Author: maldonm

Advanced, Blog, Intermediate

2/22 MMD Weekly [Newsletter]

maldonm

Hello Dancers!

I had a great first week dancing with you all and we still have five more weeks of Winter 2 term. Which leads me to our “Spring Fling” happening on Saturday March 27th. It will be much like the Butterball or the December recital. We will have performances by three featured performers and then open the evening tunes, songs and dance from all of you. You are not limited to what we have learned in class. 

The event is fashioned after a regular event I held at my dance studio for years. Before the studio I held the event in homes and we called ourselves the House Dance Fairies. The idea is to host a night harkening back to the original rambling houses with a bit of everything. Stories, recitations, poems, songs, dances, tune, food, drink and craic. Those of you who don’t know what craic is (pronounced crack) it means a good time. You’ll often hear someone say “how was the craic?” or the “craic was mighty” often referring to last night’s fun.

The Craic will be mighty on March 27th!

I hope you will consider performing a dance, song, tune, poem or other party piece. Let me know if you’d like to contribute and I’ll put you in the line up. You can always step up the night of, but it does help to know ahead of time for planning out the Zoom.

REVIEW OF LAST WEEK:

The recordings for classes and woodsheds are all posted under the class 1 tab on each individual class page. The Keep Her Lit sessions are posted here: Acapella JIG and Acapella REEL and last week’s Tea Time Talk on Practicing is posted here. 

PREVIEW OF THIS WEEK:

Tea Time this week is on Wednesday at 7pm! You may want to enhance your tea as we join the Céilí of the Valley dancers. Keep Her Lit Zooms featuring Up Leitrim/A Tune for Bernie, Maggie Pickie, The Sunday Set and the Old-Style Hornpipes will help your steps stay lit and on fire! 

Live Zooms | Week 2 [2/22-2/26]

TimeMonTueWedThurFri
Class12pmAb. BegImprovAdvOld-StyleWaltz
Lit2pmUp LeitrimMaggieJig & ReelHornpipes
Wood3pmAdvOld-StyleBegWaltzInter
Class5pmBatteringCalling
Class6pmBegInter
7pmCVS

Week 2 [2/22-2/26]

All Times are Pacific Standard Time!

Monday, February 22

  • 12-1pm | Class | Absolute Beginners: Get familiar with foot vocabulary from step one. We start this 4 week beginners term with jigs. What is a jig you may ask? All will be explained. I’ll give you some tricks to recognize jigs and we will dance several basic movements in jig time. Also on the menu are a few games to help us learn the material.
  • 2-2:20pm Keep Her Lit | Up Leitrim/A Tune for Bernie We will run the whole dance. If you only have one tune down or one step down you are welcome to practice where you are at in the woodshed. I will be dancing the whole routine and increasing the speed little by little.
  • 3-3:30pm Woodshed |  Advanced: Slides (12/8): We will drill the 123 step (all variations), 1&2&123 (all variations), tip1, tip2, &1234 step (moving side step), 1234 (“clare style”), step heel step (side step). The key for Slides is being able to dance to movements up to speed as the tunes are played “fast”.

Tuesday, February 23

  • 12 – 1pm Class | Improvisations: We will continue to explore the music of Johnny Connolly and dancing to reels. This class will focus on Ronan Regan’s “Aer Arann step” and build improvisational exercises around the movements. This week we will work with direction, shifting the beat, space and dynamics. Our trick’s this week are Kick up, heel click, step heel hold and the side step. All levels are welcome to join. We will also review last week’s “Zig Zag step” and tricks: shuffle, cross, heel drop and slide.
  • 2 – 2:30pm Keep Her Lit | Maggie Pickie: We will woodshed all the steps to Betsy Branch’s recording. We will also explore a few other recordings including dancing to Len Graham’s recording that goes back and forth between verse and lilting. 
  • 3 – 3:30pm Woodshed | Old-Style We will woodshed the lead out step and the heel click step. I messed up teaching the click step last week. We will correct the step during the woodshed.
  • 5 – 6pm Class | Battering: the second class we will cover Mick’s $500 Battering step. We will work on dancing at home with this step and review Mick’s Banner step and the Clare Battering step. Our goal is to incorporate 1 or all 3 steps into the Kilfenora Plain Set. This should get us primed for the Thursday night class where Phil will lead us in the Kilfenora set. 
  • 6 – 7pm Class | Beginners: Feet & Voice. We will focus on learning the themes for each verse and explore ideas for visually representing the verses in our steps. Thank you Beth for this inspiration! We will use Andrea Wild’s (Stomptowners) version of Cúnla. The order of which can be found on the Cúnla page. Yes, there is now a whole page dedicated to Cúnla! 

