Talk:Irish dance

Untitled
Please correct intolerable errors in this article — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.78.131.140 (talk) 09:20, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Article Quality
There is a need for more inline references; there are hardly any at the moment. I came upon this as an inquiring reader and am unable to decide how much of the material is original research or the level of accuracy within the article. I wonder if the main authors would like to add some referencing? Sejanus Aelianus (talk) 19:59, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Dance shoes
About dance shoes for boys -- I've never seen a male wear the same style ghillies the girls wear. Even the younger and less experienced ones have shoes resembling jazz shoes, not the ghillies. As for the girls they wear ghillies, similar to ballet shoes.

Both boys and girls wear the same type of hard shoes.

First ghillies are also known as soft shoes And the reason boys have different soft shoes to girls is because boys have stronger legs and are given the option to click there heels together (not as in sticking them together more like hitting them against each other to make a click) to make there dances more of a challenge for them -an irish dance girl

The topics that constitute Irish Dance
This article is a disgrace. :-)

Nothing about set dancing...you'd think only step dancing existed...the article should probably live at Irish folk dance.


 * Set dancing is folk dance too. So is your sentence unclear, or are you confused?

To be clearer: the article should include information about set dancing and the resulting article should live on Irish folk dance. (Of course set dancing is a kind of folk dance!) The category "Irish dance" would include info about ballet and modern dance in Dublin, e.g., which is evidently not part of your subject here. --LMS

I've added some info on set dances. More needs to be written. I've also clarified the usage of irish dance to mean what some refer to as step dancing. Step dancing is more of a slang term, while irish dance is the more formal term for the style of folk dancing that is the topic here. Irish dance would mean something different than any dance that occurs in Ireland. In fact, irish dance is extremely popular in the US, Canada and Australia. 12.250.251.139 05:50, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

LMS is right. This article is not about Irish dance. It's about step dancing which is just as common in Scotland as Ireland. I'm moving it to that title shortly. -- Derek Ross 15:55, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I do not believe that this was the correct thing to do. The scottish dancing has hand movements that are not found in the irish version. The foot movements while perhaps begun from the same roots do not bear the same resembelence today. The organization for Dance teachers in North America is IDTNA -- the Irish Dance Teachers of North America. Not Step dance teachers. I would like to see some discussion by others on this issue because I believe that the original emphasis was correct. greybeard 04:02, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Let me take your points one-by one. The scottish dancing has hand movements that are not found in the irish version -- Hand movements aren't proscribed in Scottish step dancing but they aren't generally prescribed either. After all the emphasis in step dancing, whether Irish or Scottish, is on the feet not on the hands. So I don't see the presence or absence of hand movements as any more than variation between different dances. It just so happens that in Ireland hand movements are proscribed no matter what the dance. Are you thinking of Highland dancing perhaps ? Because it is definitely not step dancing.

The foot movements while perhaps begun from the same roots do not bear the same resemblance today. -- But that's what makes any named dance different from another. Even individual named dances within the Irish step dance tradition use different foot movements: that's what makes the dances differ from each other. Geographically different regions have different styles, which is why Sean-nos gets a mention. The different foot movements that you note, are not so different that either the Scottish and Irish variants, or even the Northern English variant, have become unrecognisable as step dancing.

''The organization for Dance teachers in North America is IDTNA -- the Irish Dance Teachers of North America. Not Step dance teachers.'' -- Fine, but I would expect that, even in North America, Irish Dance teachers would teach not only Irish step dancing but also Irish set dancing, ceilidh dancing, etc., so I wouldn't expect them to be called Step dance teachers. After all, they teach the entire repertoire of Irish dance (I presume).


 * At least in Eastern Canada and the Eastern US, most Irish step dance teachers do not teach set dancing beyond the traditional sets (St Patrick's Day, Blackbird, Garden of Daisies) and many don't teach more than one of these sets (and some seem to not teach any, because they are not mandatory for competitive Irish Dance competitions).

I believe that the original emphasis was correct -- Understood. Unfortunately I'm not so sure. I always feel uncomfortable when reading articles which claim that such-and-such is purely Irish when I know from my own experience that it is in fact Gaelic. I felt that this article fell very much into that category and that is why I renamed it.

I think that there is still a place for an article called Irish dance. It's just that I think that it should cover more than this article does (as LMS says above). Some effort has been made to do that and as a result there is some non-step dancing information in the article. In the meantime, I'll bow to your wishes and move the article back to Irish dance but ideally I'd like to see the step dancing elements in an article of their own. -- Derek Ross 18:19, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Great. I agree. Thank you. I would be glad to help with what I know about step dancing with the new article. greybeard 05:15, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think that this article does not belong under Irish Dance. I agree with Derek Ross in the first place; the emphasis of the article is on Irish Stepdancing, not Irish dance, and in order to do all the different sorts of Irish dance justice, and also to keep the page size under control, it should be called Irish Stepdancing and other pages on, say, Irish Set Dancing (which I believe already exist as stubs) should be expanded upon. There's actually more clear information on Irish dancing and what makes up the folk/cultural aspects of Irish dancing on the Irish traditional music page than there is here. What's here is often times confusing, poorly written and organized, and sometimes clearly biased information.

