Irish Dance Essay

346 Words2 Pages
Irish Dancing started in the haze of prehistory, so there isn’t a certain start point, but it is suggested that Druids were among the first people to dance this type of dance when they honored the spirits of nature. Some of the traces of their circular dance still remain today in the ring dance. When the Celts came, they added their type of dancing to what was there already. When the Anglo-Normans took over, they brought their own types of dancing, as well. In the 1500s, there are three principle dances mentioned; the Irish Hey, the Rinnce Fada (long dance), and the Trenchmore. Traces of all of these dances show up in present-day Irish Dancing. Later, when dancing masters appeared, each of the Irish districts had a specific master, and masters never encroached on another master’s district. Each district had a different version of the same dances performed all over Ireland. The costumes worn by female dancers today commemorate the dresses worn by Irish women of the past. The costumes are a dress that is usually decorated with designs and glitter and jewels. The dancers wear a curly wig, which is because the dancers of the past usually danced on Sunday, and they would dance after church, which the girls had rag curls for, so they would have curls for dancing. The dresses have a cape on the back, pinned at one shoulder. They also have tiaras. The costumes for men are much less embellished. There are two types of shoes: gillies, which are soft shoes similar to ballet flats, and hornpipe/hard shoes. The feis is a competition in which dancers dance different dances at various levels, and win prizes, and, depending on what they get, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc., they might move up a level. The highest you can get is winning the Worlds Championships, held in Dublin at Easter, where dancers from all over the world compete for the world title. The performances of Riverdance, and,

More about Irish Dance Essay

Open Document