Wednesday, February 24

Thursday, February 25

  • 12–1pm Class | Old-Style The second class we will continue to learn steps from the dancing of Joe O’Donovan and his repertoire. 
  • 3–3:30pm Woodshed | Waltz Clog: This class we will practice material from the first waltz clog class. We will drill endings (the new one, the simple one, fancy one). We will also work on dancing other patterns beyond the current pattern of basic/trick/end. I will use some of the waltzes from the spotify waltz playlist as we explore more tunes and options for dancing them. 
  • 5–6pm Class | Sets & Calling: We will continue to call dances from our night of sets. This week Phil will lead us in the Kilfenora Plain Set and Karen will lead us in the Corofin Plain Set. Both dances can be found on the class 2 page. Everyone is welcome to join the class, we would love to have more dancers to call to. If there is time we will have some calling from Mary or Mícheál. 
  • 6–7pm Class | Intermediate Feet & Voice: the intermediates continue to work with the song Cúnla. Beginners, you are welcome to come along for some extra practice! 

Friday, February 26

  • 12–1pm Class | Waltz Clog We will add more waltz steps to our repertoire. I will show some videos of waltz clogs from a few traditions and styles. We will continue to drill “trick”, “basics” and “ending” steps. We will also start to create a few steps as a group.
  • 2–2:30pm Keep Her Lit | Old-Style Hornpipes: We will drill the whole routine from last term to a playlist of hornipes. You will find the order of steps in the resource section of this class. Feel free to print them out for your reference. 
  • 3–3:30pm Woodshed | Intermediate We will be practicing material from Thursday night’s class. 

LOOKING AHEAD:

March 27th Spring Fling Zoom. Featured performers for the Spring Fling are Bob Soper, Brian Ó hAirt and Kelsey Willson O’Brien. Register in advance for the zoom link. 

Tea Time Talks

26 Tea Time Talk | Céilí of the Valley Society

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Céilí of the Valley Society 2/24 – 7pm

I have had the opportunity to visit and work with a variety of dance and music communities around the country. I am always fascinated about how each community organizes and shares their community. The Céilí of the Valley in Salem, Oregon has the most amazing group of volunteers and supporters. When you attend one of their events you feel like your are the most welcomed person. There are so many folk helping and organizing and excited to see everyone at their event. I’m always on search of how these communities create such a support group and how to pass on these traditions. I have invited some of the organizers in Salem to share their story. 

Jigs

2-16-2021 Keep Her Lit | Acapella Jig

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In this keep her lit session we danced each step by its self. We ended by dancing all the steps in order once at the end of class. The next woodshed we will dance the whole routine. You can find the breakdown of all of the steps here if you want to be able to go to a specific step without having to watch the whole class.

Here is a performance version of the Acapella jig with the Maldon Meehan Dancers. We do a call and response with each step. Group 1 and group 2 dancing some of the step in a call and response pattern and some of the step all together. We usually dance the run on steps call and response.

Tea Time Talks

25 | Tea Time Talk | St. Practice Day

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St. Practice Day

Feb. 17th 9am [PST]

St. Practice day, Feb. 17th, sometime referred to as the day you “practice” for the big day. We will discuss practicing. I am always curious about artists practice routines, how one practices, when, tips, tools and tricks that we each use. This is a recording of the discussion we had on St. Practice Day 2021.

  • How do you practice a dance piece?
  • How to you learn a step?
  • What do you do to increase endurance and flexibility?
  • What is your improvisation routine?
  • How do you create steps?
  • What are your tricks for warming up and cooling down?
  • How do you keep material sharp between performances?
  • What tools do you use to help you practice, create and prefect?
  • Don’t have a routine and curious about developing one?

Below are some notes from the talk. I have included a few things that I forgot to mention in the recorded talk. 

