Lord has footing in Arkansas

LITTLE ROCK — Jason Gorman may not have an Irish accent.

His feet do.

Gorman, who stars in the lead role of the touring production of Lord of the Dance Irish dancing sensation, making a one-night appearance in at Robinson Center Music Hall on Sunday, hails from Long Beach, Calif. No one will be happier to see the production here than his family that has moved to Arkansas. His grandparents - who got him interested in dance - and mother reside in Bentonville; his cousin is a softball player at University of Arkansas at Monticello.

“They always come and see me ... if I’m close,” he says from a tour stop in Georgia.

They’d be part of the more than 100 million people worldwide who have seen the show that opened in 1996 with Michael Flatley - still the company’s artistic director - originating the Lord role.

Gorman, 25, who began his training at age 13 at the Celtic Gold Academy of Irish Dance in Westminster, Calif., got his start with the high-energy good-versus-evil show of Irish dance, modern Celtic music, vivid costumes and dynamic lighting during its four-year residency in Las Vegas.

“I was 16 years old, and my mom said, ‘You need to get ajob,’” Gorman says. “I was like, ‘OK.’ A couple of days later I got a call from Lord of the Dance. ‘Hey Mom, I got a job!’ She did not want me to go.”

Still, he joined as part of the Vegas ensemble and eventually moved to touring as part of Lord of the Dance and Celtic Tiger, another Flatley production.

Gorman, who performs the two-hour show (there’s a 20-minute intermission) as many as nine times a week, says it’s a challenge filling the quick-moving shoes of Flatley - who held a record for having “the world’sfastest feet” at 35 taps per second and was the first American to win the All-World Championship in Irish Dance.

“I work with Michael all the time,” he says. “He’s a very, very nice guy, very normal, believe it or not. I really thought he would have wanted carbon copy to do the role, and he was very much opposite - ‘Inject your personality into it.’ A lot of people expect Michael to come out on stage. When it’s you, they’re disappointed. At end of show when they’re screaming, I’ve done my job correctly.”

Gorman says audiences familiar with the show on stage and on their home television screens hold performers to a high standard.

“People do expect a lot out of it,” he says. “Now we have to work that hard to keep it that way and take it to the next level. It’s 2010 now, and they want more - they want perfection. We have to rehearse a lot and stay in real good shape.

“You can’t cheeseburgers every day of the week, as much as I would love to.”

Lord of the Dance 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Robinson Center Music Hall, Little Rock Tickets: $22-$50 (501) 244-8800, (800) 982-2787, ticketmaster.com

Weekend, Pages 31 on 03/11/2010

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