A new picture is totally needed! This one makes it look so unprofessional. Darkar 09:06, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I have to agree that the article that this article as it stands does is a poor description of the rich and vibrant threads that make up Irish Dance. What should be an overview of Irish Dance is really little more than a description of 'Step Dance'. Indeed, the very first line of the article reads Irish stepdancing (one type of "Irish dance") which is a pretty blatant acknowledgement of what is contained here.  I do not think that tinkering with this page will get us anywhere and as such a fairly major overhaul is needed and a new structure needs to be agreed as to what exactly should go where.  Obviously covering everything in the one article would be unwieldy and as such much of what is here at present should be moved to a separate 'Step Dancing' page. This not to detract from the hard work that has already gone into this article but I feel that the vibrancy, diversity that is present in Irish dancing, as well as its links to other forms of dance, are not represented here.  In addition a lot more work needs to go into referencing as at the moment it reads like an opinion piece, almost nothing is verifiable at the moment. Having spent an number of years Set Dancing, both socially and in competition, (although I'll admit its been 4 years since my last set)   I do not see much of that represented here. The page on Set Dancing here is somewhat wanting too but it should be integrated here.  The omission of contempory dance in ireland is also a serious ommision, the dance theatre of ireland has been going for some ten years. --Njg 05:21, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I have to disagree about the picture. The dancers there are not strictly "dancing with bent arms", they're holding hands. Something frequently done in Irish dancing when there is a group of dancers dancing together as clearly these three girls are doing. You won't often find this form in competition (the girls are wearing competition-class costumes) but you do very often find this in public performances which a parade clearly is. --MichaelH99 21:50, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm just going to state that there needs to be a lot more effort in making sure that the culture variations for each organization of Irish dance are addressed. For example, CRN does not have oireachtas (yet it does not specify that not everyone does), and while CRN (its where I dance, that's why I keep referencing it) makes you fly out to Orlando or Vegas or Santa Fe or West Virginia or wherever if you want to compete, some organizations let you take a video and send it in (or something like that). I did not once see any mention of these extremely important culture differences, which, if this is an overview of Irish Dance, is very disappointing. I am here to see how my art form is being represented and I am absolutely disappointed. There should be subsections from the exact point where they start, after shoes, because even the attire is different: I once saw a documentary featuring a blonde, but her wig was black. However, this would never happen in CRN. Even if EVERY dancer longs for a Gavin dress, there are many differences between the organizations. Immediately after… attire if not shoes they should begin subsections {oh look I'm being repetitive} so that you can easily say, 'this is how CRN does this that and the other, and this is how TCLRG does all of those same things'. I hope this helps clean up this page. -A CRN dancer for about six years now — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1:C735:2992:21AD:5C1C:4DC6:A4A4 (talk) 02:46, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Split off Irish stepdance
To improve this article, and make it more truly reflect all Irish dance, I've added an introduction and a section on céilí dance, split off Irish stepdance into a separate article, and significantly trimmed down the stepdance stuff. The céilí dance section needs expanding; someone needs to write something about Irish set dance, including how it's different from céilí dance (all I've observed is that set dancers never actually run a dance all the way through), and if Njg wants a section on Modern Dance of Ireland, s/he can add that, too. Argyriou 20:51, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I apologize to anyone from Wilkes-Barr, but I think it is quite inappropriate to show a lead off picture depicting dancers with bent arms. The straight arms are what most people imitate first when they think of Irish and is one of the hardest things for new dancers to learn. Does anyone have a photo of dancers in the traditional form? (Perhaps better lighting would also be in order...)
 * We need a new PICTURE!***


 * It would be nice to have a non-stepdance picture, anyway, since stepdance has its own article. I'll dig through my archives at home and supply one. Argyriou 19:53, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Recent edits
Is Gay Gordons an Irish dance? I always thought it was a Scottish dance. (And I've never heard of "Shoe the Donkey".) There seems to be some distinction between set dancing and ceili dancing, though most social Irish dancing in the U.S. seems to be set, not ceili. Some of the stuff about dances with particular tunes or series of tunes seems to belong to set dancing. Is there enough about set vs ceili that we can have a section for each? Argyriou 19:53, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Gay Gordons is often done at Irish ceilis, presumably borrowed from the Scottish or English (who also have a version of the dance). Shoe the Donkey is a simple mazurka done to the tune of the same name or other Irish mazurkas - again a case of cultural borrowing. So both dances are "naturalized" Irish dances.--Prairie dancer 19:43, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Step dancing in Britain and Ireland
I have followed traditional dancing in Britian an Ireland for close on 40 years, and the dances are not really related. This last 10 years since Riverdance became popular we find a upsurge in the popularity of hardshoe dancing, which in my experience was the Irish tradition. Clogging recently has emulated the trad Irish style. [Ian]

