‘Riverdance’ Leads Mairead Trainor & Keeva Corry: “You Do It For That Little Girl Who Had These Dreams”

The North American Riverdance tour is still in full swing when Mairead Trainor and Keeva Corry join our Zoom call from their shared hotel room. Even between endless bus rides, long rehearsals, and double show days, the ladies are bright-eyed and full of energy. They’re still riding high on the heels of their debut as Riverdance leads in Boston just under 30 days ago during back-to-back matinee shows.

Mairead and Keeva recount the whirlwind process to get to this point, starting at the beginning of the tour when all the girls in the troupe learned bits and pieces of the lead choreography during low-stakes workshops. After a series of final auditions and rehearsals, the two friends received email confirmations that they would be put into the lead rotation. “And then from there, it was kind of like a roller coaster. It just hit so fast,” Mairead says. “Everything started moving really quickly. We then started learning the whole show again together, which was so nice for all of us to have each other.”

Mairead and Keeva have been roommates for the duration of the tour, and it’s clear they’ve channeled their palpable bond and friendship into the training process – to the point where they’re finishing each other’s sentences as they recall the experience.

They’ve also relied on the support of their castmates to help them stay motivated throughout challenging moments, so much so that they never felt like they were on their own. “Staying positive is a huge thing,” Keeva says, “which is so easy to do on this tour because you’re surrounded by such amazing people.” As much as this encouragement supports them mentally and emotionally, it also helps them physically. “Because we’re doing so much on the road, your body starts getting tired and then you just start to feel that kind of fatigue,” Mairead says. “But the great thing about having the group we have on this tour is that if someone’s down, someone will pick you back up. There’s always somebody there that is like, ‘Come on, you can do this.’ We literally are like a family.”

From the onset of their training, Mairead and Keeva were surprised to discover that learning the lead role was more personalised than they anticipated. Aside from certain foundational pieces of choreography, each lead is allowed to incorporate their own movements into the routines. Mairead admits that they were initially hesitant to modify the steps. “At the beginning we were like, ‘Tell us what to do,’” she laughs, “because we were so nervous that we were going to put something in that wouldn’t be allowed.” 

However, the pressure soon subsided to excitement as they made their own mark on the legacy of the iconic, beloved dance numbers. “There’s so much more freedom to the solos, which is actually one of my favourite things about doing lead,” Mairead says. “If you were to watch every single lead, every single one is different, which I think is so special.”

Keeva describes how this creative process also unlocked a new level of their stage presence. “It makes you more confident because you know you’re doing what you’re good at. Which is nice because growing up in competition, you did what you were good at, so it only seems right that you bring that to lead.”

While cultivating their own performance styles, Mairead and Keeva leaned on each other for advice and fine tuning. “We’ll show each other something and we’ll be like, ‘That works, that doesn’t work,’” Keeva says. “Really, we’re—” 

“Almost a tag-team,” Mairead finishes.

Mairead and Keeva also formed strong team bonds with their lead partners Brandon Asazawa and Michael Gardiner, respectively. Both lads were new to the lead rotation as well. As you can imagine, training in four new leads together was as risky and as it was exciting. Mairead and Keeva tell me that it hadn’t been done before in a Riverdance troupe, but they wholeheartedly believe that the arrangement paid off on the days of their debuts.

Throughout the training process, Mairead and Keeva developed a strong sense of hope, humility, and hunger for growth. They’ve come a long way from their childhood beginnings. Mairead jokes that she was quite literally born into the dancing world. Since the age of three, she’s been under the instruction of her mother and aunt at the Trainor School of Irish Dancing in her home city of London, England. For Keeva, coming from a small village called Cree in county Clare in the West of Ireland, she was first inspired to try Irish dance after watching a girl that her grandmother used to care for. At four years old, Keeva began training with the Croghan Greene Academy (now Croghan Greene Bennis). 