Tools

  • FEET: Your feet go everywhere with you! You can practice anytime you are waiting for something, the bus, the elevator, the clerk at the grocery, the kettle to boil, the DMV, even your COVID vaccine.
  • AMAZING SLOWERDOWN: – I love this as a tool to practice a step or a dance. I like to set the speed at which I can dance something without mistakes and then work my way up little by little until I’m at a speed that I like for the step or dance. A speed that a musician might play it in a session. There are other tools out there as well that slow music down. I’ve only tried this one myself. I’d love to hear what other tools folks are using. Are there other apps that you would recommend for slowing down music?
  • METRONOME – There are metronome apps that you can download on to your phone. I prefer a physical metronome myself and I can hear it better and I’m used to using it. It’s not my favorite thing to dance, so I find it I leave it out with my regular dance things. I’m more likely to use it. If it’s tucked away in a drawer or box I’ll have to remember to bring it out. I highly recommend using a metronome! It’s a very revealing and helpful tool.
  • FLOOR – I have several portable floors. One lives in the trunk of my car. It never comes into the house, that way no matter where I travel I have it on hand. I also have one in my living room. I tuck it under the couch when I’m not using it as I live in a studio apartment and space is a concern for me. However when I leave it out I am much more likely to walk by it and dance a step or two throughout the day. My dad, a chef, keeps his dance board in the kitchen and taps out a few steps when he’s cooking or waiting for the kettle to boil. It’s a good idea to keep it out, just like you would an instrument. Dale Russ had a great tip for practicing, he said leave your ‘instrument’ in your chair that way you have to pick it up to sit down. You’re more likely to play a tune if you have to move it enough times. A dance floor place in a spot that you pass by multiple times a day will call your name eventually. 
  • ROLLING
    • FOAM ROLLER – I roll out my legs before I practice or dance. Those of you in the membership there is a whole page of stretches and rolling exercises, they can be found here. Those of you not part of the membership here are a few great youtube videos that I recommend. Youtube video: Rolling legs with a foam roller.
    • FOOT ROLLER – lacrosse ball, special foot rollers, a frozen water bottle. Youtube video: Foot and calf rolling.
    • BALLS – I have a whole basket of balls to roll out different muscles. I use the wall or floor for pressure. Some of the balls are dog toys or kid toys. My favorite one is a kid toy that my boyfriend found. It’s about the size of a softball, but not as hard. It seems to work for most of my muscles except my feet. I keep the “basket of balls” under my coffee table and bust them out when I am watching tv. 
  • PLAYLISTS – create a playlist of music so that you can go on autopilot when you practice. It helps me to have these created in advance so that I can get right to the business of practicing. I have most of my playlists on my computer, but I am slowly building ones on Spotify that you are welcome to use for your practicing. My page is here.
    • Have a music playlist of you repertoire.
    • A Playlist of an entire show you are performing. 
    • Music you love to dance to and that inspires you. 
    • Instrument playlist (i.e. fiddle, accordion, pipes, voice….)
    • Tune playlists: jigs, reels, polkas, hornpipes…
    • A player playlist (Martin Hayes, Johnny Connolly….).
    • A playlist of local players that you might encounter at a session or a gig. Get to know their music and how to dance to them. 
    • YOUTUBE: I created youtube playlists of music and dancers. Youtube has the ability to slow down or speed up a video in 25% increments. The sound quality isn’t always the best when it’s slowed down, but it is a useful tool. I use it more for music to practice to then dances to learn. I find it hard to learn a dance by slowing the video down, it’s a skill that I haven’t perfected. It’s easier for me to learning it up to speed and stop it along the way, that way I can hear and see how it should go in real time. I’m always impressed by dancers who can learn by slowing the video down! I have many of those listed as playlist and you are welcome to save any of them to your own account. You can find them here on my youtube channel. This is currently one of my favorite activities outside of dancing and I am adding videos on the daily.

Tricks

  • Make it a easy a possible
    • Make a small goal of practicing one step or to one track of music a day. You may do more but keep the pressure light when starting you. It’s easy to do 1 minute of dancing or one step. If you dance 1 step per day, that’s 30 practice sessions in a month or 30 minutes on the one step. 
  • Dance shoes out and in the way so you put them on. Have your dance board and shoes where you can see them everyday. 

Advanced, Blog, Intermediate

2/15 MMD Weekly [Newsletter]

maldonm

We start a new term of dancing tomorrow! All are welcome to join at any time. All zooms are recorded for your reference and posted on each individual class page. There will also be recordings of individual steps broken down and danced to slow, medium and fast music for practicing. 

Winter 2 Term runs Feb. 16-March 26th.

