Kellie Morris: “I Believe I Was Put on This Earth to Perform”

For Kellie Morris, 2022 has been a year of reclaiming her passion for performing arts in both the competitive and professional spheres. Bright-eyed and beaming with enthusiasm, the six-time world champion joins our Friday afternoon Zoom call from her home in Duleek, County Meath in Ireland, reflecting on what has been something of a whirlwind year.

At just 18-years-old, Kellie boasts an Irish dance resume that is as impressive as it is inspiring. Securing her sixth World title at the An Chomhdháil World Championships in Killarney this April, the dancer exudes humility and gratitude as she recounts the imperfect process. Notably, it was a win that could only came about after a three-year hiatus to prioritise her mental and physical health. “I started to suffer from really bad anxiety. My last Worlds [in 2018] was where it was the worst,” she says.

Having been dancing from just two and a half years of age, Kellie quite literally followed in her mother’s footsteps in discovering her passion for the art form. “My mum was a dancer and was rehearsing in a pub and I was brought along for the day,” she says. “I got up on the stage and pointed my toe and started dancing around.” Shortly after, she joined the Beldance Academy in Dublin. 

At 10-years-old, Kellie competed in her first World Championships. Managing nerves as best she could, the young dancer didn’t know what to expect from that day’s competition. “I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself,” she says, “but at that stage, I was more excited about a new experience.” Describing the sensation of winning her first World title, she’s overwhelmed – as though she’s experiencing the moment all over again. “You can’t put it into words. It’s unreal,” she says.

This initial victory launched her into an intense competitive streak, as Kellie would proceed to win four more World titles in consecutive years, each one more meaningful than the last. “Because you’ve won it before, people tend to think that the excitement goes down,” Kellie says. “But winning another one actually makes the feeling grow more and more. You’re just like ‘I can’t believe I’ve done it again,’ and you feel so grateful.” However, she soon faced the more challenging aspects of such a positive correlation. As the excitement increased with each additional win, so too did the expectations. 

Even though she consistently made it to the top of the podium, Kellie soon realised that her biggest competitor was her own mind. Nerves began to seep into her training and performance. “I started getting sick at competitions, and before competitions, even at class,” Kellie says.

Once she reached a boiling point in her mental and physical health, Kellie decided to take a step back. “I didn’t want to let anybody down. No one had put pressure on me at all, but I put so much pressure on myself.” Although it devastated her to miss out on the part of Irish dancing that she loved so much, Kellie and her family knew it was the right decision for that moment.

Her teachers, Belinda Murphy and Carla Power, understood the decision and encouraged her to stay involved without the pressure to compete. For the next three years, Kellie attended dance class recreationally and continued to support her friends at competitions – but something was missing. In fact, it was an eye-opening moment while attending the first post-pandemic World Championships that reframed her mind. “I remember thinking, ‘I would absolutely love to do my slip jig around the stage at the INEC in Killarney.’ And that’s when I realised I missed it.” 

A year later, Kellie would get that chance. Her hard work and determination landed her a spot at the 2022 An Chomhdháil World Championships in Killarney – the very stage she envisioned herself dancing on when she was a spectator – where she went on to claim her sixth World title. Standing at the top of the podium once more, Kellie’s win meant earning more than just a sash and a trophy. “That win was just as incredible as the rest, but it felt like even more of an achievement,” she says. “I had gotten up on the stage and I didn’t get sick that day, I didn’t get sick that week.” She actually felt excited to dance, no longer overcome by intrusive thoughts or plagued by anxiety.

As much as her success was driven by her physical abilities, Kellie also attributes her most recent win to mental training and adopting a healthier attitude towards competition. Rather than worrying about the result, she actively chose mindfulness, an ethos that involved “being aware of what’s happening there and then; remembering where you are and why you’re doing it,” Kellie says. “Not thinking about what might happen, not thinking about what has happened, and just being in the moment and enjoying it.” She tried to bring the essence of her 10-year-old mindset, full of optimism and wonder, back to her 18-year-old self. However, Kellie also recognises that it takes a lot of work to get to that point. “That’s why it took me three years to remember why I did it, to come back to the start,” she says. 