Granted that 40 years is a long time and I bow to your experience but we're talking here about a dance tradition which is 140 years or more and which has risen and fallen in popularity a few times during that period. Surely it's difficult to say what's related and what's not without doing the research on the late 18th and early 19th century heyday of step dancing. I would of course agree that Riverdance has more recently led to a popularity in all types of step dancing and it doesn't surprise me that it has influenced some of the other forms as a result. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:32, 2004 Sep 15 (UTC)

Flamenco comparison
"Irish dancing resembles Flamenco"? Both styles strike the floor with hard shoes, that's where the similarity ends; the methods, the postures, the attitude etc. are all very different. The page is named "Irish dance". Let's get some Irish dance experts to contribute. -- Kilclaren

Thought this page was about Irish Dance, what's all this discussion about Scots dance? Kit

i think that you should talk about why they dance and the meaning of Irish Dancing

It is probably convenient to sign your posts with four tildies ( ~ ). It will make reading this page easier. Also, as Kilclaren said, Flamenco dance and Irish dance have little in common.Di4gram 17:48, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Northern Ireland Project
Please do not remove WikiProject tags - it is considered Vandalism. --Mal 01:55, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

What about Sean Nós?
I agree with the comments above this is a poor and confusing article.

I'm not an expert in the field but as I understand it there are too main trends in Irish Dance


 * set dancing which has evolved from the social scene and is mainly participative though there are sometimes displays
 * the other being figure dancing which is performance oriented and is the main form on the competitive feis circuit and which has spawned the Riverdance show.

There is an older form of figure dance which is still around but not not mentioned in the article - Sean Nós (literally "old style") this is a variant of figure dance characterised by a less stiff upper body posture though like most figure dance the arms don't play a role.

Needs work particularly on the terminology and the clarity there of. --Gramscis cousin 02:02, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Please - if you know enough about Sean Nós to write a section on it, do so! If I knew anything about it, I would have done so already, but I know almost nothing about Sean Nós. I'm going to go in and butcher the section on stepdance, since it has its own article. Adding information about Sean Nós will really help balance this article. Argyriou 20:09, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

History of ceili
A couple of references for the antiquity of ceili dance in general, if not of any particular ceili dance: Argyriou (talk) 02:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Irish Step Dancing, A Brief History - History records a variety of dances done by the Irish in the mid-1500s. These include Rinnce Fada or Fading where two lines with partners faced each other, Irish Hey (possibly a round or figure dance), jigs (likely in a group), Trenchmores (described as a big free form country dance), and sword dances.
 * A Brief Overview of Irish Dance - Ceili dances represent an informal tradition of dance that is common to much of humanity since prehistory. Many are structured as sword dances, round dances, line dances, and progressive line dances.  The Normans have been credited for introducing the round dance into Ireland around the 12th century.  The "rince fada" [long dance] is actually a family of dances, one of which was described in the end of the 17th century as performed by "three persons moving abreast, each of which held the end of a white handkerchief, followed by the rest of the dancers in pairs".

stepdance taking over
The step dance section is now longer than the rest of the article. Why is that, when there is an entire irish stepdance article on its own? —Preceding unsigned comment added by MichaelH99 (talk • contribs) 09:18, 4 February 2007


 * This article, before I got to it, was 95% about Irish stepdance. I generally try to remove material added to the stepdance section, and add it to the Irish stepdance article instead. But there's a lack of good sourced material about other sorts of Irish dance, which is further complicated by the lack of consistency in naming of anything related to Irish dance - something called one thing in the U.S. is called something else in the UK and something else in Ireland. I'd like to make the articles more balanced, but it's not easy. Argyriou (talk) 21:05, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I reverted all the additions on Feb 2 per above. Oh, it really helps if you sign articles with 4 tildes ~ . Argyriou (talk) 21:08, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

