The brooch hold a cape which falls over the back. The clothes worn by men are less embellished but steeped in history- they wear a plain kilt and jacket, with a folded cloak draped from the shoulder. Male and female dancers today wear hornpipe shoes, and for reels and jigs, soft shoes similar to ballet pumps are worn. Today there are many organisations promoting Irish dance. The Feis has been an important part of rural cultural life. Children, teenagers and adults compete in separate competitions for Feis titles and prizes.
There are group and solo competitions where dancers are graded by age from six to seventeen and then into the senior categories.
There are dancing championships in all four provinces, and winners of these provincial competitions qualify for the All Ireland Championships. Today it refers to an informal evening of dancing. These dances were usually held on Sunday evenings in summer when young people would gather at the cross-roads.
The music was often performed by a fiddler seated on a three legged stool with his upturned hat beside him for a collection.
The fiddler began with a reel such as the lively "Silver Tip", but he had to play it several times before the dancers joined in.
The young men were reluctant to begin the dance but after some encouragement from the fiddler, the sets of eight filled up the dancing area. The world-wide success of Riverdance and more recently Lord of the Dance has placed Irish dance on the international stage.
Dancing schools in Ireland today are filled with young pupils keen to imitate and learn the dancing styles which brought Jean Butler and Michael Flatley international acclaim. Traditional Iris Step Dancing consists of dances set to traditional Irish music with a fast tempo that dancers are required to perform sets of steps to. For example, two groups of dancers face opposite each other and shuffle, hop, jump, tap and stamp to the music as they more toward each other.
Dancers then move between the dancers of the opposite line and then back to their original position. This is often referred to as a "competition" line dance. Modern Irish Step dancing has female dancers performing ballet up dance movements like leg swings, hopping and jumping or sashaying to the music.
The female dancers perform in soft ghillies while the male dancers are heard tapping in Oxford tap shoes to the music Modern Irish Step Dancing. The female dancers perform in soft ghillies while the male dancers are heard tapping in Oxford tap shoes to the music. Irish Set Dancing, as its name implies consists of dances performed in "sets. The set usually requires dancing in couples in four sets. The Set Dance begins with all four couples dancing to the same choreography.
This is followed by each couple performing the same sets as individual couples. Irish Ceili pronounced "kay-lee Dancing is a very traditional dance form. It originated in the 's and is always performed to traditional Irish music. The Ceili Dances consist of quadrilles, reels, jigs and long or round dances. These were the most native Irish traditional folk dances. Irish Sean Nos Dancing is one of the oldest of the traditional Irish dance styles. It is the only one performed as a solo. It differs from other Irish dances in that it allows free movement of the arms and it is flat down with the heavy weight on the accented beat of the music.
Sean Nos Dancing is the only Irish dance that also allows the solo dancer to improvise the choreography simultaneously as the dance is performed. The taps consist of shuffles and brushes as the dancer moves across the floor.
This style of Irish Dance was a predominant part of Irish socializing. It is performed much like Irish Set Dancing with the exception that is it danced to polkas, Irish hornpipes, waltzes and jigs. Like the Irish Set Dancing, it is performed by couples with specific choreographic dance patterns, although in Irish Two Hand Dancing the patterns are repeated. In Irish Two Hand Dancing couples dance in a relaxed style while they tap their feet in shuffling, hopping and spinning motion.
By all appearances, when Irish Two Hand Dancing is performed on a large dance floor, the couples seem to be gliding along as they dance. Tell us about it. Interested in Irish Dancing? Hi Ronnie, if you drop into a local tourist office when you arrive, they should have info on upcoming events in the area. Name required. Email will not be published required. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam.
Learn how your comment data is processed. You can read some testimonials from our customers here. Top menu My Account Contact Us. Image from Madison Daley. Image from Shelly Hathaway Photography.
Image from Irish Dance Diva. Claddagh Design on Today FM! Recent Custom Jewellery. Ronnie Haber May 21, at am. Paula Claddagh Design May 21, at am. Tom Jig May 13, at pm. Some great info her the history of Irish Dancing, it makes me proud to be Irish! Leave a Reply Click here to cancel reply. Search the site. Customer Ratings Rating of Average of 4. The very first roots were in Pre-Christian Ireland, but Irish dance was also partially influenced by dance forms on the Continent, especially the quadrille dances.
Traveling dancing masters taught all over Ireland as late as the early s. The English landlords frowned on dancing and indeed, all forms of Irish culture as subversive, but the tradition never truly disappeared. In the nineteenth century, the Irish diaspora spread Irish dance all over the world, especially to North America and Australia. One explanation for the unique habit of keeping the hands and upper body stiff relates to the stage. In order to get a hard surface to dance on, people would often unhinge doors and lay them on the ground.
Since this was clearly a very small "stage", there was no room for the movement of the arms. However, movement of the arms is sometimes incorporated into modern Irish stepdance, although this is generally seen as a hybrid and non-traditional addition. Yet another explanation has to do with venue. Irish dance was usually performed in pubs or in small barns, where, because of the restricted space, moving the arms could be hazardous to both the dancer and the audience.
But perhaps the most likely explanation is a practical one. The solo dances are characterized by quick, intricate movements of the feet. Sometime in that decade or the one following, a dance master had his students compete with arms held firmly down to their sides, hands in fists, in order to call more attention to the intricacy of the steps.
The adjudicator approved by placing the students well. Other teachers and dancers quickly followed the new trend. Some of the footwork of softshoe dances is echoed in the footwork of Scottish country dancing, though the two styles should never be confused. Tap dance was also influenced by Irish Stepdancing. Unlike softshoe dancing, hardshoe dancing involves rhythmic and very fast striking of the floor with the tips and heels of the shoes.
Three types of shoes are worn in competitive step dancing: hardshoes and two kinds of softshoe. The hardshoe "heavy shoe", "jig shoe" is unlike the tap shoe, in that the tips and heels are made of fiberglass, instead of metal. The first hard shoes had wooden taps with metal nails. It was common practice in the 17th and 18th century to hammer nails into the soles of a shoe in order to increase the life of the shoe.
Dancers used the sounds created by the nails to create the rhythms that characterize hard shoe dancing. Later the soles were changed into resin or fiberglass to reduce the weight.
Each shoe has eight striking surfaces: the toe, bottom, and sides of the front tap and the back, bottom, and sides of the back tap the heel. Hardshoes are made of black leather with flexible soles.
Sometimes the front taps are filed off in order to enable the dancer to stand on his or her toes, somewhat like pointe shoes. Hardshoes are worn when dancing the hornpipe , the treble jig or "heavy jig", and the treble reel. The same hardshoes are worn by all dancers, regardless of gender or age.
A legend about hardshoe dances is that the Irish used to dance at crossroads or on the earthen floors of their houses, and they removed and soaped their doors to create a resonant surface for hardshoe dancing. The more common actuality was that dancers "battered" on a stone laid in the floor with a space underneath; in the case of set dancing, the head couple of the set would claim the stone. Softshoes, often called "ghillies" or "gillies" , fit more like ballet slippers, but they are of black leather, with a leather sole and a very flexible body.
They lace from toe to ankle and do not make sounds against the dance surface. They are worn for the light jig, the reel , the hop or single jig , group dances-with two or more people, and the slipjig.
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