The first 5 weeks of course welcomes focuses on dancing in jig time. The last 3 weeks of the course focuses on Reels, keeping the jig steps alive and building up speed & endurance.
Edith was asking a quesiton about learn the dance step by ear – I realized what I was trying to say learn with by ear in regards to dance is learning the step by ear and eyes in time with the music, rather than me breaking down the step slowly with words or movements and no music. Just listening to a dancers step and the reproducing the sounds in your own way.
Variations – Taking any of these steps and shaping them into variations that suit your own feet and style might open up new possibilities. You might choose to simplify, embellish, or add elements from the master list. This kind of play can make the steps feel more comfortable and personal, helping you bring them naturally into your regular repertoire.
Sept 22 Accapella Reels 3 Shuffles, 2 Shuffles, 5 Heels Cross Step Run on with a Pause Tip Step with Click Run on with no Pause Tip Step Both Sides Side Step Hop Step Run on in a Circle 3 Tips Step Finishing Step
Thank you for an incredible month of woodshedding, keeping her lit, and speed & craic!
Today we’ll take on the Monthly Challenge: dancing all the material from September—plus the Hare’s Paw from August—at full tempo.
Be Kind to Yourself
This challenge is not about perfection. Even I won’t dance everything perfectly at full tempo without messing up, slipping off time, or letting any old step pop out of my feet. The goal is to push ourselves, see what sticks, and notice how far we’ve come.
How It Works
We’ll run through every routine at full tempo.
If the music feels too fast, pick any step you can manage at that speed.
Challenge yourself to remember the routines as well as to dance them.
Why We Do It
This is our ultimate test: finding which steps you want to light in your repertoire and build toward playing with live music or in a session. Notice:
Which steps are already there?
Which ones need a slower starting tempo for practice?
Which ones spark joy and deserve to stay in your repertoire?
My hope is that something from this month will speak to you—something you’ll carry forward, polish, and dance in community with others.
Full Speed – Monthly Challenge!
A Capella Reels – A Capella or any set of reels
The Sunday Set – Any set of reels
George White’s Favourite
The Rookery
The Hare’s Paw
This month we explored the music of Caitlin Nic Gabhann, John Carty, Bobby Gardner and Cran. Did you have a favorite artist or track? Let me know. Also, did you have a favorite step or routine from this month? What would you like to keep lit?
Step into the vibrant world of traditional Irish dance with our Free Irish Sean-nós Dance Challenge! This exhilarating week-long event is perfect for everyone, from the curious beginner to the seasoned dancer looking to add a touch of authentic Irish culture to their repertoire. All session will be recorded and available for your reference.
Learn the Basics
Start from the ground up with step-by-step tutorials that make learning sean-nós accessible to anyone, regardless of your skill level.
Improvise with Confidence
Develop your improvisational skills with guided exercises that encourage creativity and help you find your own style within the tradition.
Master Choreography Techniques
Gain insights into crafting stunning dance sequences that tell a story with every step and leap.
Transform Your Dance
By the end of the week, not only will you have a complete dance that you can perform and perfect, but you’ll also carry with you the joy and pride of engaging deeply with Irish culture.
For Beginners and Pros Alike
Whether you’re taking your first dance steps or you’re an established performer, our challenge will push your boundaries and invigorate your practice.
Connect with Culture
Join a community of dance enthusiasts who share your passion for tradition and cultural heritage.
Absolutely Free!
day 1
Day 1 | Connemara Reel Steps
Be sure to look at the resource page. You will find practice music there and links to other resources. I have also included a video playlist with all of the videos for the week. The playlist also has practice videos for each step and the breakdown of each step. This is very helpful to have when you just want to work on one step. This will allow you to go directly to what you want to work on without having to watch the whole class recording. I will keep adding to the resource page as the week goes along so key your eye on that page.
