Megan Kerrigan (00:02.114)
Hi guys, and welcome to another episode of Meg Talks. It's me on my own today. And I'm gonna be talking to you about my transition from a competitive Irish dancer to being in Lord of the Dance and being a professional Irish dancer. Now, this is like, again, something I have spoken about a little bit, but not really dived deep into, including like,
how it made me feel. So I wanted to share this a little deeper. wanted to be a bit more vulnerable about it. I wanted you to see and understand a little bit about the world of professional Irish dance and sort of the transition that it takes. So that if you are thinking of wanting to be in a show in the future, you can maybe start to put some things in place to make that transition better for you.
but also it might help you to understand whether that's something you want to do or not. taking it back to I was 18 years old, I'd just done my last Worlds and I had one. So that was in the March. I think it was like not too long after that was the auditions. So Lord of the Dance, they recruit differently all the time. So this is not to say that you would have to do an audition in the same manner.
At this point they were, we didn't know it at the time, but they were auditioning because they needed a third troupe. At that time they had troupe one and troupe two, a UK or Europe based troupe and an American based troupe. But they were bringing out a third troupe that was going to be the troupe for the return of Michael Flatley and his return tour, which was a big arena tour.
So they needed extra dancers. Now, the dancers that were already there in those two troops were gonna be split between the three troops. And then any new dancers also were gonna be split between those three troops too. So the audition was huge. It was in Pineapple Studios in London, which obviously was an experience of its own because there was a season on the TV as well at that time, I think that was called Pineapple Studios or it was called...
Megan Kerrigan (02:18.114)
I can't remember what it was called, but I was watching it at the time with Louis Spence and like, it was just about like all the different things that went on at the studio. So to be there auditioning was like pretty cool in itself. Anyway, as a bit of a tomboy and somebody that wasn't very good at makeup, wasn't very interested in makeup. And like, I suppose without anybody to ask for advice or support.
I turned up to the audition and it's actually cringeable now that I know what I should have turned up like with no makeup on. Because that's what I, I just thought I'm going to an audition, I'm going to be dancing all day. Why would I put makeup on when I'm going to sweat? It just didn't make sense to me. And this is a really, really big highlight of what you don't know, you don't know. Like it makes perfect sense to me now that you would turn up being presentable with your makeup on and your hair done, but.
At that point, that didn't seem to make sense to me because I'd never seen that world before. Anyway, so I turned up with an England football top on with keggers on the back. mean, laugh out loud or what. And no makeup on, my hair like scraped back, ready for a big dance class basically. And we had to wear black. So underneath my England top, I had black on. But again, everyone was just dressed head to toe in black when I turned up to the queue.
And with all this makeup on, I remember seeing Roisin Conway, who was like, we weren't friends at the time. I knew her, my mom and her mom knew each other. I knew her from the region. And she had like a hair down all curled, she had this red lipstick on, she looked beautiful. And I was like, gosh, like I've got this wrong, haven't I? So anyway, was that. Went in, the audition process was a bit about like learning steps. So they sort of like watched you learn steps, which...
my message to you would be try to know as much of the show steps as you can before you go to any audition because that takes a lot of the pressure off. I didn't know any of the show steps, so I was really trying to learn and you're trying to learn from one person in a group of like 20, they just sort of like brush through the steps once or twice. And I was really good at picking up steps.
Megan Kerrigan (04:35.072)
in my dancing class, but these are different style, aren't they? So number one, they're a different style. They're a little bit more old fashioned, which I wasn't used to doing. So it took me sort of like ages to actually pick up the steps. You couldn't really ask questions. There was so many people in there that it was like busy. You could really barely get a space. So my advice to you in that department is to like know as much of the dances as you can go in because then you can focus on the other things that are actually.
the more important things. So being able to stand with you, focus on like your presentation, focus on how you smiled, focus on your body language, focus on getting the arms right, focus on performing rather than focusing on actually getting the step correctly. So that was the first thing that I found hard. And the second thing I found really, really, really crazily hard was...
the freestyle. So we had to do like a freestyle 16 bars where like they just put on a piece of music and you just had to dance to that music using your arms. Obviously, as an Irish dancer that's used to having their steps given to them and had never done anything really performance wise other than like a few displays with my dance in school, like where we'd put our hands on our hips and we thought that was crazy. Like I...
felt like a right lemon. I felt silly, I felt embarrassed. I half did it in case people would laugh at me. Like we were looking at the sort of like American dancers who were like going for it and we were like half laughing at them. Like now in hindsight, I'm like, mate, they were the people that we should have been trying to be. Anyway, so my other...
