.

lol... He was born in 1958 and according to the article "began dancing lessons at 11 and, in 1969, became the first non-European resident to win the All-Ireland World Championship for Irish dance" so he won the contest in his first year dancing? [he'd have been 11 in 1969] Boru —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.234.248.31 (talk) 16:36, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Europe is a continent, not an ethnicity. Flatley is an American of Irish heritage. Drmargi (talk) 14:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

'America' is a 'continent' not a nation, And European is an ethnicity.

Green Fields of America

What about "Green Fields of America"? Here it says that Michael Flatley's first professional performance was with the Chieftains, but as far as I know he was touring with GFoA in late seventies. 140.163.254.157 (talk) 23:53, 22 July 2008 (UTC)an

Irish American

Dear me, Irish American is not an nationality nor is it an ethnic or genetic origin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.234.248.31 (talk) 21:07, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Official site (?) as source

Article has several cites from MichaelFlatley.com . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Reliable_sources says "Never use self-published books, zines, websites, webforums, blogs and tweets as a source for material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the biographical material." Not sure whether MichaelFlatley.com is okay or not. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 03:37, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Created Riverdance and other errors

Adding to the errors noted above, Michael Flatley did not create Riverdance. He choreographed the majority of the 7-1/2 minute Eurovision piece, but it was created by Bill Whelan. Please check the Riverdance article, or better yet, more comprehensive history of the production, reign in the adoration already noted, and get facts straight. Drmargi (talk) 14:36, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Bill Whelan is the composer of the score, not the creator of the show. 91.37.168.46 (talk) 19:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

You need to check your history. Whelan created Timedance, which later evolved into Riverdance. He hired Michael Flatley and Jean Butler to choreograph the Eurovision dance, but the overall concept and score were Whelan's. Under no circumstances did Michael Flatley create Riverdance. After reviewing the article history, I see multiple removals of the a credit for Flatley as creator; this indicates that fact is in dispute. Please check the procedure for reaching WP:CONSENSUS once a discussion is opened. It is considered edit warring to revert once a change is made and a discussion initiated. Please leave the article as is until concensus to restore the statement that he is the creator is reached. Drmargi (talk) 21:21, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

In this case I apologize for reverting the article to its previous state.

Still, Bill Whelan is the composer of the music and not the show's creator. To my knowledge he has never been credited as anything other than "composer". The selling point of Riverdance the show was Michael's unique style of Irish tap dancing and the choreographies he has created. 91.37.168.46 (talk) 23:06, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Bill Whelan created the concept, and the music on which they build the first performance and later the show. There has to be music and a story to tell, or a choreographer has no job to do. Michael Flatley was hired by Whelan and his team, along with Jean Butler, to do the choreography. His was not the original idea, unlike his later shows; he was hired to do a job, which he did brilliantly, without question. But it doesn't make him the creator of the show. I can't account for you not having heard of Whelan being anything but composer; he'd created Timedance for the 1991 Eurovision Song Contest in Ireland, and was approached to do something similar for 1994, and that was Riverdance. You've created an arbitrary criterion for who created the show that has no relation to actual events.

Your interpretation of what a creator is, and your interpretation of why audiences went to see the show is your opinion. It's not up to you to decide who created Riverdance on the basis of some arbitrary criteria you decide upon; it's well documented by reliable sources that Bill Whelan created the concept and score, onto which Flatley and Butler choreographed the dances as part of a team of creatives that included Anuna and the musicians. Their roles were important, as were the roles of the singers, drummers, lighting and set designers, and more. It was the whole package that people went to see, not just Michael Flatley; that's clear from the longevity of a show he left less than a year after it began.

I'd suggest you acquaint yourself with WP:RS, as well as the policies governing WP:POV and original research, either one or both of which can cover individual editors' interpretations of events. I would also suggest you acquaint yourself with the roles Moya Doherty and John McColgan played in creating the show, along with Paul McGuinness. The title of creator belongs to the person who gave substance to an idea and made it happen, not the person whose contribution gets the most attention. Drmargi (talk) 00:04, 2 December 2010 (UTC)