There are certain things that you never tell an irish dancer. 1) that they clog and 2) that they river dance. Every time I tell someone that I irish dance, they say “oh so you clog”. No, I don’t “clog” I “irish dance”. Clogging and irish dance are commonly confused and it gets annoying. The fundamentals of the two types of dance are completely opposite of each other. Clogging is a form of tap dance that is louder and not as sophisticated. (thats the first insult, loud and unsophisticated?)

In clogging, you wear a shoes that is fake leather and it has a small heel with metal pieces on the bottoms. These shoes are not very sturdy and do not allow for that much technical footwork. Irish dance hard shoes are leather and have fiberglass tips on the bottom. They also have a flat surface at the top to make fancy footwork easier and safer.

The other main difference iin the two styles of dance it where you place your arms while dancing. Irish dancers have to keep their arms completely by their sides. The goal for an irish dance is for it to look like you took a pole and replaced it with their spinal cord. No part of your body should move from the waist up. In tap dance or clogging you can move your arms all around, and you are encouraged to move your arms as it helps you get off the floor to make the sounds. Tap dancers need a push to get off of the ground to make the sounds but irish dancers have to rely completely on our legs to do all of the work for us. Riverdance is an amazing show that is famous for bringing the style of irish dance to America. Michael Flatley created this show and toured it all of the world for years. The thing that is not understood it that this is only a show. I do not river dance because that is not a thing. I could possibly perform in Riverdance, but I am not a river dancer. Its about time that people understand the true talent and hard work that it takes for irish dancers to do what we do. Don’t try to compare it to any other American sport. Irish dance is it’s own truly amazing art form that requires hard work and ridiculous strength. (ok I’m a little bias, but its true.)

Michael Flatley

Set dances are the staple of an irish dancers competition. This is the last dance a judge sees before the final scores are given. In the other 2 rounds the dancers dance in groups of two or three. This give some wiggle room in case you mess up. There is always the chance that the judges were not looking at you when you went off time or stopped. In the set dance round every dancer dances by themselves. This round is the most stylistic in nature. The hard shoe round and the soft shoe round are to show off your technique and your stamina. The set dance round is show off your skill and your style. At major competitions, your set dance round can pull you up to the world qualifiers, or destroy you and knock you down ten places.

Your set dance is completely customized to you and you can pick whatever song and tempo you want. My set dance is titled The King of the Fairies at speed 110. There are tons of songs you can choose from. If your doing a hornpipe set, many popular choices are The King of the Fairies, Humors of Bandon, The Drunken Gauger, Miss Brown’s Fancy, and Planxty Davis at speeds 68-72. If you are doing a trouble jig set, many popular choices are Planxty Drury, The Storyteller, The Blackthorn Stick, The Three Sea Captains, The Ace and Deuce of Pipering, and The Downfall of Paris at speeds 108-110. This dance is the most important component to compeition and you cannot mess it up.

This is an exciting time of year for the irish dance community. The Worlds is only 1 week away. Every year the Worlds is in a different country; this year the World Championships are in London. This time next week, the best irish dancers will be spray tanning their legs and packing their shoes into a carryon bag. The Worlds is the most prestigious competition an irish dancer can go to.

London 2014 top 5 sashes.

Usually every age division has a world champion who has been winning the worlds since they were allowed to qualify, but this year things are getting shaken up. One of the best schools in the world, Butler Fearon O’Connor, is not allowed to compete at the worlds due to a judging conflict. This dance school alone has 3 world champions and countless girls

The world champion’s crown.

who were on the podium. This means the worlds is giong to be a bloodbath with girls trying to get those awards. It’s going to be very interesting to see who will take the crown (literally you get a crown too.).

I mentioned before that the Butler Fearon O’Connor school is not allowed to compete. This is due to an adjudication and association rule that was put into place a fews years ago. The rule basically states that if your school has had any association with the adjudicators at the Worlds within a year of the competition than your school cannot compete. This rule aims to solve the issue of fixed results.

The globe on the capes of a world champions dress.

A dancers name on her dress.

