Next steps for Riverdancer
QUESTION What became of Jean Butler, the star female performer in Riverdance?
JEAN BUTLER was born in New York on March 14, 1971, but her mother was from County Mayo in the West of Ireland. Jean began Irish dance classes at the age of six.
In 1994, she was invited to perform in the intermission piece at Eurovision.
Riverdance, a modern interpretation of Irish stepdance, co- choreographed by Butler and Michael Flatley, caused a sensation. In just seven minutes Butler, a tall striking redhead, and the dyed-blond Flatley, transformed Irish dancing. It was expanded into the popular Riverdance stage show that became a global phenomenon.
Butler left Riverdance in 1997 following disputes over money, artistic control and star billing. In 1999, she teamed up with Colin Dunne and launched a £2 million show called Dancing On Dangerous Ground. It received good reviews but was not a commercial success. In 2001, she married celebrated Irish fashion designer, Cuan Hanly.
She has been busy ever since, teaching, choreographing and designing her own jewellery range. In 2005, she released a DVD, Irish Dance Masterclass With Jean Butler. From 2006/7 she was a judge on RTE’s Celebrity Jigs ’N’ Reels.
In 2011, she launched her first collection of Irish-inspired jewellery, borne out of a fascination with rooting through her mother’s trove of brooches and Claddagh rings.
In addition to creating a new collection each year, she continues to perform, choreograph, and teach dance internationally. She has recently taught at the Princeton University Atelier, a specialist arts programme, and completed a Fellowship in Creative Practice from University College Dublin. She is Assistant Professor of Irish Studies at Glucksman Ireland House, New York University.
She is also choreographing The Stepping Fields, a performance installation set to premiere in Dublin this year.
Frances Healy, York.
QUESTION Did the Ming Dynasty collapse because an emperor had a strop?
THE Ming Dynasty lasted from 1368 to 1644, and the Wanli Emperor was its longest-reigning monarch. However, his disillusionment with corruption, and not being able to choose his preferred successor, saw him withdraw from court life, fatally weakening the Empire and leaving it open for the Manchu invasion from the north. Born Zhu Yijun, Wanli was the dynasty’s 14th Emperor, reigning from 1572 to 1620. Wanli, the era name of his reign, means ‘ten thousand calendars’. Wanli ascended the Dragon Throne at nine years old. He lived an opulent existence, divorced from reality, was doted on by his mother, waited upon by an army of eunuchs and served by countless women, including multiple consorts and a host of concubines. Yet he became so frustrated by the constraints of his office that he went on strike against his own court. For the final three decades of his reign, he refused to read petitions and memorandums sent to him, replace officials who retired or died or even attend his own morning audiences. Such complete alienation culminated in an argument over succession, as his heir had to be chosen from the children of secondary consorts, since the First Empress did not bear a male child. While his officials insisted on his eldest son — born of the consort Lady Wang — he instead chose his third son, born of Lady Zheng, his favourite. Inattention to government affairs contributed to the abuses of power by provincial officials and other political figures. The violence and corruption among leaders of the northern provinces led to popular dissatisfaction, preparing the way for the Manchu invasion, which would conquer all of China and establish the Qing dynasty (1644-1912).
S. P. Walters, Guildford, Surrey.
QUESTION Is the word bizarre derived from an old word for beard?
A FALSE etymology has developed around the word bizarre because it sounds so similar to the Basque word bizarra, meaning beard. The 19th-century French lexicographer, Emile Littre, was the first to suggest this origin.
He linked the Spanish word bizarro, meaning brave or gallant, with the Basque and Spanish phrase hombre de bigote ‘man with a moustache’, a phrase denoting a man of spirit.
Yet this etymology soon collapses when we understand that ‘bizarre’ was known only in Spanish from the 16th century, whereas it was known in Italian since the 14th. Etymologists are sometimes tempted to look for Basque origins because it’s a unique language.
The Italian bizzarro first appears in Dante’s Divine Comedy (1308-1320) — at this time the word meant angry, from bizza ‘fit of anger, quick flash of anger’.
From the Inferno, Canto 8 we have: ‘ Tutti gridavano: ‘A Filippo Argenti!’ (They all were shouting: ‘At Filippo Argenti!’) e ’l fiorentino spirito bizzarro (the spirit of the wrathful Florentine) in sé medesmo si volvea co’ denti (turning, meanwhile, his teeth against himself).’
Over time, bizzarro altered its meaning to strange or odd. The French borrowed the word in this sense in the early 16th century, and it entered English in the mid-17th century. Its first known use in English comes from the autobiography of Edward Herbert (1583-1648), a soldier, diplomat and religious philosopher:
‘Her gown was a green Turkey grogram, cut all into panes or slashes, from the shoulder and sleeves unto the foot, and tied up at the distance of about a hand’sbreadth everywhere with the same ribband, with which her hair was bound; so her attire seemed as bizare as her person.’
The English word beard has Germanic roots and is related to the Old Frisian berd and Middle Dutch baert.
Adrian Frisch, Buntingford, Herts. n IS THERE a question to which you want to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question here? Write to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT; or email charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection is published, but we’re unable to enter into individual correspondence.
Visit mailplus.co.uk to hear the Answers To Correspondents podcast