Michael Flatley's Lord Of The Dance: Dangerous Games tour visits York Barbican for three nights, but without the leaping lord himself.

What does Lord Of The Dance: Dangerous Games involve, Michael?

“It’s a high-octane, high energy spectacular for all the family and you can expect everything from breathtaking special effects and groundbreaking technology to dancing robots, world champion acrobats and unicorns. My dancers are the real stars; it’s a show I can be proud of. I’ll be performing at some dates [he is dancing at the Dominion Theatre, London, on Friday and Saturdays evenings until June 27] in my final performances in the UK and Ireland. After years of punishment, my body just can’t take any more.”

How do you come up with the ideas and routines for your shows?

“I believe you have to go inside yourself and work as hard as you can. I haven’t watched television for 25 years but for sport; I believe that you have to look inside rather than outside for inspiration. In the past, I could spend eight hours working on just the one step and it wouldn’t come. Then all of a sudden it started to flow and I created so many steps so fast and in succession. The channel becomes open, but you have to work for it. It won’t be given.”

You have started painting by dancing across canvasses with paint on your shoes. Why?

“I became fascinated by the great painters who went before us. Once they painted a work, it was there for ever. With my art, I had to paint it, live, every night – and it had to be perfect every night. I dreamed that there was a way that I could turn that whole 3D experience into a 2D image that would last for ever.

“In 2005 I realised my dream of dancing and selling out at Madison Square Gardens in New York, a place where all my boxing heroes had fought. Afterwards I received a framed cut-out of the vinyl flooring that had been covering the trap door on the stage. It was covered in scuff marks from my shoes. I’m a great fan of abstract expressionism and so I went into a studio, put vinyl on the floor and a little paint on my shoes and danced. Then I started throwing paint because I refuse to be just held to the one thing.”

What did you do with the vinyl from the New York stage?

“We hung it in a corridor at Castlehyde [Flatley’s 17th-century home in County Cork]. Every year, we have a Christmas party for a couple of hundred people and one year I saw a group of people standing around looking at it. They were art experts from London and they were begging me to tell them who the artist was. My wife and I thought it was hilarious and we refused to tell them.”

By what motto do you live your life?

“‘Nothing is impossible, follow your dreams’. My father was my hero and he taught me that if you work as hard as you can, you can achieve anything. When I was a teenager, I was going to dance in the world championships. I wanted to dance in a new style, using my arms to ‘fly’ around the stage, but it was the world championships and you had to do it traditionally with arms by your side. My father told me to get in there, win the world title and then I could do it my way. He was right. I won the world championship and I’ve never held my arms at my side since.”

Did your father inspire you in other ways?

“Yes. He was such a hardworking and driven man. He wouldn’t let negativity into his head. As young men my brothers and I worked with him on construction sites and digging ditches and from him we learned self-discipline and the importance of doing things properly. He taught us to be the one who set the pace rather than the one who followed it.

“I was blessed with both my parents. My mother was a very well brought up woman from a very good family. She married a big, strong Irishman from the West and they had something magical together. Theirs was a love affair that lasted 60 years.”

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

“For me real happiness is Sunday brunch in London with my beautiful wife [his former leading lady Niamh O’Brien] and son. I leave the phone at home and we walk in the park, talking and laughing, and it’s just perfect.”

Is there a sense of loss as you prepare for your final performances as a dancer, Michael, at the age of 56?

“I am sure I will miss dancing, but I’ve always been the creator and the choreographer and my dream going forwards is to bring new talent through and give them the chance to shine like the stars they are.”

• Michael Flatley’s Lord Of The Dance: Dangerous Games, York Barbican Tuesday to Thursday, 8pm. Please note, Michael Flatley will NOT be dancing in these performances. Box office: 0844 854 2757 or yorkbarbican.co.uk

The 2015 tour features new staging, costumes and choreography and an ensemble of 40 dancers directed by Michael Flatley.

Did you know?

Michael Flatley’s debut exhibition of his foot-tapped paintings will be held on June 24. Further details are sketchy. “It’s my new passion and I just love it,” he says.

Did you know too?

Michael Flatley will dance in London for the final time on July 4 at Wembley Arena. “My body just can’t take any more,” he says. Discs in his spine have to be readjusted twice a week; his right calf muscle has not healed completely since a tear in 1996; his right foot has a recurring broken bone; his hamstrings are, frankly, hamstrung.