James Keegan is currently starring as the Lord of the Dance in Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games at the Dominion Theatre.
Born and raised in Manchester, James took up Irish dancing at the age of 4 with the Lally School of Irish Dancing. From a young age James competed in many Feisana consistently being placed top 3, winning his first title at the American National Championships at the age of 7.
He continued to excel winning a total of 4 American National, 8 British National, 9 Great Britain, 3 all Ireland, 1 European and 2 World championship titles. In 2000 he won every major title that could be achieved competitively in Irish dancing.
When James first played the Lord of the Dance he became the youngest dancer to have played the role. He has now played the part all over the world, in the USA, Mexico, Egypt, Dubai, Russia, Asia and Europe.
I recently spoke to James about his journey with Lord of the Dance, what it’s like to work so closely with a living legend and why he’s up until 2am night after night…
How long have you been with the show now?
I’m coming up to twelve years which is a crazy amount of time! Do you know what? It sounds cliché, but time flies when you’re having fun. Every tour is always so different, I could be in London for six months – as I am at the minute – or we could be in Dubai for two weeks, or travelling around Germany or France doing back to back shows. It’s always a new experience, and obviously I’ve been around the block a few times [laughs] and been back to Germany and back to Dubai, but we have nice gaps between and there’s always new people coming in so it hasn’t felt like twelve years!
