Category: Past Classes

Classes, Past Classes

2022 Fall | 9am Fridays | Sean-nos Dance | Intermediate

maldonm

intro

Fridays

9:00am-10:00am

[ONLINE]

Weekly intermediate class focused on Clare inspired steps. This class will cover the basics and can be taken in combination with the beginner class. Both classes will cover the basic material and the intermediates will be working on variations. If you want extra accountability or practice considering taking both classes.

week 1

WEEK 1 | Class notes

Warm up & Technique

  • Dynamic Warm up
  • Weekly Vocabulary

week 2

WEEK 2 | Class notes

week 3

WEEK 3 | Class notes

week 4

WEEK 4 | Class notes

week 5

WEEK 5 | Class notes

week 6

WEEK 6 | Class notes

resources

Classes, Past Classes

2022 Fall | 9am Thursdays | Sean-nós Dance | Beginners

maldonm

intro

Thursdays

9:00am-10:00am

[ONLINE]

Weekly Beginners class focused on Clare inspired steps. This class will cover the basics and can be taken in combination with the intermediate class. Both classes will cover the basic material and the intermediates will be working on variations. If you want extra accountability or practice considering taking both classes.

week 1

WEEK 1 | Class notes

Warm up & Technique

  • Dynamic Warm up
  • Sean-nos posture
  • Weekly Vocabulary

Steps

week 2

WEEK 2 | Class notes

week 3

WEEK 3 | Class notes

week 4

WEEK 4 | Class notes

week 5

WEEK 5 | Class notes

week 6

WEEK 6 | Class notes

resources

Classes, Dance Styles, Irish Set Dancing, Past Classes

IN-PERSON | 2022 Fall | Saturday 4pm Irish Set Dancing Class

maldonm

intro

Saturdays

4:00pm-6pm

[IN-PERSON]

Combining Sean-nós steps, Clare battering and smooth dancing form to learn to dance in Ireland, or throughout the world wherever Irish music is played. 

4pm-6pm every Saturday with a Live music céilí from 4pm-7pm on the last Saturday of the Month. 

Waverly UCC, 3300 SE Woodward St., Portland, OR. $5-$10 Sliding scale lesson, $10 for the Céilí.      

Welcome Set Dancers, 

This is a companion course for our in-person class in Portland, Oregon. You can still follow along if you are in-person or learning online. I will offer tips and tricks for practicing at home by yourself.

You will discover creative ways to study set dancing even as a solo person. Many of you are at home on your own without a partner. It can be a challenge. But not as hard as you might think! I learned many of my set dancing and steps solo. In the process you can really hone your skills before having to work with a partner. I will also provide tips on how to practice without attending a ceili. Not to mention, some bonus tips and tricks for memorizing sets in isolation. 

Kevin Burke once told me a story of a show where the dancers were two short of a set, so one of the musicians joined the group with a chair and danced the set with a chair as his partner. It’s a great story and I can’t do it justice. So, I must invite him as a guest to tell us the story himself. In the meanwhile, don’t be afraid to develop a temporary relationship with a nice looking piece of furniture.  

Get your set dancing ready for the dance floor. 

9/17

WEEK 1 | Class notes

Saturday, September 17, 2022

THE CLARE PLAIN SET

Our first week we had 12 people ranging from 6 months old to 79 years old. Here’s to keeping set dancing going for years to come! Lovely to see you all out and dancing. We covered footwork for traveling, advancing, dancing at home and housing. You will find a few video references for these movements. We also danced the Clare Plain Set. This dance is from County Clare. The while you will see dancers battering the foundation is the smooth gliding step we covered in class. These steps will be the foundation for all of the Clare dances.

Warm up & Technique

  • Traveling: Smooth 3’s
  • Advance & Retire
  • Frame
  • Home
  • House

Traveling: Smooth 3’s

Video coming soon

Ladies – Advance & Retire

Gents – Advance & Retire

Frame

Video coming soon

Home

Video coming soon

House

Video coming soon

The Clare Plain Set

9/24

WEEK 2 | Class notes

Saturday, September 24, 2022

Our second week we will learn the Clare Lancers. We will also review and cover set dancing technique and form. Our second class was a blast. Michael and Margret visited from California. Michael played flute for some of the figures.