Connemara Step (2 heel downs)
6 heels (or sometimes called the zig zag step) (6 heel downs)
Finishing step (often used for the Connemara set or to finish a series of steps) (3 heel downs, 1 heel down)
day 2
Day 2 | More Reel Steps & transitions between steps
The dancer that I mentioned as one of my favorite dancers is: Paraig Ó Haibicín. This link will take you to a page with a playlist of Paraig’s dancing.
day 3
Day 3 | Improvisation
Unleash Your Creativity with Improvisation! Join us for Day 3 as we delve into improvisation tricks and tips, demystifying the process. By the end of our session, I aim to transform improvisation from a daunting concept to a creative tool that inspires you to develop your unique style with confidence.
Here are some ideas to get you started with improvising. We will cover a few of them in the day 3 workshop.
Direction – Experiment with direction to add interest to your dancing. Move in place, sideways, circle around yourself or the stage, zigzag, form squares, advance and retire, and play with angles. Some steps work well moving, and others are better stationary. Play around and see what you like!
Phrasing or Space – Putting in a pause or leave beats out of a step. This ads breath. I often add more space when dancing to a flute or whistle player. Adding a pause where they take a breath.
Length of phrases or movements – try breaking rhythms into 8-bar, 4-bar, 2-bar, and 1-bar movements. As you become familiar with the steps, you’ll naturally think in these rhythmic phrases. When learning new tunes, you’ll recognize these phrases within the music, making it easier to recall and dance to the rhythm. Irish musicians do this with tunes and many of the same patterns appear in different tunes. Thinking in smaller chunks of music can aid in learning and dancing to unfamiliar tunes. As you learn these chunks some of your work will already be done when you take a new tune.
Emphasis – Emphasis one movement or beat over the other. Swinging the beat and moving into different parts of the music.
Shifting the Beat – Explore improvisation possibilities with the double stamp technique in the Connemara step. By incorporating double stamping, you can initiate rhythmic patterns in four unique sections within a music bar. Experiment with applying this technique to any step and at any point within it. Delve into starting a beat later in the tune, adding or removing beats from different parts of the step. This is one of my favorite things to play with.
Dynamics – Improvise your dance by playing with dynamics. Explore the art of dancing with varying volumes, from soft and gentle to bold and aggressive.
Pitch or Tone – Pitch and tone in music can be brought out in your dancing by using the different parts of your feet. For example toes for high sounds and heels low, or deep sounds. I enjoy playing with this concept in tunes that have contrasting parts – a low A section followed by a high B section. Sometimes, I’ll dance the same step on my heels and then on my toes to play with tone.
Rearrange Step / Rhythmic variation – Rearrange Step a step to create rhythmic variation. Move parts of a step around to create a new step or rhythm.
Weight -keep weight the same with hop or tap and transfer step to the other foot. This allows you more freedom to play and move between patterns with ease.
One sided only –dance movements only on one side. Like dancing a bunch of shuffles with just one foot.
Dancing the Tune – crafting steps for a particular tune or learning the tune with your feet. This can be mapped out as well as done on the spot.
Chasing the tune or Echoing the tune – I love this one! Often times if you don’t know a tune yet you can take dance the rhythmic phrase you just heard, but dance it in the next part of the tune. This can help you get the tune down or give you a call and response in the tune.
The Player –knowing the playing of a particular player and dancing in conversation with them. If you know anyone who can play music with you try using YouTube. You can find a nice recording of a musician on YouTube and watch them play and play with them. This is particularly rewarding when you and the musician are listening and watching and playing in conversation with each other. Some very amazing improvisation can come from this.
The Instrument – exploring what each instrument is capable of and what is interesting to you about each one. Watch the player and dance off of them. You can do this on youtube if you don’t have a player nearby. The Breath of flute player, whistle player, singer. Dancing to the bow of a fiddler. The bellows of an accordion player. The regulators of a piper. This is amazing and very fun in person with another musician but again if you don’t have that opportunity you can do this using video recordings from YouTube.
A Band – dancing to a full band and arranged music.
