Classes, Current Classes, Irish Sean-nós Dance

2026 August Sean-nós Dance

maldonm

overview

  • Dancing to different instruments: Fiddle, Pipes, Accordion, Concertina, Flute,
  • Youtube Video Playlist
    • If you find videos that you like you can add them here.

Week by Week

MondaysWednesdays
Week 13
Play with a varity of videos and instruments. 		5
Work independently on a video of your choice.
Week 210
Contuinue to work on your videos. 		12
Contuinue to work on your videos.
Find the same tune by another musician or instrument.
Week 31719
Patti teaching her stepsKeep Her Lit – Tolka Polka
Week 42426
Week 531

Keep Her Lit/Endurance

week 1

Week 1

Monday: Dancing the Tune: Listening to the Musician

Throughout this month, we’re using video recordings of musicians and different instruments to explore how the musician can guide our dancing.

Watch how each musician creates the music. For example:

  • Follow the movement of the fiddle bow and fingers, and translate those movements and sounds into your dancing.
  • Watch the piper’s hands on the regulators and chanter, and listen to what the drones add.
  • Notice the rhythm, phrasing, ornamentation, lift, and energy each instrument offers.

I’ve created a YouTube playlist for the whole month. If you find a video that inspires you, please add it to the playlist.

Playlists

Wednesday:

Homework for Wednesday

Find a video featuring a tune, musician, or instrument that inspires you to dance—something you’d like to explore—and bring it to class on Wednesday.

We’ll work individually with our own selections and then come together as a group to explore what each tune, musician, and instrument brings to our dancing.

A Helpful Tip

If you’re working with a whole set of tunes, or you want to jump directly to a particular moment in the video, save the link at the exact timestamp you want.

On YouTube:

  1. Go to the moment you want.
  2. Click Share.
  3. Check the box that says “Start at.”
  4. Copy that link and save it in your document.

That way, in class you can go directly to the B part, a particular tune, a musician’s phrase, or whatever moment you want to explore.

What Everyone Is Exploring

Here are the tunes and musicians everyone is working with. I’ve also added them to the full playlist in case you’d like to explore each other’s selections.

You are all wonderful dancers, and you’ve chosen some really interesting music to dance to! Each of you chose your music for different reasons, and I think we can learn a lot from one another by exploring what the others are hearing, seeing, and responding to.

I learn so much when someone sends me a musician or tune they’re listening to—it often makes me hear or see something I hadn’t noticed before.

Edith

Niall & Cillian Vallely

  • 1st of August — more views of the concertina.
  • 1st of August — try working off what the backing musicians are doing. Watch the body of the concertina player, too. I kept this link in here as I love what all the backing musicians are doing!
  • Muireann’s Jig

Cormac Begley

Nathan Gourley & Laura Fedderson

Patti

The Maid of Selma

Listen to Shannon’s breathing and notice the space she creates when she takes a breath. Katrina asked a great question: Can you dance in the space? Absolutely! My instinct when working with a wind instrument or a singer is often to leave that space—to let the breath be part of the dance. But that’s only one choice. You can also dance through the space, play with it, fill it, or respond to it in another way entirely. There are so many ways to dance to traditional music. That’s exactly what we’re exploring!

Sheila

Martin Hayes

Step-by-step teaching. Great for breaking down the tune and learning it in your feet. Sheila spent a lot of time just listening to the music. This is such a great way to learn a tune: get it in your ears before you put it on your instrument—or, for us, into our feet. As rhythmic backers, we’re creating our own backing for the tune. It may take us even longer than a melody player to really learn the tune, hear what’s happening inside it, and discover what we want to dance within it and create something or improvise.

Beth

Reel Set: Brenda Stubbert’s / The Ale Is Dear / Barrowburn

Beth has a whole set of tunes, so the timestamp trick will be especially helpful here.

There are some very cool variations and rhythmic patterns happening throughout these tunes. It could be really fun to explore all three and notice how your dancing changes from tune to tune.

These patterns may show up in other tunes, too, and by exploring them here, you’ll have more rhythmic options in your wheelhouse. It might also be really interesting to take some of these rhythmic patterns and try them with completely different tunes. How do they land? Do they still work? Do they make you hear or dance the tune differently?

Katrina

Martin, Roberts, Compton & Jordan

Watch the musicians’ fingers and see how you might use their movements to inspire steps, rhythms, or movements in your own feet.

Katrina has worked with this tune before. I love returning to tunes I already know because each time I come back, I discover something I didn’t hear or see before.

Sometimes knowing a tune really well gives us even more freedom to explore. We don’t have to concentrate as much on learning the tune, so we can pay attention to other things happening in the music—or notice what the tune brings out in our dancing.

week 2

Week 2

Monday: Continuing to Dance the Tune

This week, we continued working with the tunes and musicians everyone chose during Week 1. We are listening more deeply, noticing what is happening within the music, and allowing our dancing to grow from what we hear.

There Is No Wrong Here

I noticed that almost everyone began sharing their work by telling us what was wrong with it, what wasn’t finished, or what they didn’t like.

I want to encourage all of us to notice that habit.

