Tyler Schwartz & Maddie Rae Russo: “We’re Saying the Same Thing Rhythmically”

A couple’s first dance at their wedding is a special, intimate moment that symbolises their relationship. So what happens when an Irish dancer and a tap dancer get married? They choreograph a tap-tacular fusion routine that goes viral on social media, of course.

After tying the knot at the end of August and following it with a European tour and a picturesque Italian honeymoon, newlyweds Tyler Schwartz, a world champion Irish dancer, and Maddie Rae Russo, a professional tap dancer, join us from separate Zoom screens. Maddie is at her family home in Delaware, while Tyler checks in from his studio in New York, preparing for a brief tour with Irish traditional music ensemble Cherish the Ladies.

The look and feel of their first dance is truly something out of a dancer’s fairytale — from the flower arch above their heads to quick changes and ceili spins. It’s hard to believe capturing this enchanting moment almost didn’t happen. “We asked our video crew, last second, if they could film it vertically. And I was just like, ‘Well, everything is content, even our wedding,’” Maddie shares with a laugh. “First of many dances as husband and wife,” they captioned the video, but this is just one highlight in a journey full of love, fun, and plenty of dance.

Maddie, 28, grew up in Middletown, Delaware, where she trained at the Delaware Arts Conservatory, a comprehensive performing arts facility co-owned by her mother, a visual artist. She explored nearly every style of dance but focused extensively on ballet throughout high school. Maddie initially pursued musical theatre at Point Park University before pivoting to a full-time professional dance career.

Her journey began with a role performing aboard Norwegian Cruise Lines and the Regent Seven Seas Mariner, where she was the featured soloist in every show. She later danced Off-Broadway in Midsummer: A Shakespearience, and it was during her move to New York City that Maddie furthered her tap training, setting the stage for her multifaceted career. “I always really loved tap dance and had a passion for it, but I never saw that being my main thing growing up, and it just kind of found me. The community found me,” Maddie says. Her energy as a tap dancer is nothing short of infectious, from her bright, effortless flow and technique to her cheeky smile and sparkling eyes.

Tyler, 33, from Chicago, has also developed his own signature showmanship in his 20-plus years in Irish dance, marked by captivating rhythms, show-stopping trick jumps, and lightning-fast footwork. His first exposure to Irish dance came from watching his older sister feising all across the Midwest. However, his view was mostly from the backseat of the family minivan, where he spent most of his time engrossed in his Game Boy. Tyler’s mom tried to get him into lessons, but he says he did not understand that boys danced, too. It was only during a family trip to Ireland to watch his sister compete in the World Championships for the first time that he put down the Game Boy and watched the older male dancers on stage. Then, he says, he finally thought Irish dancing was cool.

“The rhythm really caught me. The big jumps really caught me. I thought that was super awesome,” Tyler says. “It was during the times of extreme sports, like Tony Hawk and all that stuff was really blowing up. They were doing these huge jumps, making it look easy.”

Soon after returning home from that trip, Tyler started taking dance classes with Anam Mór Irish Dance & Music, primarily, he says, to help him cross-train for soccer. But his interest quickly snowballed into a passion that led to an impressive competitive career. He won the 2013 CLRG World Championships in Senior Men with the Trinity Academy, and has also claimed champion titles from other international Majors, including the All Ireland, All Scotland, Great Britain, and North American Championships. 

He competed all throughout college while completing his degree in Education at Loyola University in Chicago. The “plan”, Tyler says, was to dance professionally for one year and then become a schoolteacher. However, as is often the case in show business, friends and networking from one show led to the next show and the next. Ten years later, he has gone on to be the lead dancer in many productions, including Rockin’ Road to Dublin, Gaelforce Dance, and Busch Gardens’ Celtic Fyre, where he met one very special person.

Housed in the Abbey Stone Theatre at Busch Gardens — a popular theme park in Williamsburg, Virginia — and set in a charming Irish pub, Celtic Fyre is a lively 30-minute production brimming with Irish music, singing, and dancing, all centred around the story of a wedding.

