Irish Dance Classes

I wanted to give Irish dance a try, and decided to take some classes. I found 4 Irish dance schools in the Metro area, and decided to try Rince na Chroi based on their class location (Concordia University) and adult class time (Wednesdays at 7:30 PM). A series of 15 weekly classes cost $240.

As I was researching options, I was surprised to learn that our present notion of Irish dance is younger than I would have guessed.

While there is evidence of dancing among the ancient Celts and Druids, followed by the invading Normans in the 12th century, it wasn’t until the 18th century when Irish dancing developed the styles and formations we know today came about. In 1893 the Gaelic League was founded to promote and encourage Irish culture in Ireland, organizing formal competitions, lessons and rules for Irish dancing. In 1930 the Irish Dancing Commission was created to regulate Irish dance, and over the following decades it spread to the vast Irish diaspora around the world. The success of Riverdance, first shown in 1995, and more recently Lord of the Dance has placed Irish dance on the international stage.

The style is relatively formal and regimented, with little upper body movement, precise and quick foot movement and a strict number of steps to be completed. This was mostly because of the limited space performers would have had in the 18th and 19th centuries; small crowded rural pubs or barn dances didn’t allow much room for arm movement or for dancing around the floor. Each type of dance falls into one of two categories; soft shoe or hard shoe.

The instructors and participants at Rince na Chroi are very kind and welcoming-a great group of women. Many of the participants have been taking classes for years and clearly love it. The school puts on performances regularly, and as soon as our series of classes started in the fall, the class started to rehearse routines for a performance in February. Early on I elected not to participate in the performance, for two primary reasons:

• It became clear within the first two sessions that this was much more difficult to learn than I'd anticipated, and as the other participants had been dancing for some time I knew as a novice I would stand out and potentially detract from the performance

• The cost of the required performance costume was not insignificant, including:

1. Soft shoes ($50)
2. Hard shoes ($150) with buckles ($15)
3. Rince na Chroi adult custom-made dress and headband ($260)
4. Wig ($70, optional for adults, if you don't wear a wig you must curl your hair and wear it half up)
5. Pair of black dance trunks ($15)

I'm not a complete novice to dance- I took years of ballet as a girl, a semester of ballroom dance in college, and I regularly participate in kickboxing and other dance exercise classes. Even so, I'd underestimated the challenges of Irish dance. First, the timing is not what you're used to with most dance. I can't entirely explain it, other than to say it's syncopated- you leap and move on both upbeats and downbeats, and the timing is hard to figure out and execute. Secondly, it's challenging to make your body move with equal parts power and control, including big leaps without moving your upper body. The class teachers are patient and spent some extra time with me. That said, after the 15 week series I think I'll try something else on my bucket list. This is great exercise and fun, though, so I may decide to do more in the future.

Me with some of the awesome Irish dance gals