At the heart of the dance show Heartbeat of Home are, naturally, dancers, carried along by all manner of music, including Latin and Afro-Cuban. That much is obvious to anyone seeing the show, which is now touring China, but hiding in the wings is the story of the huge challenges that producers faced.

The director, John McColgan, says that in bringing to life the show, the offspring of the spectacularly successful Riverdance, it took more than three years, during which audition videos - all 2 million of them - flooded in from show hopefuls from around the world. Out of that looking-through-a-haystack effort emerged 10 golden needles, including the male and female lead dancers Bobby Hodges and Ciara Sexton. With them are about 30 others, including a 10-piece band.

The Golden Globe-nominated composer Brian Byrne wrote the music that threads the show together.

"The show is a revolution for me, for our cast - the multicultural dancers and singers," McColgan says in Beijing, where the show will be staged in the Great Hall of the People from Sept 10 to 13 after being performed in nine other Chinese cities. The revolution McColgan talks of comes thanks to a global beat laid on top of the traditional and contemporary Irish dancing that was integral to its progenitor Riverdance.

In the first act of Heartbeat of Home, homage is paid to the first generation of the Irish diaspora as they begin to build their new lives in various corners of the planet, and the second celebrates the present, in which cultures and dance forms have merged.

"We want not only to reflect the changing face of modern Ireland but to embrace the story of immigration and how we have traveled to new worlds where we communicate to each other through music and dance," McColgan was quoted as saying when Heartbeat of Home was first staged outside Ireland.

When the show is performed in Beijing next month it will be something of a homecoming, for it was in Beijing that the first performance outside Ireland took place, in November 2013. The show then went on to various venues in North America.

Beijing was chosen for this starring role because of the tremendous reception River-dance had received when it made its debut in the Chinese capital 10 years earlier.

Talking of the latest show's title, last year the Toronto Star quoted McColgan as saying: "The heartbeat is the first sound you hear in the womb. It's the universal language of rhythm."

In Heartbeat of Home, Chinese drums and Chinese folk music, including the stirring My Motherland, are used, which has helped the show win the affection of Chinese audiences.

"Chinese audiences have opened their hearts to us, from Riverdance to the Heartbeat of Home," McColgan says. "You never know when you go into new territory. When we started River-dance we had no idea of the China market and never thought we would come here one day."

Since Riverdance debuted in 1994, more than 12,000 performances have been staged in 46 countries and 26 million people have seen it, making it one of the most successful shows in history.

Acrosschina Management has brought Riverdance to China several times, expanding the tour from eight cities to 26 in 2013. The cast has also performed at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, the most-watched TV show in China.

Zhang Ligang, Acrosschina Management's chief executive and co-producer of Heartbeat of Home, says it features the latest in high-definition, 3-D projection technology.

In A Biz Date With the World, a seven-episode documentary produced by CCTV, Zhang tells of his work with the teams behind Riverdance and Heartbeat of Home.

"Right down to every single nail in the floor, we traveled with them from Ireland to China to ensure that absolutely everything in the show was authentic," Zhang says.

"Irish dancing used to be rigid and traditional. With the huge success of River-dance internationally, Irish dancing really took off. With the many Chinese elements in the sequel, we hope audiences worldwide will come to appreciate Chinese culture."

chennan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 08/05/2015 page7)