Heartbeat of Home

I went to the cinema last week. It cost me just under € 16 for a movie and a drink.
Last night I went to see Heartbeat of Home. Tickets cost € 15. For that, I got a healthy dose of goosebumps, a few hairs standing on the back of my neck, and a good solid two hours of Irish entertainment to be proud of.
Being of the generation that left home for distant shores, the preface of the show struck a real chord with me. But it wasn’t just the underlying theme that got me.
The dancers were phenomenal. Call me a dance philistine, but I’ve never seen a mesh of flamenco and Irish dance together before — in fact I would previously struggle to imagine how it could be done, yet it does, seamlessly. Throw in the mix some sexy Cuban salsa, and some street style body-​popping, and you’ve got one hell of a spectacle.
Incredible dancing there is plenty of. The music was haunting at times and uplifting at others. The surprise star of the show for me however, was the set projection crew!
It’s clear there’s been massive time and money spent on this element — it ranges from mythical Tír na Óg-​esque island backgrounds to a flight through the canyons of the Wild West, or the Rio skyline at night. It has all been designed to enhance and tell the story along with the dancers, all the while adding a 3D element that sucks the audience into the scene.
Download your movie, save the cinema fare, and go to see this instead.