Friday, June 15, 2007

Admiring Irish Dance

This May, the Century Centre hosted an event that brought over a thousand dancers to downtown South Bend.  This event, the second annual World Academy feis, was an organized contest for Irish step-dancing, the dance style popularized by “Riverdance.”

I’d been invited to go along by a friend whose daughter has lately contracted the step- dance bug.  Mom wanted to find out what the family might be letting themselves in for.  As we soon discover, there’s a whole step-dance world to be explored out there, with its own regulations, folkways and jargon.

When we arrive, the parking lot is already packed, with license plates from all over the Mid west:  these dancers are mighty early risers.  Inside, we pick up a brochure at the registration table and scan the schedule.  Competition has already begun, but we’re told we can wander freely from stage to stage.  So, we push open the doors to the first hall, not knowing what to expect.

The whole room is buzzing:  everywhere we look, there are families camped out on the carpet as if picnicking, with folding chairs, sleeping bags & coolers.  Moms dispense snacks from the heart of each encampment, as knots of daughters gossip and practice their steps in aisles demarcated with coloured duct tape.

At each corner of the huge room is a stage, with a different class of the contest underway at each, with its own music and panel of judges.  In the middle of the room, strains of music from all four corners thread through the ambient noise of the crowd in the no-man’s land between contests.  But, as you approach each corner, your attention is magnetically drawn to the dancers, each concentrating fiercely on her own proper music.

We start at the “first feis” stage for the least experienced dancers, like my friend’s daughter.  Here are little girls with legs as delicate as foals’ pounding a fierce percussion out of the dance floor.  Many are wearing elaborate costumes, topped off with shining hairdos - cascades of improbably bouncing sausage curls.  The hair seems to have sucked all the vitality out of some of the dancers – it is as exuberant as they are shy.

On other stages, experienced dancers perform more complex and sustained dances for the judges:  hornpipes, as well as reels and jigs.  The dancers hold their arms stiffly at their sides and all their energy springs through their ankles and knees, as they mark out the geometry of each dance.  The costumes showcase their steps:  short skirts have stiffened panels that spin out and up as the girls dance.

Though feis rules prohibit “unconventional dress,” feis conventions are highly stylized. The dancers mostly wear synthetic wigs, as meticulously groomed as a pet poodle.  Dresses are as gaudy as Christmas baubles:  Barbie meets Liberace in Limerick.  Fabrics sparkle with leprechaun dust:  holographic sequins, and glitter dots in hot pink and vivid purple velvet.

My friend’s daughter is speechless at the dancers’ glamour.  However, she turns aside from the racks of “twice-worn solo dresses,” on sale for a thousand bucks, and passes over the stand of glittering tiaras.  She picks up an emerald green sequin, strewn across a vendor’s stall, and then we walk out into the sunlight.

Broadcast by Louise Collins on June 15, 2007
Arts & Entertainment • Community • Customs & Rituals • Sports & Recreation • Permalink • Printer Friendly
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