To the user editing from 193.1.100.110
Hi! Thank you for having useful information to contribute to the Irish dance article; however, much of what you posted more properly belongs in the Irish stepdance article. If you want to recover the content of what you posted, check the history tab on the Irish dance article. If today weren't so hectic, I'd add your stuff into the Irish stepdance article myself. Argyriou (talk) 22:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Edits regarding time
What about the difference between slow and fast hornpipe, and slow and fast treble jig? I don't know what the timing differences are myself (2/4, 4/4, etc) but I assume there must be some. A brief clarification of those would be helpful. K e rowyn Leave a note 21:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * There's a difference between time signature and tempo. The difference between a slow and fast hornpipe, or slow and fast jig, is purely one of tempo. I've linked to time signature in the article. Argyriou (talk) 17:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah. Makes sense. Still, I'd like to mention that there are different tempos, so that people who know about slow and fast dances aren't confused. K e rowyn Leave a note 18:26, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Related "detangling" of subjects: Sean-nós song and Sean-nós dance
There now are separate pages for Sean-nós song and Sean-nós dance, and the article for the more general term "Sean Nós" turned into a Disambiguation Page. This is to deal with a similar occurrence to the history of the "Irish dance" page, where the "Sean Nós top-level" page was also 95% about song and 5% about its "sister" dance. When the article/topic distinction was made for "Sean Nós writ large", the few existing links internal to Wikipedia were "arbitrated" as to whether they were for song or dance contexts; and then pointed to the appropriate context.

Then with that extra "breathing room" now created for Sean Nós, appropriate changes within the "Irish Dance" article were made to add inline internal links referring to Sean-nós dance for each initial reference in a section. Likewise, references were added in the "See Also" section.

Also, a short section on "Sean-nós dance in the Irish Diaspora" was added to the "Irish dance" article. (Why not, since there are now more Irish heritage people living outside Ireland than still in Ireland itself?). An additional article about "Sean-nós dance in America" was also started, so that the American permutations on Sean-nós dance don't cloud the "purer" regional forms in Ireland.

If anyone who has information about "Sean-nós dance in Canada" then feel free to add that article and point to it as well (or for any other part of the Irish Diaspora). I know very little about Irish dance in general, but I did the best I could do help with the Sean-nós dance parts.

BTW, one of the more commonly posted contemporary Irish Stepdance videos is of the "Ottawa" Stepdance style as demonstrated by the brothers Jon and Nathan Pilatzke and/or Dan Stacey (who often appear with Irish Stepdancer Cara Butler on YouTube videos). Sean-nós dance would with steps "lower to the floor" of course...

- Folk Life (talk)

Belfast
For most readers, Belfast is in Northern Ireland, not Ireland as stated in the article. Lou Sander (talk) 20:46, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Irish dance is a phenomenon which has roots all over the island of Ireland, not just within the Republic of Ireland. Some particular forms and moves are from Belfast, but they're still Irish.  Argyriou (talk) 22:46, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Reverted move
I reverted the move to Dance in Ireland. This article is not about dance in Ireland, it's about Irish dance, a group of dance forms which originated in Ireland, but which extend well beyond Ireland, and which are not the only dance forms which occur in Ireland. If you want a "dance in Ireland" article, write about Irish dance, and about the Dublin National Ballet, and about American country dancing done in bars, and about all the other sorts of dance which people do in Ireland. Argyriou (talk) 22:44, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Is this the place?
Under the 'Competition Structure' section, the article made reference to the first World Championships being held in "Colaiste Mhuire, Dublin." This version made this look like the name of a town in County Dublin, or some such. (When I searched Wiki using that exact spelling as listed in the article, it took me to a school in County Mayo.) So, I assume the link that I've created with Coláiste Mhuire is the correct place where this initial competition took place??, but I don't know for certain. If this is incorrect, please change the link, but I was trying to word it in a way that made it clearer to an international reader where and what this location is. Nuclare (talk) 20:01, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Nevermind! I figured it out. A source here says it was Colaiste Mhuire at Parnell Square, so I've removed the link I added and reworded to make it clearer what/where this location is. Nuclare (talk) 20:43, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Separate Ceili Dance Page like Set Dance?
In the absence of a separate entry on ceili dancing, people had been automatically redirected to the "Ceili" page, which describes its meaning as a dance event rather than to a page describing the dance form (rather like the distinction made in "reversed move" above). Set dancing has avoided this problem by having a separate page for set dance, and a while back I created a ceili dance page to remedy the problem. Are there any objections or suggestions about my merging the ceili dance material from this page into that more specialized page, and adjust this one appropriately? CSProfBill (talk) 10:51, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Injuries section
I removed the "injuries" section for several reasons. First, the section is all about Irish stepdance, and isn't nearly as relevant to other forms of Irish dance. (Stepdance is not the entirety of Irish dance!) Also, it places undue weight on injuries as a part of Irish dance. The articles on tap dance and ballet don't discuss injuries at all; having an entire section about stepdance injuries in the overall Irish dance article is really out of proportion. Argyriou (talk) 16:55, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

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