Riverdance Later that month, Riverdance returned, by popular demand, to the Point Theatre for a six-week sell-out run. Despite the show's growing success, cracks were beginning to appear in the relationship between the producers and lead dancer Michael Flatley. Flatley had choreographed many of the numbers in the multicultural spectacle, but after the show took off, the two parties clashed over salary and royalty fees. At the end of September 1995, a contract dispute arose between Flatley and Riverdance. On 29 September, days before the show was due to reopen for a second sell-out run at The Apollo, Flatley's TV appearances
Billy Pierce (choreographer) Billy Pierce (choreographer) Billy Pierce (14 June 1890 – 11 April 1933) was an African American choreographer, dancer and dance studio owner who has been credited with the invention of the Black Bottom dance that became a national craze in the mid-1920s. The son of two freedmen, Dennis and Nellie (née Shorter) Pierce, William Joseph Pierce was born in Purcellville, Virginia. His parents were truck farmers, but Billy, an only child, went to college, matriculating first at Storer College and then attending Howard University. Pierce started out as a journalist, eventually moving to Chicago to write for the "Chicago Defender",