In addition to this positive visualisation, Kellie learned to manage her stress by leaning on her fellow dancers for support. Surrounding herself with the right people helped her keep a collegial perspective throughout her comeback competition. “I prefer dancing with my friends instead of against them,” Kellie says. “I tried to treat it as a performance, and I had a ball dancing up there with everyone.”

Besides a glowing competitive career, Kellie has made the world her stage in more ways than one, performing with acts like the game-changing Prodijig on on Britain’s Got Talent, while also making her mark at the Billie Barry Stage School (Dublin’s premier performing arts school) and the Irish Ballet School. At Phoenix Performing Arts College in Dublin, she also studies multiple styles of dance, including tap, contemporary, hip hop, and jazz, as well as acting and singing. 

Though her training has been extensive, Kellie has an innate drive to keep growing as a performer. This hunger, combined with her natural inclinations towards showmanship and the camaraderie performing brings, led her to the Riverdance Summer School in Dublin for the first time at the beginning of August. “I knew it was my audition week for Riverdance, but I went in just wanting to learn,” Kellie says. Despite the challenges and rigour of the program, Kellie found herself feeding off the infectious energy from the team of World class dancers and instructors, absorbing every little detail and taking extensive mental notes. 

Then, one day after practice sessions had wrapped, the students were all gathered in the Gaiety Theatre to take group pictures on stage while watching cast rotations in preparation for that night’s show. Kellie, along with three other dancers, were called up for a separate small group photo, where dance captain Amy-Mae Dolan announced they would be dancing with the show’s actual troupe – an honour bestowed upon the most promising dancers at every annual Dublin Riverdance Summer School. “I was nearly in tears with excitement,” Kellie says, “but I needed to keep my head screwed on and stay composed because we had a show to do.” 

That evening she performed in three numbers with the cast: Reel Around the Sun, Riverdance, and Heartland. With only an hour and a half notice, Kellie’s parents and boyfriend Caelan Power (a Riverdance troupe member who wasn’t scheduled to perform that night) were able to drive in to watch the show. Following the summer school showcase at the end of the week, Kellie was invited to perform again with the cast in the Saturday matinee.

But these shows were not Kellie’s first time gracing the Gaiety stage. A few years prior, she had performed in the iconic Dublin theatre with her classmates in the Billie Barry Stage School. This full circle moment made the experience all the more special. “To be back there after Covid, in one of the most beautiful theatres in the country, it was surreal,” she says. “Even though the nerves were there, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.” 

Though the summer of a lifetime may be coming to a close, Kellie’s performance career is brimming with new beginnings. After two years of full-time training at Phoenix Performing Arts College, she is now studying part-time in order to balance her professional work. Rightly so, for the rest of her year is packed as she prepares for dancing roles in two musical theatre shows: Blonde Bombshell in November; and Olly, Polly & the Beanstalk for Dublin’s Olympia Theatre Christmas pantomime in December. Now a returning Riverdance flying squad cast member, inaugurated with a bucket list performance for German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Bürgerfest in Berlin earlier this month, Kellie also has hopes to tour with the company next year. 

Even after achieving such major milestones in the competitive and performance worlds at such a young age, nurturing and advancing her skillset is a challenge that Kellie wholeheartedly embraces. “No matter how much you’ve achieved, no matter how far you’ve gotten, I believe you can always get better.” She knows from personal experience how to find room to improve, both physically and mentally, especially now that she has earned one of the most coveted casting spots in the Irish dance world. “You can get in [Riverdance] and feel great,” Kellie says, “but to stay there, you have to work hard.”

But she doesn’t have to look far to find inspiration. “I look up to so many people who I know are thinking that they can get better,” Kellie says. “Seeing the likes of the leads in Riverdance, and the people on the West End and Broadway that have been there for such a long time – they’re the ones that inspire me and push me to become what I want to be.” 

Even when the stakes are highest at both professional and competitive levels, Kellie insists that “if you love it and that’s what you want to do, then you were meant to do that.” She adds that, if you put in the work, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be happy with what you do, no matter the result. “I believe I was put on this earth to perform, because that’s all I can ever think of doing.”

“Our joy comes through our dance,” Kellie says. “Just remember why you wanted to do it – because you love it. That will show.”

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