Under the bright, hot beam of the stage lights with a deep rumble underfoot, 18-year-old Albert Yao looks out at an audience of 10,000 people, met by a thundering applause in his home city of Taipei. He is the only Taiwanese dancer in the Lord of the Dance ‘Feet Of Flames’ cast of 90 performers. “I could see all of the audience’s faces, their Asian faces, their Taiwanese faces. It was really amazing for me,” he says.
Over the last decade, Irish dancing has reached more countries and expanded across the globe in a way we could have never imagined. From Israel to South Africa, the Netherlands to Mexico, Kazakhstan to China. What started as a traditionally Irish dance form has captured the hearts of people from dozens of different cultures for its unmistakable technical and rhythmic qualities that make it mesmerizing no matter where you are from. And now, 6000 miles from its home, Irish dance has found an island that loves it perhaps more than any other nation in the world: Taiwan.
Earlier this month, Lord of the Dance set off on their ‘Impossible Tour’ – eight shows across Taiwan in the middle of a global pandemic, including a two-week quarantine for all cast members on arrival into the country. But as the cast and crew waited anxiously for the day they could set foot outside their hotel room again, one cast member was waiting eagerly from the other side of the door. Despite being the only one exempt from the pre-show quarantine, Albert Yao stayed home as much as possible to keep up with the virtual workouts and rehearsals. To help keep spirits high, Albert and his family even treated the cast to local Taiwanese cakes, delivered straight to their hotel rooms.
When Albert first watched Feet of Flames around 10 years ago, he was inspired to see his own Taiwanese Irish dance teacher perform in the show. Not only that, but he actually witnessed an earthquake during the performance which the cast managed to continue dancing through while the background platform risers elevated. He had no idea at the time that he would be performing on those platforms himself one day, which he tells me “shakes a lot” even without an earthquake.
But Albert’s introduction into Lord of the Dance was a somewhat unconventional audition process. In 2018 he participated in a workshop hosted by Lord of the Dance with his dance school. By the end of the workshop, lead dancer James Keegan saw a spark in the then 16-year-old, and invited him to join the professional cast on stage. “That was completely unexpected,” Albert says. “I also had a low point for Irish dancing…at that point, I hadn’t gotten a recall yet. And I wasn’t performing as well in competitions as I would like to. So then that happened, and it was a really big deal, and also a really big confidence boost.” When Albert performed four shows during the 2018 Taiwan tour, he became one of the show’s youngest ever dances. Earlier this year, Albert got to perform with the show again in his home city, before he was asked to be an official member of the troupe for this month’s tour, performing in all eight shows.
The incredible achievement of being the only Asian dancer on the tour isn’t lost on Albert, or fans of the show. As well his parents watching almost every show on the tour, he was recognised in shops and on the street, with people telling him to “go for it”. “After the shows,” he adds, “there were people who were messaging me that told me that they were so proud to see someone from Taiwan be in the show, and they enjoyed the show so much. And it was really amazing. It also made it feel like all the hard work and the tears paid off.”
Albert was first introduced to Irish dancing when his dad took a liking to Scottish Highland dancing on work trips. Enrolling his sister into the first Irish dance school in Taiwan in 2006 thinking it was the same as thing, it took Albert a year before he started dancing at six years old, discovering that Irish dancing was in fact, pretty cool. “I can’t really explain why, I just like to move around and dance around,” he explains. “After my sister started dancing, we started watching Riverdance and Feet of Flames. It was really cool for me, especially seeing Michael Flatley do his solos. Michael Flatley has been one of my idols since when I was really young.”
Despite the limited competition scene growing up, Albert has qualified for the World Championships four times and attended three in his Irish dance career. Last year, he recalled for the first time and placed 24th, making him the first ever dancer from Asia to recall at the Worlds. He’s come a long way from his first one in 2013 when he placed second to last, a vividly overwhelming experience for him. “I was really, really nervous,” he explains. “And I think the nervousness really caught up to me. So I performed really badly on my first worlds…it was a big culture shock to me.”
Albert’s journey to a World recall medal was a much more bumpy road than many other dancers go through. He started dancing in 2008 at a school in Taiwan, staying there until 2014. He took a three year break when the school decided to move away from competition, but three years ago he transferred to the O’Connor-Barton school in Hong Kong, where he would travel to once or twice a month on a same day return flight, supplemented by online lessons. Despite the huge enthusiasm for Irish dancing in Taiwan, it still has a long way to go before the competition scene there can offer passionate dancers like Albert the chance to compete regularly. When I ask him what he wants to see in terms of progress for the Irish dancing scene in Taiwan, he counts the total number of Asian schools on his two hands. “There has to be more Irish dance schools in Asia,” he says. “Whether that’s from European teachers coming to Asia or just our own dancers becoming teachers”. He adds that there needs to be more competitions in Asia, but recognises that this is difficult given the small Irish dancing population there.
While his recent achievements are an immense source of pride, he wishes Asian dancers could experience the same competitive scene as other parts of the world. “I feel really honoured to be the one leading the way for Asia,” he says. “But at the same time, I also feel like because it’s been some time now since there have been Asian Irish dance schools…I feel like we should be advancing at a faster pace than we are now. But I am still nevertheless very honoured to be the first one [to recall].” With Albert now virtually studying anthropology at Harvard University, and music at Berkeley College, he hoped to move to a new dance school in Boston before the pandemic brought things to a halt. Now, like many dancers, he is waiting for classes to return so he can get back to dancing in person.
Like most in the Irish dancing world right now, the future looks uncertain for Albert. He hopes the opportunity to go on tour again will be a viable option, and has hopes of doing the TCRG when the time is right, but also has academic and musical ambitions – he plays drums in his own jazz band, U18. Though he’s grateful that life in Taiwan is mostly back to normality at the moment as the rest of the world still battles with the devastating impact of Coronavirus. Pulling off the ‘Impossible Tour’ with Lord of the Dance was a beacon of light for the global performing arts industry in a gloomy year, but for Albert, in a year of cancelled plans and unfulfilled goals, it was also a dream come true.
Follow Albert on Instagram.
