Step Dancing in Ireland: Culture and HistoryFor many people step dancing is associated mainly with the Irish step-dance stage shows, Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, which assisted both in promoting the dance form and in placing Ireland globally. But, in this book, Catherine Foley illustrates that the practice and contexts of step dancing are much more complicated and fluid. Tracing the trajectory of step dancing in Ireland, she tells its story from roots in eighteenth-century Ireland to its diverse cultural manifestations today. She examines the interrelationships between step dancing and the changing historical and cultural contexts of colonialism, nationalism, postcolonialism and globalization, and shows that step dancing is a powerful tool of embodiment and meaning that can provoke important questions relating to culture and identity through the bodies of those who perform it. Focusing on the rural European region of North Kerry in the south-west of Ireland, Catherine Foley examines three step-dance practices: one, the rural Molyneaux step-dance practice, representing the end of a relatively long-lived system of teaching by itinerant dancing masters in the region; two, Rinceoirí na Ríochta, a dance school representative of the urbanized staged, competition orientated practice, cultivated by the cultural nationalist movement, the Gaelic League, established at the end of the nineteenth century, and practised today both in Ireland and abroad; and three, the stylized, commoditized, folk-theatrical practice of Siamsa Tíre, the National Folk Theatre of Ireland, established in North Kerry in the 1970s. Written from an ethnochoreological perspective, Catherine Foley provides a rich historical and ethnographic account of step dancing, step dancers and cultural institutions in Ireland. |
Contents
1 | |
2 The Professional European Dancing Masters | 27 |
3 Colonialism and the Itinerant Dancing Masters of North Kerry | 59 |
4 Step Dancing as Embodied and Expressive Cultural Knowledge | 93 |
5 Nationalism and the Invention of Irish Dancing | 131 |
6 Step Dancing Modernity and Change in North Kerry | 159 |
7 Globalization and Siamsa Tíre the National Folk Theatre of Ireland | 199 |
The Dynamicity of Step Dance | 227 |
Appendix | 233 |
241 | |
255 | |
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Common terms and phrases
According adjudicators aesthetic Ahern benefit night Blackbird Catherine Catholic céilí dances Championship Chapter choreographed Coimisiún compete concerts contexts cultural nationalist dance events dancing in North developed Dublin embodied ethnographic interview feis feiseanna female Finuge Foley Gaelic League Honor Flynn Hornpipe Hornpipe Lead Ibid identity included Ireland Irene Gould Irish culture Irish dancing Irish language Irish step dancing itinerant dancing masters Jeremiah Molyneaux Jerry Nolan Jimmy Smith Labanotated learned Listowel Molyneaux step dancers movements Muckross House Múirín musicians National Folk Theatre national schools Nedín Batt Walsh North Kerry Oireachtas Rince organization particular Quadrilles region Rince na Cruinne Rinceoirí na Ríochta riverdance rural Siamsa Tíre Slip Jig social dances solo set dances song step dance competitions step dance performance step dance practice step dance teachers step dancing classes structure style taught teaching Theatre of Ireland theatrical townlands traditional music traditional step dance Tralee Treble Reel twentieth century Wren