Category: Irish Sean-nós Dance

Week Four: Creation!

Beginners, intermediates, advanced and our waltz cloggers will all be choreographing steps! Improvisation and choreography, scary words? I think not! Let’s demystify it all! 

Battering, calling and old-style step classes continue to work on historical & traditional material. 

This week the Keep Her Lit sessions will light Winter One on fire! We will revisit our Roisin jigs, the Sunday jigs set, Joe O’Donovan’s hornpipes and waltz clog. This is a great opportunity to drill all of the material at full tempo! Want to showcase a dance routine March 27th at the Rambling House – Spring Fling? Could be something you learned in class or do you have a party piece? Songs, stories, dance or tunes — bring it on! Spring theme costumes encouraged!

Please note there will be no tea time talk this week. 

I’m looking forward to a jam packed week of dancing with you. 

See you on the virtual dance floor!

-Maldon

Live Zooms | Week 4 [3/8 -3/12]

		Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri
Class	12pm	Ab. Beg	Improv	Advanced	Old-Style	Waltz Clog
Keep Her Lit	2pm	Winter 1 Waltz Clog	Winter 1Rosin Jigs	Winter 1 Old-style		Winter 1Sunday Jigs
Woodshed	3pm	Advanced	Old-Style	Beg & Inter	Waltz Clog
Class	5pm		Battering		Sets & Calling
Class	6pm		Beg		Inter

All Times are Pacific Standard Time!

Monday, March 8

• 12pm PST | 1pm MST | 2pm CST | 3pm EST on ZOOM Class Absolute Beginners: Reels! We will learn a few “tricks” and the Connemara step. 
• 2pm PST | 3pm MST | 4pm CST | 5pm EST on ZOOM Keep Her Lit | Winter 1 Waltz Clog
• 3pm PST | 4pm MST | 5pm CST | 6pm EST on ZOOM Woodshed |  Advanced: Rosemary’s step & Maldon’s step! 

Tuesday, March 9

• 12pm PST | 1pm MST | 2pm CST | 3pm EST on ZOOM Class Improvisations: We will learn or review the Maldon after Mick step, working on improvisation and incorporating tricks.
• 2pm PST | 3pm MST | 4pm CST | 5pm EST on ZOOM Keep Her Lit | Winter 1 Rosin Jigs
• 3pm PST | 4pm MST | 5pm CST | 6pm EST on ZOOM Woodshed | Old-Style Murrary’s #2 Woodshed
• 5pm PST | 6pm MST | 7pm CST | 8pm EST on ZOOM Class | Battering: We will learn or review Mick’s Advance & Retire step. 
• 6pm PST | 7pm MST | 8pm CST | 9pm EST on ZOOM Class | Beginners: Feet & Voice. We will create a step to go with the toes verse and learn the sheets verse created in Thursday’s intermediate class. 

Wednesday, March 10

• 12pm PST | 1pm MST | 2pm CST | 3pm EST on ZOOM Class Advanced: We will create more slide steps from our tricks, tools and vocab. By week 6 week will have a whole routine of our step creations to keep lit. 
• 2pm PST | 3pm MST | 4pm CST | 5pm EST on ZOOM Keep Her Lit | Winter 1 Old-style
• 3pm PST | 4pm MST | 5pm CST | 6pm EST on ZOOM Woodshed | Beginners & Intermediate: We will be practicing all of the Cunla steps.  

Thursday, March 11 

• 12pm PST | 1pm MST | 2pm CST | 3pm EST on ZOOM Class | Old-Style This week we learn Kenefick #1.
• 3pm PST | 4pm MST | 5pm CST | 6pm EST on ZOOM Woodshed | Waltz Clog: Practice toe click #1 & toe click #2 steps. Dance all the steps from the term thus far. 
• 5pm PST | 6pm MST | 7pm CST | 8pm EST on ZOOM Class | Sets & Calling: Phil and Karen will call this week. Come along and dance together. All dancers welcome. Great chance to practice your steps. 
• 6pm PST | 7pm MST | 8pm CST | 9pm EST on ZOOM Class | Intermediate Feet & Voice: the intermediates will create a step for the last verse the thighs and learn the toes verse. Beginners are welcome to come along for some extra practice. 

Friday, March 12

• 12pm PST | 1pm MST | 2pm CST | 3pm EST on ZOOM Class | Waltz Clog We will add more waltz steps to our repertoire. We will work creating “your” waltz clog routine. 
• 2pm PST | 3pm MST | 4pm CST | 5pm EST on ZOOM  Keep her Lit| Winter 1 Sunday Jigs

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.

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

	Time	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri
Class	12pm	Ab. Beg	Improv	Adv	Old-Style	Waltz
Lit	2pm	Up Leitrim	Maggie	Jig & Reel		Hornpipes
Wood	3pm	Adv	Old-Style	Beg	Waltz	Inter
Class	5pm		Battering		Calling
Class	6pm		Beg		Inter
	7pm			CVS

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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

• 12–1pm Class | Advanced: In the second class we learn more slide steps and vocab and work with the tune “Star Above the Garter”. Join us as we continue to explore the wonderful world of slides!
• 2–2:30pm Keep Her Lit | The Sunday Set: We will drill the Sunday Set: Jigs and if there is time review Sunday Set: Reels. 
• 3–3:30pm Woodshed | Beginners We will be practicing material from Tuesday night’s class. 
• 7-8pm Tea Time Talk | Céilí of the Valley (Salem, OR). This week Céilí of the Valley will join us for tea time  in the evening! I am excited to have them join us. If you are interested in how community members organize dance classes, events and successfully keep an Irish cultural group going please join us. I’m curious to know their secrets! Come and join the discussion. Zoom link. 

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. 

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