Dancing feet (plus fiddler) phenomenal

Riverdance — The 20th Anniversary World Tour, the Irish dance-and-music-anddance extravaganza, absolutely entranced the audience Friday night at Little Rock’s Robinson Center Performance Hall.

Even after two decades, it still sparkles as brightly as ever. The dancers, of course, see to that. So do the superb musicians — especially phenomenal fiddler Ceilidh Briscoe and percussionist and music director Mark Alfred — and the rock-show lighting and staging effects.

The show builds across an arc that arches even higher in the second act. That’s where you’ll find “Trading Taps,” with two American street tappers squaring off against a trio of Irish hot-shots in a friendly competition in which everybody, especially the audience, wins. And “Heartland,” the liveliest of the company numbers (and that’s saying something when you put it in company with “The Countess Cathleen,” “Reel Around the Sun” (the opening number) and the title piece (the first-act finale).

Proof that there are also rivers in Russia and Spain, “The Russian Dervish,” like the “Trepak,” the Russian number in P.I. Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker, brings down the house. There’s also a pair of thrilling flamenco numbers. (And in one of those, we learn what is the sound of one band clapping.)

New for this tour is “Anna Livia,” an all-too-short a cappella number for the women inspired by James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, and the show’s first new number in nearly 14 years.

Purely instrumental numbers “Slip Into Spring — The Harvest,” “Caoineadh Chu Chulainn” and “Macedonian Morning” — are among the top highlights.

Riverdance is onstage, under the auspices of Celebrity Attractions, at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. today and 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday at Robinson, 426 W. Markham St. at Broadway, Little Rock. Tickets are $23-$72; more information is available by calling (501) 244-8800 or online at ticketmaster.com or CelebrityAttractions.com.