Piece of advice if you're trying to go into a show or like you're at an audition is like, be prepared for that. Try to, if you wanna be in a show in the future, try to start doing that at displays now. When you're dancing a step, like add a little bit of arms in, the better and the more comfortable you get with doing that before being in this environment, the better that process and that transition and that transfer and that whole experience is gonna be. Now.
Megan Kerrigan (06:51.712)
I got into the show somehow, God knows how, with my performance that day at the audition. But I got into the show and I got into Michael Flatley's return troupe. mean, wow. So my first ever show was with Michael Flatley on the stage. What? Like, some dancers had been in the show for five, six years and never, ever danced with Michael Flatley.
And I had then just like waltzed in, it seemed, waltzed in and got to go and tour the big arena. It's like the O2 arena with 10 ,000 people watching on my first ever show. Anyway, that's besides the point. So got in and arrived to tour. So we had a week rehearsals. I had learned as much as I could online. I had met up a couple of the...
people that I'd met at the auditions I'd met up with to try to learn as much of the show as I could so I could turn up being prepared. But nothing prepares you for something you've never done before. So I turned up, I knew all the dancers, but what you don't realize is, like, there's one thing though in the dancers, you've got to know the arm movements. Then you get put on the stage and you've got to know your position on the stage, where you're moving, at what points, what side you're turning your head, which arm you're putting up.
You've got to think about keeping your chin up, your shoulders back, what entrance you're coming on, what exit you're going off, what part in the music you actually come on, what side of the stage you need to be ready on, what side of the stage you need to put your quick change on so you're ready for the next number. There is so much that you don't realise you have to think about in a show. my goodness me, nothing prepares you for it. Luckily, with this show,
The way it was ran meant that we were just in one number to begin with. So all I had to do was focus on getting that one dance right. Thank goodness, because I would have gone to a mess if there was anything more that we had to do. So all of those things you have to think about, which is pretty crazy, but during this process of like the week rehearsals and then like actually the first few shows, I've realized I wasn't very good at this.
Megan Kerrigan (09:08.854)
And I had gone from being the absolute best, being the world champion, to being the bottom of the pile pretty much and being very aware of it. I was used to being the person that everybody, and this may be very honest and vulnerable right now, I was used to being the person that people looked at, the person people asked things of, the person that was the person people were looking up to almost, to being...
genuinely the bottom of the pile. And another piece of that mindset that was hard to fathom was people that I was not necessarily better than, it feels weird saying better than, the people that I would beat in competition were progressing faster than me in shows. And I know that Erin won't mind me mentioning this, but myself and Erin joined at the same time. We were in the same age group. She would get maybe top.
10, 20 in the world and I would be the world champion. Yet, show dancing, she was a natural at. So she thrived and she became lead in all of the dance in about a year and a bit. And I was still like at the point where I wasn't very comfortable and I wasn't very good. And I knew I wasn't very good at it. No, that was hard mentally for me to fathom, but luckily,
I was really enjoying the process. I just made sure I worked really hard and did everything that I could. So I went, I spent loads of time making sure that I was good with the steps so that if at any point I was told, can you get into this number? I knew every single number. I knew every single person's position. I did all the things I was good at to try to make me stand out in that way.
rather than trying to be good at the things that I wasn't naturally good at, like actually the arms and being flowy and being elegant, they just weren't me. So what I did was I really, really worked on my strengths and made sure that they shone. And I think that in the long run did me really well because all of my dance captains knew I was reliable. They knew I would put 100 % into every single thing that I did. They knew that...
Megan Kerrigan (11:28.386)
They knew that if they needed somebody to jump into a position, I would have the mental capacity to do that new position without having to run the number. Whereas if they were looking for somebody to perform lead in front of Michael Flatley himself, I was never gonna be that person because I wasn't up to that standard. Now, that's not to say that I didn't want to be and I didn't thrive to be and I didn't really push to want to be that person. It just wasn't me.
