Michael Ryan Flatley (born July 16, 1958)[1] is an American former professional performer and choreographer of Irish dance.

Flatley stated that he continued to flirt with the idea of becoming a professional into the early 1980s, but ultimately stayed with a career in dance.

In this early stage of his career he was described as "the white Michael Jackson" by The Hollywood Reporter, the "Rudolph Nureyev of Irish dance" by the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, and the Washington Post compared his feet to "the hands of Vladimir Horowitz in power and agility".

[14] After graduating high school, Flatley worked in various fields, including as a stockbroker, a blackjack gambler, and a flautist.

[15] After attracting the attention of President of Ireland Mary Robinson and dance-show producers, Flatley was invited to help create an intermission show for the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest.

The show was produced by Moya Doherty, with principal choreography and lead performances by Flatley and Jean Butler.

[15] After the Riverdance split, Flatley created his own show, Lord of the Dance, which was capable of playing in arenas and stadiums aside from traditional theaters.

[28] On November 15, 2006, prior to planned European performances of the show, Flatley was admitted to a London hospital with a viral infection.

[30] In November 2007, Flatley and a troupe of male dancers performed on Dancing with the Stars in the U.S.[31] In October 2008, he appeared as a guest judge on an episode of the show, filling in for Len Goodman.

He also performed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, during the 1997 Academy Awards ceremony, and was interviewed on Piers Morgan's Life Stories in 2011.

[32][33][34] In December 2009, Flatley performed in a limited run of the "Hyde Park" version of Feet of Flames in Taiwan.

[35] In 2010, he returned to headline the Lord of the Dance show, with performances in arenas in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.

[36] However, unlike the original show, the stage for the 2010 Return Tour was redesigned; it featured new sets, new costumes, state-of-the-art lighting, newer pyrotechnics, and projections.

[37][38] The 3D film was later released on DVD and Blu-ray under the title, Michael Flatley Returns as Lord of the Dance, and shows performances from the O2 Arenas of London, Dublin, and Berlin.

[41] Also in the same year, Flatley created a revised spin-off of Lord of the Dance, entitled Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games, which featured a similar storyline with new numbers, as well as new music by Gerard Fahy, who previously served as a bandleader and musical director in Flatley's shows.

[3] In January 2017, Flatley introduced his troupe for a performance at the inauguration of Donald Trump as president, which he called "a great honour".

[14] In 2018, Flatley wrote, directed, financed and starred in Blackbird, a spy film set in Barbados, Ireland and the UK.

[48][49] As of November 2018 pre-production work had already begun on Flatley's second film, titled Dreamdance, set in Hollywood at the outbreak of World War II.

[52] When reporting on the award, the Irish Post described the plot of the film as "A Casablanca-inspired spy thriller, Blackbird centres on Flatley as a retired intelligence operative who finds his quiet life running a hotel in Barbados thrown into chaos when an old friend turns up and draws him back into the world he left behind.

The honour corresponded with his opening of his show Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games at the nearby Lyric Theatre.

[70] In 2024, Prince Albert of Monaco presented Flatley with the CC Forum award for outstanding contribution to global humanitarian causes.

[81][82][83][14] In 1997, Flatley purchased Park Villas Place in London after a bidding war against Madonna; he sold the home in 2024.

[84][85] In 2001, Flatley purchased Castlehyde House, originally owned by Douglas Hyde, the first president of Ireland, near Fermoy in north-east Cork, then in a derelict condition, for €3 million.

In addition to Castlehyde and his London mansion, Flatley owns properties in the Caribbean, New York, Beverly Hills, France, Italy and Villefranche-sur-Mer.

In 2010, Flatley dedicated the Garden of Memory and Music in Culfadda, County Sligo, the village his father left to seek a new life in America.

[94] In 2020 he created the "Flatley'sTapForTen challenge" in order to raise money for people found homeless due to the COVID-19 pandemic, benefiting the charities Depaul in Ireland and Centrepoint in the UK.

In 2022 he spoke out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine and noted that performances of Lord of the Dance would raise money for related humanitarian relief efforts.