Another interesting component that was just recently banned from competition is the worlds globe on the back of your dress. Up until last year, if you had won the worlds ever than you could put a globe patch on your dress. Everyone knew who the world champions were and they were treated like celebrities. This trend became an issue because judges would judge based off of the globe on their dress and not the dancing on the stage. One year a dancer did an experiment and wore a globe on her dress even though she was not a champion. That year she got 8th at the worlds and every other year she didn’t even make the recalls. This has since been banned because the results were very skewed. Various other attempt at this have ben made. Schools have tried to put school logos on their students dresses, and there is a new trend out recently that is very similar. Dancers will put their names on the back of their dresses so everyone knows who is dancing. A judge may know of a dancer, but they don’t recognize them. The dancer is literally screaming to the judge their real identity. Its like the dancers are not confident in their dacning alone. They don’t believe in just leaving it on the stage.

You might have wondered if there is standard for steps in irish dance. Every school does their own version of customized steps and choreography. There have been problems in the past with schools stealing choreography and using it in competition. A dancers Choreography can make or break them, and judges can like certain moves over others. The best schools in the world are notorious for bringing new innovative ideas to the table in style and steps. Schools are very serious about their choreography. In irish dance there is also a problem with schools being greedy. Every school wants to be a powerhouse, and they will do anything to get on top. Schools who want to win combine with schools who actually do win and now there is one giant school that just wins everything. This angers the irish dance community because the worse schools get credit for the best choreography.  If you steal moves from another school your entire school can face suspension from competition and/or get extra community service hours at local majors.

Since we’re nearing the end of blogging I think it’s time to talk about the Penn State Irish Dance group on campus. Rince na Leon was founded in the spring of 2011. We have ties with the Penn State Irish Student Society and are committed to spreading the Irish heritage around State College. We have performed at many events on campus like 100 days until THON, THON, homecoming, and at the last football home game of the season. We practice twice a week for 2 hours in the White building and you don’t need to know irish dance to join.

As you might have guessed St. Patrick’s Day is a very important holiday for irish dancers. Dancers are busy performing in nursing homes, schools, community centers, restaurants, and bars for hours during this crazy time of year.

St. Patricks Day or the Feast of St. Patrick originated in the seventeenth century. It was originally celebrated to mark the death of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. It is a day to celebrate your irish heritage, and wear green. The green color represents the shamrock, which St. Patrick used to represent the holy trinity. People often refer to this holiday as St. Patty’s day, but I recently learned that this is incorrect. The holiday is officially known as either St. Patrick’s Day or St. Paddy’s Day and nothing else. In the United States these days, St. Patricks day has become less of a religious holiday and more of a drinking holiday. But nonetheless, it is a day to show your irish spirit.

Over the past week I have been going on tours with my dance studio around bethlehem, Allentown, Hatfield, and Philadelphia. We have a set show list for every venue and the weekend of the big day we dance from 6 am until 11 pm everyday. It can get very exhausting, but thats what makes it fun.

On a side note, the Penn State Irish dance Performance Group Rince na Leon is celebrating St. Patricks day with performances all day at Kildare’s on College Ave. If your looking for a fun way to celebrate the your irish heritage, what better way than with irish dancers! I hope you all have a great St. Patrick’s Day!

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Over the years irish dance has developed into this ridiculous sport that is crazy and fun. It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when irish dancers didn’t tan, didn’t wear wigs, and didn’t wear dresses that are really short. Until the early 2000’s, the wig was not widely used. I have dance teachers who remember the time when they had to sleep in curlers so their hair was perfectly curled. The wig was invented for convince so dancers who don’t have curly hair could still uphold tradition.

The dresses dancers wore a few years ago where very modest and traditional. Dresses used to have three panels and the skirt would be longer than your knees. Recently style has become a big part of irish dance. The dresses have morphed into these short, softer style skirts that are easy to move in and are light. There was an actual rule made a couple of years ago that if your skirt was shorter than 4 inches about your knee, you got a big point deduction, or you were disqualified. This rule was heavily enforced for about 6 months but slow started to fade away as the dress styles changed again.

Irish dance wasn’t always so flashy either. We get a lot of criticism for the rhinestones on our dresses, the tan on our legs, and the amount of makeup we wear. Some people think it’s over the top and too far from tradition. They’re not correct. There is a rule book that says every rule about upholding tradition that must be followed and we haven’t broken one. For traditional dress: girls must cover their collar bone, and have long sleeves, and boys must wear pants that cover their ankles, black socks, and must cover their chest. As long as you follow that dress code, you won’t have any problems with tradition. Irish dancing is changing with the times. It’s not the same sport that it was back in Ireland in the 17th century, but it has the same roots and we still value the rules and culture that have always been present.

