On Conan O'Brien Needs A Fan, Conan O'Brien and special guest Andy Richter meet a guest the show introduces as Kenji. Conan has heard he is a former Riverdance dancer, and he asks if that's right.
Clip: Viral Podcast Shorts YouTube Short from the full source linked below.
"I am," Kenji says. He describes himself as "a former lead American tap dancer that battles the Irish uh halfway through the show." The job, as he tells it, is not only to dance against them. He also, in his words, gets to "take the piss out of him for a little bit."
The Short never gives Kenji a last name, and it never says where he lives or performs now. It also doesn't describe the rest of the Riverdance lineup, or how long he was in the show.
The Irish, and a Chicago segment
The studio has some fun with the rivalry. Someone in the room lands on a simple rooting interest: "The Irish. Get him." Conan then puts his own stance bluntly. No one, he says, roots against the Irish more than he does. He adds that "the Irish need more," that "they need more against them," and that "We've had it way too easy historically."
The Short doesn't spell out who says every interjection in that exchange, and the captions don't label the speakers. The lines about rooting against the Irish, and about the Irish having had it too easy, are the ones Conan claims in the clip.
Then he turns to the show itself. "There's so much to talk about here," he says. "First of all, that River Dance show, I I did a segment years ago." He hedges the place: "I think I was in Chicago," and he "needed to learn some sort of Irish step dancing."
He does not treat it as a light routine. "That Irish step dancing is lethal," he says. "That's hard stuff to do." The hard part, as he tells it, is getting "those leg extensions" and getting the foot all the way out.
The kick
What stuck with his audience, he says, is the accident. "It's well known among my fans that I kicked a young girl ahead of me in the head."
Kenji is unfazed. "I did that, too," he says. Conan laughs that "We're in similar company now. This is great." Kenji adds that he "also kicked a dancer on stage."
The clip does not say when Conan's segment aired, who the young dancer was, or how badly anyone was hurt. It also doesn't explain Kenji's on-stage kick, or whether it happened in Riverdance or somewhere else. The conversation stays in the joke: two people who have learned, the hard way, how much force is in those steps.
Who is Kenji?
The Short uses only his first name. An April 9, 2025, Citizen Newspaper Group profile by Tia Carol Jones identifies the Riverdance tap dancer as Kenji Igus. The article says he was then performing in Riverdance 30 – The New Generation at Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre, from April 22 through April 27, 2025, and that he was one of two tap dancers in the show. In the piece, he says that as a tap dancer he "represents the American dance."
The official Team Coco episode page for Taps with Andy Richter, dated November 12, 2026, also identifies the guest as tap dancer Kenji. It says Conan and Andy talk with him about life as a performer in Las Vegas. That Las Vegas detail is not in the Short.
In the clip itself, none of that extra biography is the point. He is the American tap dancer who battles the Irish halfway through Riverdance, sitting with Conan and Andy and comparing notes on a kick to the head.
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FAQ
Who is the Riverdance dancer on Conan O'Brien Needs A Fan?
The Short calls him Kenji. A 2025 Citizen Newspaper Group profile, cited in the article, gives his last name and says he has performed in Riverdance.
What was his role in the show?
He says he is a former lead American tap dancer who battles the Irish halfway through the show.
What did Conan admit about Irish step dancing?
He says he learned some Irish step dancing for a segment years ago, thinks it was in Chicago, and that it's well known among his fans that he kicked a young girl ahead of him in the head.
Does Kenji say he has done the same thing?
Yes. He says he did that too, and that he also kicked a dancer on stage.