We will have an end of term celebration on Saturday March 27th. The end of term celebration is open to the public and you are welcome to invite anybody you think might be interested in attending. You can register here for the zoom link and password. The event is free and open to anybody. 

Times for all zooms are PST!

Tuesday, February 16

  • 12 – 1pm Class | Improvisations: We will be exploring the music of Johnny Connolly and dancing to reels. This class will focus on Connemara “zig zag step” and build improvisational exercises around the movements. All levels are welcome to join. If you’d like to review the step before class a link to the breakdown can be found on the class page. 
  • 2 – 2:30pm Keep Her Lit | Acapella Jig: We will be running the whole routine starting at 100bpm and ending at 120bpm. 
  • 3 – 4pm Woodshed | Old-Style: this woodshed will be covering Winter 1 terms old-style steps. 
  • 5 – 6pm Class | Battering: the first class we will cover the smooth Clare style steps for traveling, advancing and retiring, housing and dancing at home. We will also learn a dance at home battering step and incorporate it into the plain set.  
  • 6 – 7pm Class | Beginners: Feet & Voice. The first class we will work with the song Cúnla. This is a song that I often dance with Andrea Wild when we perform. It is in jig time. 

Wednesday, February 17

  • 9 – 10am Tea Time Talk | St. Practice Day: Tea Time this week will focus on the subject of practicing. Do you have any practicing techniques, routines or advice? Are you wanting to create your own practicing routines? Come and join the discussion. Zoom link. 
  • 12 – 1pm Class | Advanced: In the first class we learn 4 slide steps and work with several tunes. Join us as well explore the wonderful world of slides! 
  • 2 – 2:30pm Keep Her Lit | Acapella Reel We will be running the whole routine starting at 80bpm and ending at 120bpm. 
  • 3 – 4pm Woodshed | Beginners We will be practicing material from Tuesday night’s class. 

Thursday, February 18

Friday, February 19

Musician of the Week: Johnny Connolly!

Johnny Connolly at the Raidió na Gaeltachta 40th anniversary concert,

Johnny Connolly. We will be exploring the music and the life of Johnny Connolly. A great musician and an amazing person. I was lucky enough to meet him on several occasions and to dance to his music. I have created a page for your reference as well as a youtube and spotify playlist. Feel free to save the playlists to your account. I will be adding more to the playlist over time. If you get a chance please watch the documentary on Johnny. 

I highly encourage you to watch the documentary on Johnny that is on youtube. I have it in my Johnny Connolly youtube playlist. It is broken up into 4 parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4. Included in the documentary is footage of dancers Máire Áine Ní Iarnáin, Seosamh Ó Neachtain, Paraig Ó Haibicín and Máirtín Beag Ó Gríofa (who was Johnny’s second Cousin). 

Documentary of the Week: Clog Dance!

Clog Dance (1959) | BFI National Archive: I recently watched this documentary on Clog Dancing and shoe making from Portmadoc, North Wales. Incredible footage and presentation of dancing. 

Playlist of the Week: Waltzes!

I have been busy working on music and dance resource pages. Those of you interested in waltzes and waltz clog dancing from all traditions will find these pages helpful. There are dances from Tap, English, Canadian and more. There are over 100 dance videos in the playlist. I have also included a playlist of many of the waltz clog videos from my site all in one place. Happy exploring folks. Waltz Dance Page and the Waltz Music Page.

Advanced, Blog, Intermediate

Announcing Winter 2 Term | Feb. 16-March 26

maldonm

No Class Monday Feb. 15th, enjoy the holiday!
Subscribe to the class google calendar. All classes and events are listed there. The calendar can be found here.

Mon. 12pm | 2021 Winter 2 | Class | Absolute Beginners | Reels & Jigs
Tues. 12pm | 2021 Winter 2 | Class | Improvisations | Reels
Tues. 5pm | 2021 Winter 2 | Class | Set Dance | Battering | Clare Reels
Tues. 6pm | 2021 Winter 2 | Class | Beginners | Voice
Wed. 12pm | 2021 Winter 2 | Class | Advanced | Slides
Thurs. 12pm | 2021 Winter 2 | Class | Old-Style | Hornpipes
Thurs. 5pm | 2021 Winter 2 | Class | Sets & Calling | All Tune types
Thurs. 6pm | 2021 Winter 2 | Class | Intermediate | Voice
Fri. 12pm | 2021 Winter 2 | Class | Waltz Clog | Waltz

All Classes, woodshed and keep her lit session are included for one monthly price of $55 per month. Much like a gym membership you can take any class you like live on zoom or via the video replay posted on the class site.