I have been studying life coaching, and one of the things I want to bring into our classes is helping you develop confidence in your own dancing and creative work.

There is no wrong here.

As sean-nós dancers, we are playing—or backing—the tune with our feet. There is so much freedom in that.

Traditionally, sean-nós dancing was often learned informally. People watched, listened, copied, experimented, and found their own way of responding to the music. Steps were shared and borrowed, but the dancing was not about reproducing one prescribed piece of choreography exactly.

That freedom is still available to us.

A movement might feel wonderful with one tune and completely different with another. You might leave space, dance through the space, follow the melody, answer the musician, create a steady rhythm underneath the tune, or move across the musical phrases. These are all choices—not mistakes.

When you share your work, try beginning with:

  • “Here is what I’ve been exploring.”
  • “Here is something I discovered.”
  • “I really like what happens here.”
  • “This part is still changing.”
  • “I’m curious about where this might go.”
  • “I’d like some help exploring this section.”

You do not have to apologize for work that is still developing. Exploring, changing, and experimenting is the work.

What Everyone Is Exploring

Beth — Barrowburn

Beth has narrowed her focus to Barrowburn and is working with simple steps, including Róisín’s Connemara steps, while adding her own variations.

Set is dancing it at 80% speed. In the A part, Beth has a lovely upward movement with her heel that makes me so happy every time I see it!

During the second time through the A part, there are also some beautiful long bow sounds that could be fun to explore. Beth might lengthen a movement, allow something to stretch, or discover another way for her feet to respond to those sustained sounds.

The B part contains some busier sounds, and Beth is dancing some lovely “grinds” there. The contrast between the long sounds in the A part and the busier rhythms of the B part gives her many possibilities to play with.

Katrina — Tie the Ribbon / Lafferty’s and Trip to Sligo

Katrina’s steps for the A part are set, and it is so lovely. I love how she dances them again when the A part comes around. They fit so well. 

In the B part she has space and more variations. 

Katrina is also working with Trip to Sligo. 

Edith — 1st of August (I think this is still the tune she is working from last week, but I didn’t confirm)

Edith is practicing steps she wants to develop.

She is also experimenting with dancing across the bars rather than always keeping a step contained neatly within one musical phrase or following the tune exactly. This creates a lovely feeling of movement and continuity.

It is exciting to see Edith use the tune as a place to strengthen familiar material while also exploring a different relationship to the musical structure.

Patti — The Maid of Selma

Patti’s piece to The Maid of Selma. She is dancing it at 90% speed. 

She has been listening closely to Shannon’s breathing, varations and to the spaces created within the music. Patti can continue deciding when she wants to honor that space, dance through it, fill it, or allow her own movement to breathe with the music.

We also talked about sharing the finished piece with Shannon. It would be wonderful for her to see how her playing inspired Patti’s dancing.

Maldon — Ger Commane’s Reel

I am working with Ger Commane’s reel and exploring how my feet can respond to the tune.

I am doing the same work I am asking each of you to do: listening, experimenting, trying ideas, changing them, and allowing the dance to develop over time.

My work does not begin as a finished dance, either. I discover it by spending time with the music. As you know I can not dance right now so I am doing all of this with my hands and voice to create the sounds I am hearing. I have one phrase in the a part where I want it and am still listening the the whole tune. I sepnd an hour to get to that far. Be pacient with yourself creation takes time. 

As You Continue This Week

Keep working with your chosen tune or video. You do not need to finish or perfect anything.

Instead, notice:

  • What part of your dancing already feels good?
  • Where do you feel connected to the musician?
  • Are you following the melody, the rhythm, the movement of the musician, or something else?
  • Where might you leave space?
  • Where might you dance across a musical phrase?
  • What happens when you repeat a simple step and allow the tune to change it?
  • Is there one moment you want to explore in several different ways?

Most importantly, begin by noticing what is working.

You are not trying to find the one correct dance hidden inside the tune. You are building a relationship with the music and discovering how you want to dance with it.nt to dance with it.e building a relationship with the music and discovering how you want to dance with it.

Wednesday: Continuing to Dance the Tune

Patti — The Maid of Selma

Patti is dancing The Maid of Selma at 90% speed.

I love the strong pulse she creates with the run-on step. She also dances a variation the second time through the A part, which gives it a lovely sense of development.

Patti has been listening closely to Shannon’s playing and responding to Shannon’s variations. So cool!

In the B part, Patti is exploring some very cool offbeat steps and double toes.

Katrina — Trip to Sligo

Katrina is continuing to practice her reel and is also working with The Chieftains’ recording of Trip to Sligo.

She is exploring a grapevine step and Kieran’s jig step. Here are a few additional options from the website that she—or anyone else—might enjoy playing with:

The Coatroom Jigs include the step-shuffle-and-bang pattern that Katrina says is so satisfying! There are lots of options here to play with and try against the tune.

week 3

Week 3

Monday: Teach Your Step to Each Other

Working in Pairs

This week, we will work in pairs in breakout rooms and take turns teaching our steps to each other.

Teaching is one of the final stages of learning or creating a step. When you teach a step to someone else, you discover more details about it. You have to slow it down, understand the weight changes, and figure out exactly what your feet are doing.

