Riverdance - The Show: 'Still the biggest dance show in the world',
on tour with Harlequin 'Cascade' flooring.
 

Harlequin Cascade -still working hard with Riverdance

If testimony to the quality, durability and performance of Harlequin Cascade dance floor were needed, then look no further than the experience of  Riverdance. Described as 'still the biggest dance show in the world', 'Riverdance - The Show', featuring not only the famous Riverdance Irish dancers, but also Flamenco, Russian and American tap dancers, has been performed over 6,000 times in every corner of the globe and each time on Harlequin Cascade floors.

Born as the interval act in the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin, Riverdance emerged from the traditions of Irish dancing, but when translated to a sustained professional basis, a number of issues had to be resolved. Given the unique straight-backed nature of the dance, if the floor was in any way hard, the dancers tended to suffer fairly regular injuries. It was not uncommon for dancers to fall during the show due to the effect of the unique metal, leather and fibreglass shoe used in Irish Dance that had a tendency to polish and create a slippery surface. As Julian Erskine, Senior Executive Producer of 'Riverdance - The Show' explains, ' in the early days of Riverdance we were still finding our feet and working out how best to present a major Irish dance show around the world, and our single biggest difficulty was to find a floor that would be durable enough to stand up to the nightly battering of 36 hard Irish dance shoes, while at the same time give enough grip to stop the dancers slipping on the fibreglass soles of their shoes. It was only when we tested Harlequin Cascade that we realised we had the solution to both problems in one.'

Harlequin Cascade is a highly modified vinyl construction with special dance finish, embodying a tough, woven mineral interply layer. The dance surface itself has a silky smooth emboss providing a deceptively good grip and also offering non-reflecting properties that prevent unwanted reflections from stage lighting.

All Riverdance companies, including Lagan, Liffey, Boyne and Avoca (named after Irish rivers), dance on Harlequin Cascade. A final word from Julian Erskine, 'There's a lot of feet pounding the stage every night, and if that's not asking a lot of any dance floor, it also has to be rolled up every week and moved on to the next city. Few dance floors can handle that type of usage and continue to give good service to the dancers, but Harlequin Cascade does just that. Week after week, city after city, it rolls out and looks good every time. Riverdance will be travelling the world for years to come and we are happy to have Harlequin Cascade rolling along with us. Cascade is the only floor that not only works for us, but works as hard as we do!'