All classes since April 2020 have been recorded and posted in the site. Also included in the site is video recording since 2013 to the present of all material taught at the stoptown collective studio. Something for everyone. The Netflix of Dance! 

Register Here!

Absolute Beginners

This course covers the fundamentals of Sean-nós dance and introduces students to Irish music. With a true beginner approach, learn to step in time with the music and discover the joy of Irish Sean-nós dance. This course is designed for students with no prior dance experience. This course will be 4 weeks. 

Mondays [1 hour] 2/22 – 3/15
12pm PST | 1pm MST | 2pm CST | 3pm EST on ZOOM

Beginner & Intermediate

Through song and lilting we will explore dancing to the human voice. Both the beginners class and the intermediate class will be covering the same material. Please feel free to join both classes if you’d like extra accountability.

Tuesdays & Thursdays [1 hour]
6pm PST | 7pm MST | 8pm CST | 9pm EST on ZOOM

Wednesdays & Fridays [30 min]
3pm PST | 4pm MST | 5pm CST | 6pm EST on ZOOM

Advanced

This term we will explore slides. Slides are 12/8 and are a time signature that I first started out dancing as a set dancer. Since then I continue to dance slides in performance. They are not commonly danced solo. Set dancers will also find this class useful. 

Wednesdays [1 hour]
12pm PST | 1pm MST | 2pm CST | 3pm EST on ZOOM

Mondays [30 min]
3pm PST | 4pm MST | 5pm CST | 6pm EST on ZOOM

Improvisations

Each week we will explore improvisational exercise with various reel steps and tunes. We will be working with mapped out steps and how to “play” with the steps. We will explore timing, phrasing, shifting weight, shifting the beat, space, tunes, instrument and musicians. 

Tuesdays [1 hour]
12pm PST | 1pm MST | 2pm CST | 3pm EST on ZOOM

Battering for Set

Clare battering for sets. Covered in this class are dance at home steps, traveling step and advance & retire steps. We will work with Clare sets and incorporate battering steps while learning or refreshing on popular Clare set dances. Keep your set repertoire alive during the pandemic. 

Tuesdays [1 hour]
5pm PST | 6pm MST | 7pm CST | 8pm EST on ZOOM

Sets & Calling for Sets

Whether you are a caller or a dancer this class is for you. You can try your hand at call sets as well as dancing them. Keep your chops up during the pandemic and dance sets with us.

Tuesdays [1 hour]
5pm PST | 6pm MST | 7pm CST | 8pm EST on ZOOM

Keep Her Lit
The Keep Her Lit sessions will be dedicated to drilling material from the website. These sessions are great if you are working off the recorded material or want to drill material from a past course. For the best success with these zooms please review the material covered before attending the session. There will be no teaching just dancing in these sessions. 

You can find all of the steps covered in the routine by clicking on the link. 

The First week of zooms will cover the Acapella jig and reel routines with music as well as without. Friday will combine both routine into a performance piece. Get ready for St. Patrick’s day! 

Tuesday 2/16
Acapella Jig Routine | 100bpm & 120bpm
2pm PST | 3pm MST | 4pm CST | 5pm EST on ZOOM

Wednesday 2/17
Acapella Reel Routine | 80bpm, 100bpm & 120bpm
2pm PST | 3pm MST | 4pm CST | 5pm EST on ZOOM

Friday 2/19
Acapella Jig Routine into Acapella Reel Routine
2pm PST | 3pm MST | 4pm CST | 5pm EST on ZOOM

Week 1 | Spring Term 2020
Acapella Jig & Reel

Week 2 | Summer 1 Term 2020
Connemara, Paraig Ó Haibicín, The Sunday Set, Maggie Pickie

Week 3 | Summer 2 Term 2020
Nellies Polka, St. Patrick’s Day, Up Leitrim/A Tune for Bernie, The Rookery

Week 4 | Fall 1 Term 2020
Clare Inspired, Ti Albion, Blackbird, Triplets

Week 5 | Fall 2 Term 2020
Return of Spring, Little Diamond Polka, Double Time Polkas, Full polka routine

Week 6 | Winter 1 Term 2020
Connemara Jigs, Sunday set as a jig, Connemara jig into reel, Sunday set jig into reel