It took me a while to process that, but if I can do anything to help you guys to get this transition better, it would be those things I've mentioned. Know all the dances inside out. Know all the positions and head turns. Know the staging. So like actually watch the staging. Watch where dancers move and at what point in the music they move. When you're learning the step, learn that I move now. You won't know where you're moving to until you put into a position, but learn that I'm gonna move at this point.
So like all those little things, if you can do that from when you start learning and you start thinking about being in this show, then you're gonna put yourself in a better position. Another thing I did that really definitely helped me was I did not stop show dancing. So Lord of the Dance was on tour from October until December. We went home on like the 19th of December and then it wasn't going back out on tour till like the mid February. I filled that gap. I went on tour with...
So I came home the 19th, this was my first ever touring year, came home on the 19th, on boxing day at like three in the morning, I left my house to go to tour with Magic of the Dance. Now, two very different companies, I toured with them until I went straight from there to Lord of the Dance. So I literally gave myself the consistent experience of being on the stage.
the more you do something, the better you get at it. So I didn't go home and then just like sit at home waiting for my next call from Lord of the Dance. I went and found other experience in another show. So I danced then all the way through. Now, Magic of the Dance was completely different and what I learned from that was really good because I got thrown in the deep end. So, so different to like Lord of the Dance where like they wait for you to be perfect to put into a number.
Megan Kerrigan (13:49.174)
They needed you on the stage because the numbers were so much smaller. The amount of dancers was so much smaller that you were literally almost thrown on the stage whether you know the number or not because they need the numbers on the stage. even if you're not fully ready, you're thrown in. And that to me was horrible at the time because I'm a control freak and I like to be prepared. And I like to obviously as a world champion, like I've never gone on the stage not knowing what I was doing or that's just not me. It's not in my personality.
But being pushed out of my comfort zone in that way helped me in other areas of show dancing because it made me able to, what we say in show dances, like wing it, like make it look like I know what I'm doing to the audience. So even if my legs aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing, my upper body was saying, look at me, I'm amazing, I'm blending in. Can we see how like,
being thrown in the deep end will then help me go back to Lord of the Dance. If like I do a tiny bit of the number wrong, my face used to go like, and I'd do that like look. And if the audience was looking at my face, they'd know I'd done something wrong. Cause that was my natural reaction. Whereas having this experience in magic of the dance where I was thrown in the deep end and sort of like had to get used to not being right and not being doing things the way they should be until I got to a point where I knew everything.
That gave me the other element of like faking it till you make it, proving with your body and your shoulders and your smile that, or your facial expression's not necessarily always a smile, that you knew what you're doing. We have to remember that as an audience member, they don't know about dancing. What they do know about is what your face looks like and they can read body language. So if my body language was like, I've done something wrong, so my shoulders round fall and my chin drops and I'm
a bit embarrassed and I'm trying to hide at the back of the stage, they're gonna feel that. What they're not gonna feel is that I did a treble and a toe on the left foot rather than the right foot. Does that make sense? I feel like as a competitive Irish dancer, the judges know whether we've done something wrong or if we've finished on the wrong foot and we're of we're programmed to worry about this and be concerned about this. However, we need to flip that completely and unlearn what we've learned as a competitive Irish dancer as we enter.
Megan Kerrigan (16:16.28)
show dancing and professionalism. It's crazy how different they are. And I think that's a really big message for people as well is I hear lots of dancers say, I'm not good enough to go into a show. You are. Everybody is good enough to go into the show. It's the experience that you give yourself before you get there to be able to be your best show dancer, your best professional dancer. And like I say, I was a world champion and I was not the best show dancer.
until maybe five years of experience, I became a good show dancer and I can say that with pride about five years into my professional career, which is crazy. I also went to, so let's say then, in the summer, there was never really any work in the summer with any of the touring shows. I sourced work for myself.
