I am thinking about joining Riverdance!
Just in case anyone was wondering what it takes to be selected for a show like "Riverdance" -
Most Irish kids start to learn dancing in school. Then if they want to get serious, they go to dance school, and progress through feiseanna (dance competitions).
Here is the USA, you can join an Irish Dance School when you are 5 years old.
You would learn to dance in the two types of shoe.... hard shoe (the type shown in the video with taps on to make a lot of noise) and soft shoe, both shown here:
The dances you have to learn are the jig, reel and hornpipe, and all the variations of these.
Then when you are good enough, you enter a local or regional competition called a feis (pronounced fesh).
With a lot of practise, dedication and perseverence, and quite a bit of money for shoes and hand-embroidered dresses, you would progress through the different age levels, and if you have a superb teacher like my good friend Laura O'Sullivan of Tír Na Greine, you might get to National or even International level. Here's Laura in the green blouse standing behind some of her dancers:
Then if you are the best of the best in all your competitions, you could go to an audition and you might just get selected for Riverdance or another dance show.