The Clare Lancers

10/1

WEEK 3 | Class notes

Saturday, October 1, 2022

This week we will learn the Connemara set and Jim Loewenherz will play for our class. It’s such a blessing to have live music while learning. One of the great things is that we can dance at the pace that we are learning and right away be in sink with the music and each other. Starting out we will dance this set smooth and eventually when you are ready you can add the battering step to the set. You will find the instructions as well as the video reference for the set. Also on this page is the Connemara step broken down and a practice video.

Here is the battering step for the Connemara Set. It is not necessary to have this step in the set, but if you want to work on it on your own I will have a session down the line where we include it in the set and we will work on traveling with the step. If you like the battering footwork keep working on this step on your own and focus on moving with the step. This will give you a leg up when we bring it into the whole set in later weeks.

Some dancers find the stamp and stamp step easer to travel with when first starting out. You can cover a greater distance on each stamp and stamp.

10/8

WEEK 4 | Class notes

Saturday, October 8, 2022

Merchant Set | Reel 128, Reel 192, Reel 128, Hornpipe 144

Videos for the Merchant Set can be found here.

Click and go to YouTube to see these videos.

10/15

WEEK 5 | Class notes

Saturday, October 15, 2022

Antrim Square | Reel 144, Jig 136, Slides 152

Youtube Playlist Link

10/22

WEEK 6 | Class notes

Saturday, October 22, 2022

Ballyvourney Jig Set | 4 Slides (32bar tunes) 4x each

10/29

WEEK 7 | CCE Quarterly Event

Saturday, October 29, 2022

Rambling House Ceili – a page of all the dances we will dance as well as a YouTube playlist and a Spotify playlist. I have tried to include most of the dances that we have covered in class in the ceili. There will be a few new ceili dances that you might not have learned yet and we are missing the Clare Plain Set at the ceili (we will be sure to dance it next time at the Butterball in November 😊).

  1. Connemara Set | Reels 160, Reels 192, Reels 184, Maggie in the Woods 96
  2. Haymakers Jig | Jigs 400
  3. Merchant Set | Reel 128, Reel 192, Reel 128, Hornpipe 144
  4. Siege of Ennis  | Jig
  5. Clare Lancers | Reels 160, Reels 192, Reels 144, Reels 192, Reels 192
  6. Ballyvourney Jig Set | 4 Slides (32bar tunes) 4x each
  7. Fairy Reel | Reels
  8. Antrim Square | Reel 144, Jig 136, Slides 152
  9. Waltz

resources

  • Set Dancing Resource Page | An all in one resource page for set dancers. More resources added regularly.
  • Spotify Music Playlist – please save this playlist in your Spotify account. When ever possible I will add the music for each set on this playlist. A great resource for practicing or teaching the dances to your friends and family.
  • Youtube Set dance playlist – please save this playlist in your YouTube channel. I will work on adding each dance we learn to this playlist. Having them all in one place will make it easy for you to learn and remember the material we cover.
  • Irish Set Dance Notes – I love the way this site describes the instructions and how the instructions are laid out. If a set is on this site I usually use it first as my reference.
  • Dance Minder – my friend Michael Harrison runs this site. It is a great recourse for dancing notes and music references.

Advanced, Irish Sean-nós Dance, Past Classes

2022 Summer 2 | Sean-nós Beginners | Tue 5pm

maldonm

week 1

  • Connemara Jig Basic
  • Stamp and Stamp
  • Heel and Toe
  • Cross Step (left and right)

week 2

  • Circle Step
  • 3 Heel and Toe Side Step
  • 2 Heel and Toe Side Step
  • 1 Heel and Toe Side Step
  • Heel Toe Heel

week 3

week 4

week 5

Final Order of Steps

AAngle Step Right and Left
AStamp and Stamp in place
BSide Step 3 Heel and toes
B2 Heel and toes in place and 2 heel and toes turning
A2Heel toe heel
A2Cross clock
B2Slide
B2Single Heel and Toe in place
A3Cross to the left
A3Circle Step
B3Cross to the right
B3Lead around in a circle

Past Classes

2022 Summer 1 | Tune Challenge | Self Study

maldonm

intro

Tune in! You are invited to join me for a special summertime tune exploration on daily at 9am. We will be exploring the the connection between steps and tunes.