Maddie joined the cast in 2018 as part of a duo of tap dancers who crash the party as “friends of the bride from America”. Reminiscent of Riverdance’s ‘Trading Taps’, the duo performs a tap duet, which transitions into a dance-off between the Irish groom and one of the tappers. Adding a touch of romance, the show includes a subplot where the female tap dancer and the groom’s best man develop a romance. “I requested to be the best man a lot that year,” Tyler admits with a mischievous grin. “We had a lot of chemistry very early on and we started dating after that season was over.”

In their time together, as performers and as a couple, they had nurtured a deep love not only for their respective dance forms, but also the relationship between the two. After finishing the 2019 season at Celtic Fyre, Tyler remembers driving back to Chicago with Maddie with the urge to fill a void in the market for an exclusively Irish-tap fusion show. “We thought we might as well make our own thing of that, because we just enjoyed dancing together,” Tyler says. “We enjoyed the chemistry that we had together and wanted to continue.”

So they went ahead and created ReelRhythm, which finds its footing in their own unique space and explores fresh takes on classic rhythms. Originally set to debut in March 2020, the show was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic — an unexpected pause that allowed them to revisit and revamp their material. For Maddie and Tyler, creating with two mediums that are so similar yet distinct has been a thrilling process. Their undeniable charm radiates through their work, emblematic of their deep connection. In perfect sync, they’ve unlocked a new level of their artistic journey, seamlessly blending their styles.

“Doing choreography with Tyler has been really rewarding because this kind of relates to our actual relationship. A lot of the time we’re saying the same thing rhythmically,” Maddie says, “but I’m saying it in a completely different way than he’s saying it, and it takes us about an hour to figure out that we do, in fact, want the same thing to happen.”

When Tyler and Maddie aren’t dazzling audiences on stage, they’re most likely engaging followers on social media. With a combined presence of more than 328,000 on TikTok and 128,000 on Instagram, they have charmed viewers with their personable blend of blogging, dance videos, and professional updates. 

One of their most popular series ‘Teaching My Girlfriend Irish Dance’ — rebranded to ‘fiancée’ after their engagement — came about quite incidentally. Tyler recalls working with Maddie on some new bits for ReelRhythm and recording the practice session simply to not forget the choreography. He thought it would be great to post, even though Maddie originally did not want the clip to see the light on social media. Eventually, she came around, and after throwing on the title with a robotic voice over, the video exploded, quickly skyrocketing to over 15 million views on TikTok in just four months.

Their ‘Match My Rhythm’ series took off shortly after. Inspired by a game Maddie used to play with her tap teacher growing up, these 20-second videos feature her and Tyler taking turns performing bars of choreography, experimenting with different rhythmic sequences. “It’s really fun for us,” Maddie says, “and it’s nice because even if we mess up, that also can be posted as a blooper to see.” 

Tyler agrees, adding that they often see viewers resonate with their blooper reels more than their polished videos. “A lot of what we do is unplanned. It’s mics on the floor, just whatever happens, happens. And I think it’s cool to show that,” he says. “Irish dancing can be so perfect, especially on social media; you don’t really see that process.”

Leaning into that authenticity, Tyler explains, has been a key part of their social media strategy. “It’s not a perfect art form, Irish dancing or tap dancing, and sometimes that in-between of when mistakes happen shows a little bit more personality. We’re all human at the end of the day.”

Posting mostly on Tyler’s account, they’ve created an entertaining array of videos, from movie-inspired memes to recreating dances from Ice Age, Shrek, and Fortnite; from using ChatGPT to teach them a “jig” to playful disputes over beat counts. “We definitely have fun. And some videos we’re like, ‘It probably won’t do well, but we’re going to have a lot of fun making it’. And you just never know,” Tyler says.

