The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Dance of Life showstopper fills the Easter ceremony void
THE Diocese of Kerry’s showstopping Millennium production the Dance of Life will be broadcast online this Easter in lieu of public ceremonies in churches.
It brought over 12,000 people to the Green Glens arena in Millstreet when it was performed by a cast of 1,000 – including 800 singers – over four nights.
The Dance of Life encompassed the entire narrative of the Bible, beginning with Genesis and culminating in the Resurrection of Christ, a finale involving the dazzling interplay of a thousand lights.
Lauded by the public and critics, it was a high point for the Diocese of Kerry under then Bishop Dr Bill Murphy – who suggested the project in the late
90s with a view to marking the turn of a new millennium in a symbolic way.
Just as with The Greatest Story Ever Told and Cecil B deMille, the Dance of Life would not have been possible without the right man in the director’s seat – Siamsa Tíre founder Fr Pat Ahern. He lost no time in bringing parishes across the diocese together for the massive, 800-strong choir with 200 actors and dancers mostly drawn from Tralee, Killarney and Castleisland playing the key roles - not least Jonathan Kelliher and Paula Murrihy as both Adam and Eve in the first half, and Jesus and Mary in the second act.
With an powerful score by Aidan O’Carroll, who conducted the accompanying Kerry School of Music Orchestra and the choreography of the many dancers directed by Siamsa’s Oliver Hurley, all of the individual parts of the Dance came together in a sublime whole.
Now, in lieu of public Easter ceremonies, it is to be made available on the St John’s Parish website, www.stjohns.ie, over Easter. The first part of the two-hour show will be put up on the website on Holy Thursday morning at 11am and can be downloaded from there to watch over the course of the day, with the second hour going up on Easter Saturday morning and available all that day too.
Meanwhile, the Easter Passion filmed by RTÉ at St John’s Church in Tralee in 2011 will be broadcast on the website on Good Friday.
“Miraculously it came together in the end, but it was a big one alright taking a year and a half to prepare,” Fr Ahern said.
“I watched it for the first time in years this week and I have to say I found it very moving. I had nearly forgotten it, in fact after 20 years! It was filmed by Kairos Productions under the direction of Fr Dermot McCarthy to a very high, professional standard.
“They really did a great job of it so I think it will offer people a very important outlet at such an extraordinary time.”
Fr Ahern said that such a story, on such a broad canvass, has never been as important amid a crisis that has reignited an old and deep anxiety in humanity.
“I have seen a lot in my lifetime but I never thought I would see anything like this. It’s even worse than a war in a way because nobody escapes from it. But there is a lot to be hopeful for.
“I thought Pope Francis said a very important thing last week when he urged people not to think the pandemic evidence of God’s anger, but to think of it rather as an invitation to change ways of living damaging to us and to our environment.”
“I suppose there is some kind of providence guiding it in so far as it has forced us to re-evaluate our ways when they had become very centred on self-gratification. A basic selfishness had crept in I think, not in a conscious cultivated way by people, but in the culture in general and this has certainly pulled us back from that level of consumerism.
“But most importantly it has brought out something that has been dormant awhile in the way people are rallying to help one another, in the kindness of neighbours. It is quite extraordinary.”
Fr Ahern and his brother Fr Dan are themselves now reliant on the help of neighbours in their rural home outside Tralee.
“We have had so much help from friends and neighbours. It is very humbling. People are so good when the chips are down,” Fr Ahern told The Kerryman.