Irish Music and Dance
This topic is such a huge one, so I'm going to condense it down to little tidbits of information scattered between incredible videos and beloved songs!
There's a long tradition of Irish music, and many wonderful songs to choose from, but one of my all-time favorites is the song "Dúlamán", and the version by Altan in particular. (Lyrics and translation here!) I'm cheating just slightly with this song choice, as the tune is a modified version of the Scottish strathspey song "Cutting Ferns", but the lilting Irish words are a delight. All songs on the "Women of the World - Celtic" albums are excellent, in fact, and particularly so the ones "Sovay" (about a woman dressing up as a highway robber to hold up her boyfriend), "The Rights of Man", and "The Drunken Piper". Some of the best-known voices of Irish music are Celtic Woman, Enya (who received great exposure from featuring prominently on the Lord of the Rings soundtrack), Mary Black, the choral group Anúna (showcased on the show Riverdance), and Christy Moore - to name only a few!
When it comes to dance music, there are different time signatures of which the uninitiated typically only know the existence of reels and jigs. To be fair, most Irish dances truly are either in reel or jig time - but there are different kinds of these, differing either in time signature, speed, or shoes worn. (The Gothard Sisters have a fun trick to tell apart reels and jigs that you might enjoy!)
Irish dance has several divisions: One is of the number of dancers (one, two, eight, or up to a whole party), another is whether or not the music is traditional or not, and the most important is the division between hard and soft shoes.
When I have to explain Irish dancing to someone who's never heard of it before, I clarify first that the soft shoe style is in a style approaching ballet, while dances in hard shoes are more like tap dance or flamenco - except all without upper body movement. Different theories explaining such rigidity exist, the most entertaining certainly being that when British soldiers banned dancing, the Irish closed the bottom part of their doors and danced using only their feet while keeping their arms by their sides. Whatever the reason, most Irish dances don't have any arm movement, with only group dances and modern styles involving motion in the upper body.
Of the solo dances, of particular interest here are the traditional set dances, which have specific music and steps. St. Patrick's Day is a prime example.
Irish dancing has been a part of Irish culture for centuries, but it became a global phenomenon after Michael Flatley and Jean Butler appeared as a Eurovision interval act in 1994 - a performance so well-received that they expanded it into a full show called Riverdance that continues to tour the world with an ever-changing cast. (It was this show that led to my own interest in this dance style, and it is now iconic in the world of competitive Irish dance.)
In the new millenium, dancers setting swift taps to the pulsing beats of techno music have been making waves in the dancing community, with TapTronic being some of the first to explore this new style. Dance competitions, too, have been alive and well, with various associations around the world organizing feiseanna (competitions, originally festivals, pronounced "fesh-ANNa", singular feis). The oldest and most widely established Irish dance association is An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG, Irish Dancing Commission often called simply "an coimisiún"), while in mainland Europe the World Irish Dance Association (WIDA) is most widely represented.
In competition, the main focus is on solo dances, with céilí dances (of typically 8 dancers - Wikipedia calls these "set dances" but in my experience they've always been called céilí dances), figure dances (an unspecified number of dancers doing typically simple steps and complex figures to Irish instrumental music), and show dances (any number of dancers putting on a more musical-style performance to any type of music) also being judged at these events. Some bigger feiseanna will also include a treble reel competition (where a very quick and rhythmic hard shoe dance is done to regular reel music, step-down-the-line style), a céilí evening (with figures being called as they're danced), and huge trophies. (My modest collection.)
If you're interested in learning to play Irish music (the fiddle, the bodhran...) or how to do a jig, drink a pint in some like-minded company or take part in a céilí evening, I suggest you have a poke around the internet to see what there might be in your area! You never know - the Irish community is pretty widespread. Have fun!