The secret to improving my dancing—and creating cleaner sounds—has been teaching. Teaching has allowed me to practice steps for much longer than I might have practiced them on my own. It also helps me understand exactly what is happening inside a step.

Dancing slowly helps us discover things, just as dancing quickly helps us discover different things.

There is a philosophy of learning:

Learn one. Do one. Teach one.

This week, I want each of us to learn someone else’s step. Through this process, both the teacher and the student will discover new things.

The teacher may:

  • Notice details they hadn’t recognized before.
  • Develop a clearer understanding of the weight changes.
  • Find words, sounds, or movements that help explain the step.
  • Discover places where the rhythm or movement could be clearer.
  • See another possibility for the step through the student’s interpretation.

The student will have an opportunity to:

  • Discover someone else’s step.
  • Hear the tune through another dancer’s ears.
  • Explore a new rhythm or movement.
  • Notice how the step feels in their own body.
  • Bring their own voice to the step.

Each of you is doing very cool work and finding your own ways of responding to the tunes. Teaching your step to another dancer is one more way to deepen that connection—to the step, the music, and one another.

Remember: you do not need to teach your step perfectly. Your partner does not need to reproduce it perfectly, either. We are exploring together.

In Your Breakout Room

Each person will have a turn as both teacher and student.

When you are the teacher:

  1. Dance or demonstrate your step.
  2. Share what you hear in the music.
  3. Slow the step down.
  4. Break it into smaller pieces.
  5. Identify the weight changes.
  6. Help your partner put the pieces together.
  7. Try dancing it with the music.

When you are the student:

  1. Watch and listen.
  2. Ask questions.
  3. Try the step slowly.
  4. Notice how it feels in your body.
  5. Try it with the music.
  6. Share what you discovered.

Most importantly, be patient and curious with yourselves and each other. This is not a test. It is another way for us to listen, explore, and dance the tune together.

Patti Teaching her steps

The Maid of Selma – Shannon Heaton

Patti – please correct me if I’m wrong on any of this. PDF file with Patti’s notes.

Maid of Selma stepsDownload
AB
Part A1:
Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R) shuffle (L)
Step (L) heel-down (R) step (L) shuffle (R) Step (R) heel-down (L) step (R) shuffle (L) Step (L) heel-down (R) step (L) shuffle (R)
Step (R) shuffle (L), step (L) shuffle (R)
Step (R) heel-down (L) step (R) shuffle (L)
Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R) shuffle (L)
Heel (L), heel (R), heel (L), heel (R)

Part A2:
Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R) shuffle (L)Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R) Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R)Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R) shuffle (L)Step (L) heel-down (R) step (L) shuffle (R) Step (R) heel-down (L) step (R) shuffle (L)Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R) shuffle (L) Heel (L), heel (R), heel (L), heel (R)		Part B:
Slide together (extend L out, follow with R)
Heel-toe-down (L) heel-toe-down (R) heel-toe-down (L)
(ie: 3 hips)
Heel-down (R) heel-down (L) Heel-toe-down (R) heel-toe-down (L)
(ie: 2 hips)
Heel-down (R) heel-down (L) Heel-toe-down (R) heel-toe-down (L)
(ie: 2 hips)
The last “down (L)” from above becomes the “Step (L)” below:
Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R) shuffle (L)
Step (L) heel-down (R) step (L) shuffle (R)
Step (R) shuffle (L) hop (R) toe (L) hop (R)
(“toe” is point of left toe tapping behind)
Step (L) shuffle (R) hop (L) toe (R) hop (L)
(“toe” is point of right toe tapping behind) (The hop can be a heel drop.)
Step (R) shuffle (L), step (L) shuffle (R) Step (R) heel-down (L) step (R) shuffle (L)
Step (L) shuffle (R), step (R) shuffle (L) Step (L) heel-down (R) step (L) shuffle (R)
Step (R) shuffle (L), step (L) shuffle (R) Heel (R), heel (L), heel (R), heel (L)
repeat opposite

Wednesday: Keep Her Lit – Tolka Polka

ABC
AAE
BCC
AAD
BDD

This is a simple breakdown of the phrases in the tune.

  • Maldon’s
    • A – Nellies kick up or side step
    • B – Nellies Clare shuffle from the c part of Nellies
    • C – 2 Clare shuffle from the c part of Nellies in a row with a step step or a heel toe at the end
    • C – alternate – step shuffle step (easier to do and very nice with the music)
    • D – simple stepping
    • E – lift, lift, lift, lift

week 4

Week 4

Monday:

Homework:

  • Level 1: 70% slower
  • Level 2: 80% slower
  • Level 3: 90% slower
  • Level 4: 100%

Wednesday:

Homework:

  • Level 1: 70% slower
  • Level 2: 80% slower
  • Level 3: 90% slower
  • Level 4: 100%

week 5

Week 5

Monday:

Homework:

  • Level 1: 70% slower
  • Level 2: 80% slower
  • Level 3: 90% slower
  • Level 4: 100%

playlist

Playlists

keep her lit

Keep Her Lit:

Published by maldonm