Tyler and Maddie definitely did not anticipate that their first dance video would take off in the way that it did, racking up 11.2 million views on Instagram and 7.3 million on TikTok with the numbers climbing every day. Surprisingly, an Irish-tap fusion first dance wasn’t even on their radar. It wasn’t planned, but it was exactly what everyone expected from them.

“We wanted to have a proper, normal person first dance — no Irish dancing or any kind of crazy extra things — until pretty much every single person we invited to the wedding, that was always the first question,” Tyler says. “It got to the point where I was like, ‘If we don’t dance, I think people are going to riot at our wedding, so I guess we need to,’” Maddie adds, only slightly joking.

A week out from the wedding day, they stitched together a vibrant narrative of their dance journey. To help them be present in the moment, they used bits and pieces of choreography that were already familiar to them. “We wanted to be still us, so we definitely had a lot of influence with some of the steps we do in our own show,” Tyler says. “But then also, we added in some little easter eggs throughout the dance of things we had done throughout our time together and dancing together.” This includes iconic Celtic Fyre lifts as well as steps from their first ever dance video together to ‘TooTimeTooTimeTooTime’ by The 1975.

The show was elevated by the live accompaniment of a dynamic trio: Éadaoin Ní Mhaicín on fiddle, Mohsen Amini on concertina, and Charlie Galloway on guitar. In a twist as fitting as their first dance story, Tyler and Maddie reveal that having two-thirds of Talisk — AKA every Irish dancer’s favourite trad band — involved was also not part of the original plan.

Tyler, having toured with Éadaoin in the past, brought her on board, and she invited Mohsen, her boyfriend. When their original guitar players pulled out at the last minute, Éadaoin saved the day by recruiting Charlie.

The final performance brought everything together, pushing the production value to new heights. If they were creating a dance, Tyler and Maddie figured, why not go all out? As the opening slow dance transitioned into a lively reel, the energy soared, getting the audience clapping and on their feet. Quick costume changes added to the excitement, with Maddie swapping her stunning gown for a sparkling white and green outfit. Tyler’s own version of a quick change — removing his jacket — almost went awry, as Maddie subtly motioned to guide him back into place just in time for the next count. Nevertheless, the performance thrilled from the first note to the final dip. 

“It all came together miraculously,” Tyler says. “We knew it would probably be one of our better videos, but we honestly didn’t have any idea that it would blow up in the way that it did so quickly. A lot of our videos take a long time to catch the wave, but this caught literally instantly, within 24 hours,” Tyler explains. Beloved by dancers and non-dancers alike, the comments section on TikTok and Instagram is flooded with notes ranging from “Neeeeed a romance novel based on this dynamic” to “How fun to get to have that passion between each other”.

In true dance power couple fashion, Tyler and Maddie wasted no time after their wedding, diving straight into preparations for a six-week European tour of ReelRhythm. Affectionately dubbed their “Honeymoon Tour”, the duo performed across Germany and Switzerland as part of the 2024 Irish Folk Festival Tour.

Now, armed with lessons from the experience, they’re eager to build on this momentum and expand ReelRhythm into an even larger production. “I am excited to see if we can create a bigger version of what we’ve got and still have it translate in an authentic way, in that our personalities can shine through still,” Maddie says. “Our number one feedback from tour was that everyone just says, ‘You guys look like you’re having so much fun together.’”

And that’s exactly what Tyler and Maddie want to take with them into 2025 (and the rest of their lives), this unwavering commitment to finding joy as they move through life together. Embarking on this new chapter as both dance partners and life partners, they’re ready for more — more shows, more videos, and more time creating together. Maddie puts it best: “I think I am most excited to get back in the studio with Ty.”

Follow Tyler and Maddie on social media. Keep up to date with ReelRhythm on the website.

Photography: Lauren Ashley Photography, Brian Doherty Photography, Kamera Shoots, John Shanagher, Sean Kelliher, Laura Russo, Tyler Schwartz
Design: Colleen Falco
Words: Siobhan Cooney
Editor-In-Chief: Hollie Geraghty