Summer tune challenge! You pick, a tune a day, a tune a week or a tune a month. You’ll never be able to dance them all, but this summer you can at least get close with our tune challenge.

My own challenge is a tune a day. Every morning I’m going for one hour of dance practice in order learn and create steps to accompany a collection of traditional Irish tunes. They won’t all be gems, but my goal it to get better and better at creating steps for tunes. Over the summer I will share those steps and tunes with you.

From Daily from 9AM-9:30AM PST join me for some friendly guidance on dancing the tune.

Tune Challenge (Guided Chaos) – 25 min

This tune challenge came about from the idea of learning a tune a day. The summer goal is to work on learning by ear a tune a day and creating steps to go to that tune. The sessions will be 25 minutes of guided tune learning and step creation. We may not get through a whole tune in the 25 minutes. The idea is to build your skills learning to dance by ear and to build your repertuar of traditional Irish tunes. I will be dancing everyday and you are welcome to join me live daily or weekly. Up to you how many tunes you want to tackle this summer. 

I approach my personal sean-nós dance practice like a musician. I think of myself as a percussionist or a backer when dancing to tunes. That approach means I am not always the most visual stage dancer, but rather a session player and a player of tunes. 

Great backers in Irish music know the tunes. When listening to an album or a session it is a joy when the guitar, piano, bouzouki or bodhran player knows the tune. As dancers we are no different. There are so many tunes to learn and this can be a daunting task. My goal this summer is to guide you and myself through this process. I invite you to join me live or view the recordings at your leisure. 

Depending on my schedule there may be a few days that the practice is not live on zoom and I will encourage you to play one of the previous classes or practice your tunes on your own on that day. 

I call this guided chaos as we will be learning tunes by ear and each interrupting them into our feet. Utilizing sean-nós steps and vocabulary we will set steps to each of these tunes. 

tunes

Here are some of the tunes we will be drawing from:

Click on the tune name to reach the tune page where you can find music downloads and the zoom recordings for each tune. We will gradually work our way through these tunes.

  1. Cooley’s Class Page | Play
  2. Silver Spear Class Page | 80 bpm & 100 bpm
  3. Winnie Haye’s Class Page | 80 bpm & 100 bpm
  4. Cuz Teahan’s or Road to Glountane | 90 bpm
  5. An Rógaire Dubh Class Page | Preston Fast & Betsy slow, Betsy faster
  6. Sligo Duke Page | 80 bpm & 100 bpm
  7. James McMahon’s | 80 bpm
  8. John Brennan’s | 110 bpm
  9. When Sick Is It Tea You Want | Play
  10. Miss McCleod’s | 80 bpm & 110 bpm & Preston
  11. The Battering Ram | Preston
  12. New Mown Meadow | 80 bpm & 110 bpm
  13. Na Ceannabháin Bhána | 80 bpm & 120 bpm
  14. Chief O’Neill’s Hornpipe | Play
  15. Lucy Campbell’s | Play
  16. Tatter Jack Walsh | 100 bpm & Preston
  17. Donegal Traveler | 80 bpm
  18. Maids of Castlebar | 80 bpm
  19. Molly Bán | 80 bpm
  20. Sweets Of May | Preston
  21. Mountain Lark | 80 bpm
  22. P Joe’s | 80 bpm
  23. The Gullane | 130 bpm

Tunes to try on your own

  1. Strike The Gay Harp | Play
  2. Reel of Bogey | 80 bpm
  3. The Quilty | 70 bpm
  4. Raveled Hank Of Yarn | Play
  5. The Return of Spring | Play
  6. Toss the Feathers | Play
  7. The Blacksmith | Play
  8. Pipe On The Hob | Play
  9. Lark In The Morning | Play
  10. Hag At The Churn | Play
  11. Jackson’s Morning Brush | Play
  12. Foxhunters Reel | Play
  13. Dublin Reel | Play
  14. Dublin Lads | Play
  15. Devaney’s Goat | Play
  16. Dogs Among The Bushes | Play

playlist

Tune Challenge: Week 1

Week 1 Playlist – here is a Spotify playlist of the week one tunes played by a variety of artists. Week one included: Cooley’s, Silver Spear, Winnie Haye’s, Cuz Teahan’s, An Rógaire Dubh, Sligo Duke, James McMahon’s and John Brennan’s.

Here is a playlist to practice to with all of the sites recordings for the week.