I rang and emailed every Irish bar across Europe basically to see if they were hiring dancers, if they would hire me as a member of staff but also to perform each night in their bar or in their Irish bar. I wanted to be abroad so I wanted to go and spend some time in a summer sort of destination and this worked. I emailed loads of people. One day I got randomly got this phone call back from a man he was like
Hey, it's Casna. I'm from, I've got Molly Malone's in Zakintos. So we had an Irish bar in Zante, a Greek island in a nice little family resort and myself and Erin, when we were bartenders or I was a bartender and she was a waitress. And then every night he made us like this wooden board. We'd get ready and we'd go and perform for the people in the bar. That again was a no pressure. Like obviously everyone thought we were amazing because like
They were like, whoa, we weren't expecting this entertainment. But also again, we were practicing and perfecting our performance, our professional performance with facial expressions, with a smaller crowd, with a more intimate space. And we were just growing in that year in a way that like, I didn't really realize I was doing it at the time, but I just naturally facilitated.
Megan Kerrigan (18:32.098)
So I naturally put that into place because I was enjoying dancing and I knew I wanted to be doing it and I knew I wanted to be better. I just kept putting these things in place. So yeah, I just wanted to sort of give you an insight into like my journey as a show dancer. Now it took me five years to become a lead dancer in Lord of the Dance. I became a lead in Magic of the Dance a lot earlier than that. And that really helped me to be confident in myself, sort of put myself forwards in Lord of the Dance.
I had a lot of knockbacks when it came to trying to audition for a lead role and I wanted to be the bad girl. I tried time after time after time and I kept being told like, yeah, keep working on it. And I did get to the point where I was like, I'm not working on it anymore. Like I've given up on that dream almost.
We were on Broadway, which obviously was an experience in itself. We were performing on Broadway and Michael Flatley said he wanted to see some people audition lead roles for him and I backed out. I said, I don't want to do it. I've tried enough. At this point, I knew I was kind of coming to the end of my career and I thought, I don't want to add that stress. I want to enjoy this. I don't want to add that new perfectionism and relearning again. I sort of just opted out.
And luckily for me, I had a very, very, very good friend in Erin who said to me, you are not missing this opportunity. And I was like, I don't have a routine ready. She was like, go there, go backstage, get a routine together. You had one, you'll remember it. Just do something. And thank goodness for her, because I auditioned for Michael Flatley that day. And I think that was like a Tuesday. And on the Saturday, I performed lead in front of like my whole
Dancing school, well, kind of, because my dancing teachers had moved to America. They were coming to see the show that matinee, and it was that show that Michael Flatley said, please, I want you to do lead that show. I was like, my goodness. The way it all happened was pretty crazy. I ended up doing lead for my dancing teachers and their new dancing schools. So didn't tell them, I surprised them. With two other people, so like with Fergal and Nikita, who also were taught by my dancing teacher who was gonna be in the audience.
Megan Kerrigan (20:48.78)
It was honestly like, you know when people say, like, don't rush it, it will happen in the way it's meant to happen. Sounds cringe. And if you told me that before, I wouldn't have believed you, I would have just said, no, it's never gonna happen for me. But it happened in the most insane way. So I did my first ever lead on Broadway with Michael Flatley in front of my dancing teachers. Wow. What an experience. So.
I suppose my message here is like, don't underestimate yourself. You can be in a show if you really want to be. There's no dance level that means like you can or you can't be in a show. So start doing the things now. Start freestyling, start using your arms at competition, not at competitions, geez, I'll be told off and tight saying that. Start using your arms at like displays, exhibitions. Start putting yourself forward for little things. Start pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone now. If you do it now.
you'll get the rewards later. Let me know if you've got any questions about that because I kind of love talking about that topic because I think like it's a really a good one and loads of dancers will want to be developing into professional dance and as somebody that also manages magic of the dance, we don't go on tour as much anymore. I know like the common questions that get asked by people in their auditions or in their CVs when they send them over to me, it's like, I don't know if I'm good enough or like.
Yes you are. Ouse confidence, turn up, be prepared, ask questions. The more you ask questions, the more somebody is going to think, this person actually really wants this. That is what's gonna make you look different, stand out to everybody else. And yeah, get practicing all those key things that I didn't and don't make the mistakes that I did. Have a lovely rest of the day. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this, please let me know, please share, like, and subscribe.
and I'll see you on another episode very soon. Lots of love.