In honor of the All Scotland Championships being last weekend, it seems like a good time to mention the importance of major competitions. Major competitions are competitions that help you qualify for the World championships. They start with regional majors; this is  called the Oireachtas (pronounced as o-rock-tahs). Every region has it’s own oireachtas that dancers can compete at to qualify for the North American National Championships and the World championships (called the Oireachtas Rince na Cruinne, pronounced as o-rock-tahs rin-ka na crew-na). To qualify for the Oireachtas, a dancer has to be at the preliminary or open championship level. Dancers who are at the open championship level also automatically qualify for the North American National Championships. Dancers cannot automatically qualify for the World Championships unless that dancer got a placement medal at the previous World Championships; these dancers are considered world medal holders.  Now these are only the rules in the united states. In other countries the rules are very similar, but the amount of dancers that qualify for the World Championships varies. As Americans, we can attend regional and national competitions in other countries, but we are not allowed to qualify for the Worlds in those countries. You can only qualify for the worlds in your home country. Dancers attend overseas majors to size up the competition and get a feel for how they compare to the other dancers at the worlds.

At these competitions the scoring is the same as at a regular feis. There are raw score and irish point system are the same, but the recall and placements are different. At the North American Nationals or NAN’s, the top 50% of the competition recalls. This means that the top 50% return to the stage and perform their set dances. After this round is completed, all of the scores from the three rounds are tallied and the dancer return to the stage for awards. There are two types of medals you can receive: a placement medal or a recall medal. Out of the original competition, 50% of the dancers recall and then the top 25% receive a placement medal. Receiving a placement medal is as high as you can ask for in a major competition apart from being in the top 5 on the podium. If you are confused I can break it down in numbers. If there are 100 dancers in a competition, 50 are asked back to dance their third round. Out of that 50, the top 25 receive an actual placement. The other 25 dncers receive a recall medal that shows that they made it to the set round. The most renowned medal in the world is being a worlds medal holder. Dancers can work their entire lives for that title.

This dancer got a placement medal at the All Scotland Championships this past weekend.

Top 3 podium of the ladies U21 age division at the All Scotland Championships.

This dancer won the All Scotland Championship title the U14 age division.

This dancer won the All Scotland Championship title the U14 age division.

The dancer on the lefties holding a recall medal box from the North American Nationals, The dancer on the right is holding a top 10 placement medal from the North American Nationals.

This dancer is holding a placement medal from the World Championships

This is a recall medal from the World championships.

Irish dance competitions can get kind of confusing. There are six levels: beginner, advanced beginner, novice, prizewinner, preliminary championship, and open championship. You can start competing in these levels at any age, and the competitions are divided up by the age you are on January 1st of the year you start. (for example if on January 1, 2014 you were 18, than you would be in the U19 age division.) In the first four levels (or grade levels) There is one judge and are four different dances in which you can compete: reel, slip jig, treble jig, and hornpipe. The dancer can chose what dances to compete but there are certain requirements to reach the next level of dance. In the two championship levels there are three judges and the dancer can no longer chose the dances they are assigned by age. In the preliminary championship level each dancer does a soft shoe round and heavy shoe round. The odd ages (U15, U17, etc.) do the dances slip jig and treble jig. The even ages (U12,U14, etc.) do the dances reel and hornpipe. The open championship level is the highest level possible in competition. Since this level is so difficult, they add a third round to every competition called the set dance. This is a completely customized dance where you can show off your style and technique to impress the judges.

Now that you know what every level consists of, you need to understand how to jump from level to level. In the beginner and advanced beginner, you only need to earn a  1st, 2nd, or 3rd place in every dance to move up o the next level. The awards at these levels are adjudicated so it can be very easy to earn a placement. The judge can chose o place everyone and so everyone could move up into the next level. Once you get to novice and prizewinner the rules change. The dancing gets better and the competition gets more serious. To move out of these to levels, you need a 1st place in all of the four rounds previously mentioned. Earlier I mentioned that you can chose what dances you perform, but why not do all dances if they’re required to move ingot he next level right? Not all dancers have the mind set to get to the championship levels and they just do it for the fun of competition. Now we get to the complicated part. The scoring completely changes in the championship level. This is where you can qualify for the North American Nationals or even the World Championships. The scoring in these competitions is no longer adjudicated. In a competition half of the dancers receive a placement. If there are 24 dancers in a competition, 12 girls receive a placement trophy. To move out of this level and into the open championship level you need to receive three 1st place awards. You may be wondering how this is controlled by the judges. How do they make their point system match up? (bare with me now.) There is a system called the irish point system. Every placement in the competition is given a certain amount of points (1st place is worth 100 points, 2nd place is worth 75 points, etc.) until you reach the last dancer and their points are 0. They rank the dancers by each judge and assign what points each judge has given. This is the number that matters to you. The RAW score number a judge gives you is not worth anything in comparison. One judge could give the first place dancer 65 points out of 100 for a round, and another judge could give the second place dancer 75 points out of 100 for the same round. 75 is higher than 65 but 1st place is higher than 2nd. Therefore, it doesn’t matter what exact number you get from each judge, it only matters where the judge ranks you in comparison to the other dancers. Do you have headache yet? I do., and it gets even better. Once you get into the open championship the competition gets really intense. They introduce round medals. This is where you find out what you rank in each individual round. At every competition they chose a random judges awards for rounds 1, 2, and 3 and read aloud the rankings. This can discourage some dancers because they find out that one judge didn’t place them in the top half for one round. This does not seal your fate. I have seen girls get a round medal in all rounds and not get an overall placement. It all depends on how your irish points fall with everyone else’s. Irish dance is a bit more complicated than you thought isn’t it?

