This February, let’s double our love! Our goal is for everyone to gain mastery in the skill of doubling as we learn several dances featuring this special move. From Seit Doire Cholmcille (Derry Set) and Cashel Sets to Clare Lancers, Myserks and Caledonian – there are plenty of opportunities during the month-long event to perfect your technique. Let’s get ready to take a twirl through these traditional dance styles – twice!
Irish Set Dancing
Saturday 4-6pm
Waverly United Church of Christ
3300 SE Woodward St, Portland, OR, United States, Oregon
$10 general, $5 students
week 1
WEEK 1 | Class notes
Sat. Feb. 4, 2023
Our set of the week is: Seit Doire Cholmcille (Derry Set)
This set was composed by Frankie Roddy. Frankie was a wonderful dancer from Derry. When I meet him in 1999 he was just getting back to dancing after some health issues. My fellow student at the University of Limerick ended up writing her theses on him. We traveled together to attend in his adult ceili class and to have a chance to chat with him again. At the time he was the only person we could find that was teaching ceili dancing to adults. He was a great solo dancer and had a school of dance. His son was the evil lead in Lord of the Dance. When Josephine and I meet him in Limerick he was the light we were looking for. We were both struggling in our studies and it was so lovely to meet such an amazing and generous person. I am happy to be reviving his dance here in Portland. I hope it one that we will dance many times in Frankie’s memory. I learned this dance from Anne McCallum at the Milwaukee Irish Festival Summer School.
This dance is from Tipperary and was taught by the late great Connie Ryan. Many of the dance instructors that you know and love learned from Connie and followed him around the country to workshops and dances. In this particular video you can see Connie Ryan in first tops, Pat Murphy in first sides and Pádraig & Róisín McEneany in second sides.
This is your set dancing hub for reference material and links to resource on the web.
dance instructions
Dance Pages
These are pages dedicated to each set with notes and video references.
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.
courses, classes, video
Courses
Resources on this page dedicated to set dancing and battering for sets. Including entire courses, classes, practice videos and breakdown videos.
Pat Murphy, 1995, Toss the Feathers: Irish Set Dancing, Mercier Press: Dublin.
Pat Murphy, 2000, The Flowing Tide: More Irish Set Dancing, Mercier Press: Dublin.
Pat Murphy, 2009, Apples in Winter: Irish Set and Social Dancing, self published, Ireland.
music
Music Resources
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ).
Connemara Set | Reels 160, Reels 192, Reels 184, Maggie in the Woods 96
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.
Here are all the steps that will accompany this course:
Connemara Reels – broken down videos of each step along with practice videos. Also included are past zooms covering this material. Videos ranging from 5 minutes to an hour.
For the month of December 2021 we will focus on jig steps. There are several jig sets and we will dance one a week. If you are interested in exploring other jigs sets there is a list with links to instructions, videos and music resources under the resources tab.
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