Now both 21 years old, Mairead and Keeva beam as they recall their first lead performances, as if they’re reliving the moment all over again. Mairead hit the ground running before she was set to take the stage as lead. “I found out pretty much the day before. I didn’t even have enough time to tell most of my friends or most of my family.” When walking into the theatre that day, she remembers feeling surprisingly very calm. “I was very collected. We’d been through such a hard week of rehearsals and auditions that it was just like, ‘We’re just going to do it again like that.’ It was just going on stage again.” Breathing in the sweet smell of the flowers sent over by her parents, she had the full support of the girls in the cast behind her to help her every step of the way. “You just felt like you were the queen of the day.”

It’s like being right there with her side stage as she describes those electric moments of anticipation. “I remember getting that butterfly feeling in my stomach. I remember taking the first steps on the stage, the light hits you, you see the audience, and it’s almost like a proud moment. I’ve been working so hard for this and it’s like that dream has come true.” 

For Keeva, her butterflies started the day before her debut as she watched her roommate grace the stage. “I was more nervous for her than I was for myself,” she says. Like Mairead, Keeva also distinctly remembers how calm and prepared she felt, conveying that same sense of serenity and poise. In addition to her morning massage and hearty breakfast, she credits her castmates for creating such a reassuring environment. “The vibe and everything was just so good because of the group of people that we have.” 

After putting on the lead costume for the first time, Keeva recalls how the side-stage nerves faded away once her turn in Countess Cathleen came on. “But then it was so weird. I’ve never felt anything like it when I went out on stage. I was so relaxed. It just felt so right.”

While they both cannot underestimate the unwavering support from their castmates that carried over from behind the scenes to center stage, Mairead shares how overwhelming it was to also feel the presence of her castmates on stage during her debut. “You had the whole cast behind you cheering your name, cheering you on, and helping you get through it. And it made me so emotional. I was crying by the end of the finale. Every single emotion hits you through that whole show. And it’s a feeling and a moment that day I will never, ever forget.” 

Just under a month after their lead debuts, Mairead and Keeva are still buzzing. Reflecting on the steps they took to turn aspirations into reality, Keeva maintains that discipline is not the only piece of the puzzle. “I think belief is a big thing as well,” she says. “You believe in yourself and believe that you can. I know it’s hard sometimes; there will be ups and downs.”

Mairead also emphasizes the importance of having a role model in the formative years of Irish dancing. “I think as well, I have always had someone since I was little that I looked up to. In competition when I was little, I’d look up to a world champion and say, ‘I want to be her someday.’ And I remember the first time I’d seen Riverdance, I was looking at the leads like, ‘I want to do that one day.’”

The little girls they used to be would be undoubtedly awestruck about fulfilling their lifelong dreams. Both with world champion titles in the same age group and lead performance experience under their belts, the dream is far from over for Mairead and Keeva. In fact, they see their success in the competitive and performance spheres as existing on opposite ends of a spectrum. 

For instance, they’ve noticed differences in the relationship between artistry and athleticism, specifically incorporating intentional uses of their arms, face, and head into a performance number versus a competition routine. “One thing that we found insane when we were first trained in was that you have to know where your eyes are in the room at every point of the dance,” Keeva says. “That was something so alien to us because we’re used to looking straight forward, like laser focused when you were competing.”

Mairead also notices a difference in the function of adrenaline and how to channel it. “At the end of the day at competitions, you are walking out on a stage in front of six judges at the Worlds. Whereas when we do lead, people are there to enjoy your dancing. They’re there to relax and to just simply watch you dance and see what you can do.”

Even after achieving such major milestones in their Irish dance careers, Mairead and Keeva continue to fuel their passions, aspire for the future, and push the boundaries of their abilities. “You do it for that little girl who was four years old or five years old and had these dreams,” says Keeva. “You’ve achieved all these things, but there’s still that fire in your belly, like you still want more. We don’t want to just leave it where it is now because there’s so much potential there for this journey to continue.”

Mairead agrees, eagerly adding, “You want to always just keep getting better, keep becoming your better self every single day, keep improving.” She also says “there’s always something in your mind that you want to push for, that you want to work for.”

Keeva adds, “You never want to settle on your dreams.” 

“When you look at the big picture and, at the end of the day, when you do achieve those goals, everything that you’ve done and everything you’ve sacrificed, all that work has been so worth it,” Mairead says. “And you wouldn’t change it for the world.”

Follow Mairead Trainor and Keeva Corry on Instagram.