How to Dance to Irish Music
If you've ever attended a seisiun--a gathering of musicians playing traditional Irish tunes--you may have felt the urge to dance to some of the jigs and reels. By learning just a few simple steps, you'll have the foundation of two forms of Irish dancing: the social style of dance called ceili dancing, and the generally solo performance style called step dancing. Both of these dance forms use a few steps as the building blocks for many of their moves, so by learning these steps you'll be able to dance like a real Irish dancer.
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Instructions
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Sideways
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Stand with all your weight on your right foot and your left foot directly in front of your right to start doing "sevens"--the step that takes you sideways--to the right.
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Bring your left foot behind your right and step down onto it. This is count "one" of the sevens.
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3
Move your right foot over a few inches to the right and step onto it with all your weight. This is "two" of the sevens.
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Continue bringing your left foot behind your right and moving your right foot over and stepping up onto it, while counting each step, until you have reached "seven." At that point, you can go into a different step or bring your right foot behind your left to begin doing sevens in the other direction.
In Place
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5
Stand with all your weight on your left foot and your right foot free in front. From this position you will be able to do "threes"--the step that you dance in place without traveling in any direction.
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Bring your right foot behind your left and step down onto it. This is count "one" of the threes.
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Step onto your left foot, which should be in front of your right. This is count "two" of the threes.
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Shift your weight back onto your right foot again. This is count "three" of the threes.
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Bring your left foot behind your right and step down onto it. This is count "one" of the next set of threes. Continue as above, but with opposite feet. You can dance this step indefinitely, switching feet at the end of each set of threes.
Forward
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Stand with your weight on your left foot and your right foot free in front.
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Hop on your left foot.
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Step forward with your right foot, placing all your weight onto it.
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Bring your left foot forward until it is just behind your right foot, then step onto it.
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Step forward with your right foot again. You have completed the traveling step once through on your right foot. To continue traveling forward, hop on your right foot, then step forward with your left foot, placing all your weight on it. This is the beginning of the step repeated on the left foot.
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Tips & Warnings
As you dance, you should be bouncing up and down with the beat. You should always be pushing upward on the even beats and sinking down on the odd beats.
So, in a typical 8-beat phrase of Irish music, you would bounce down, up, down, up, down, up, down and up.
The traveling step is similar to the skipping that many children do on the playground, but with two skips per foot instead of one. You may find it helpful to think of it as galloping.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit a pub in london image by Kristina Ubaviciute from Fotolia.com