Irish dance can be a very unpredictable sport. We get a lot of criticism for the money we spend on the perfect “look”. Irish dance solo dresses costs can range from $1500-$2200 before the thousands of Swarovski crystals are added. “Blinging” your dress is an art form; the crystal designs can take your dress from plain jane to extraordinary. Our costumes have been called “gaudy” and we’ve been called “attention seekers”. Outsiders don’t understand that we don’t “stone” our dresses for attention, we do it for the confidence it gives us on the scary stage. We make ourselves look beautiful so we can feel confident and powerful.

Something people might not know about irish dancing is that for a competition you have to put fake tanner no your legs. There have been times where I went to a feis and had to go to school the next day with bright orange legs. The first thought you probably had was “aren’t the Irish supposed to be pale?” and the answer is yes. This tradition started from one girl wanting to stand out on stage. If your in a group of extremely pale girls and your really tan, who  will the judge look at? The top dancers would stand out, and naturally other dancers would aspire to be like them. Pretty soon it became that if you didn’t put self tanner on your legs, the judges didn’t take you seriously. The self tanner also exaggerates your muscles and tones your legs. It may sound crazy, but to us in this world, it’ completely normal. Outside of irish dance people look at me funny when my face is pale and my legs are tan, but inside the irish dance world, your an outsider if your not wearing rhinestones on everything, and if your body is not 2 different colors.

There are many aspects to irish dance that I get a lot of questions about. Before you even ask the question, no it is not my real hair, it’s a wig. I don’t sleep in curlers or get perms every weekend. It’s an odd tradition, but not an unexplainable phenomenon. Irish dance did not originate as a sport, more like a fun celebration of life. It’s well known that Ireland is a very christian country, so sundays were kind of a big deal. Women would put on their best clothes and do their hair up so they looked nice for god. After church the town would get together and have a celebration called a feisanna (pronounced as fesh-anna, or feis for short). Here the men and women would dance partner and solo dances to celebrate life and god on sundays. The reason we wear curly wigs is due to the fact that “appropriate” church hair would be to curl your hair. Since all feisanna happened after church, it turned into a tradition to wear curley hair when you irish dance. To this day we still call competitions feisanna (or more commonly feis’) and we still have almost all competitions on sundays.

Another tradition that people tend to question is why we are highly encouraged to hold our arms by our sides and keep our posture as straight and stiff as a board. There are two myths that explain this and it is often debated. The first story is that the pubs inIreland were so cramped together that there was not enough room between the tables to move your arms when you danced, and the tradition was just continued. The second story has to with when the British controlled Ireland. Rumor has it that the British soldiers didn’t allow the irish men and women to dance. Now you can imagine the struggle for the irish people during tis time. Your not going to truly stop a nation from dancing, especially not a nation that has it’s own style of dance. To hide their joy during this time the irish people would dance with their arms by their sides, so if a soldier looked through the window, they didn’t appear to be dancing. I’m not sure which story I believe, but I do know that dancing with your arms in is the hardest part about irish dance. At least in both stories we know it wasn’t intentional torture.

I love photos, so here are some photos of current day irish dance curly wigs and Feis awards.

Eryn received a first place in a competition of over 30 dancers.

u14 age group calling top 3

u15 age group receiving overall awards.

This dancer is wearing a wig style called a bun wig at the world championships in Boston 2013.

This is a dancer wearing a full wig.