Time Signature – changing the time signature of a step.
Tempo – play with dancing a different tempos. Often we dance to slower tempos when learning and then graduate to faster tempos. But there are some tune, step and dances that just feel very different and different tempos. For our classes we tend to work with 60, 80, 100, and 120 bpm. Went dancing reels I really like dancing around 110 bpm and find that 120 is too fast for me to do some of the play that make dancing so fun.
Context – dancing at a session, on stage, for personal enjoyment, a party piece, in class, teaching or busking. This can inform your improvisation as well and change the way you dance.
day 4
Day 4 | Step Creation (choreography)
Step Creation ideas
Vocabulary – mixing and matching vocabulary movements and rhythmic steps (i.e. Connemara step, 6 heels, finishing step). You will find a vocabulary playlist under the resource tab.
8 bar step – mixing and matching 1 bar, 2 bar and 4 bar patterns to make an 8 bar step.
Taking an existing step and inserting a different pattern into the 8 bar step. (removing a movement to make this work). As you do this it might change the step or the weight change and you can decided how you want to proceed with each part before or after the new movement.
Dancing the tune – listening to a tune and tapping out the melody and rhythm of the tune with your hands or heels. I like to keep this simple in at the start so that I am only focusing on the sounds and not worrying about how I will move yet. Then once have a pattern that you like, try dancing it different ways to make that sound with your feet. Pick one you like and work with that. Often I keep this one sided and repeat it so that I don’t have to worry about to many weight changes yet. Once I have a pattern that I like and have it in my feet then I attempt to put it on the other foot or make it two sided.
Looking for where to start exploring tunes? Try TheSession.org, YouTube, Spotify or your own music collections. The session.org is great for finding sheet music, recordings and variations of tunes. I often will use the sheet music or the midi recording (on repeat and slowed down) to help me learn the tune. This is especially helpful if the tune I want to learn is in a set of tunes and it’s hard to just listen to the one tune on repeat. I don’t read sheet music well at all, but I use the sheet music to see the rhythmic structure of the tune. The whole notes, quarter notes and eight notes. This can help me in a tricky spot of the tune where I can’t figure out what it happening or I want to double check what I am hearing on a recording. I use this purely as a rhythmic tool. (One day I will learn to read sheet music and use it as a melodic tool). I tell you this because if you don’t read music you can still use this tool.
I have loads of playlists on my YouTube and Spotify channels and you are very welcome to save them and use them. As I find tunes that I like I add them to these playlists.
Maldon’s YouTube channel – look under playlists. When you go to my page, click on ‘playlists’ to see them all. I have a lot of playlist on YouTube so if you want to find music or dancers quickly “music” or “dance” they will come up.
Maldon’s Spotify channel – look under playlists. Most of the playlists are organized my tune type.
Pick a banner step (the easiest step for you to dance) and dance it only to a track of music
Half Mapped with a banner step- now dance that step for 8 bars and then see what comes out for the next 8 bars and then go back to the banner step. Go back and forth testing half mapped and mapped
Half Mapped – take a routine of steps after each mapped step dance any step that comes to mind and then go into the next mapped step and so on.
Un mapped – dance steps as they come to you. Use improve tricks from day 3. Listen to the music and respond.
Mapped – listen to a track of music and writ out steps for each part of the tune. Write an order of steps and memorize them. Use steps from the week. Make your own steps up and set them in an order. Use the tune to create steps.
List of steps
Connemara
6 heels
Finish
Cross step
Heel and ball 3x (side step)
Slide step creation #1
Slide step creation #2
Extra beats
Vocabulary
stamp step
Heel step
Tap step
Stab step
Heel down
Cross step
heel step toe step (front and back or opposite feet)
heel toe (same side)
Heel drop
Heel drop Stab drop
Slide tap
These can be danced as:
1 2 3 4 (whole notes)
1&2&3&4 (quarter notes)
1e&a2e&a3e&a4 (eight notes)
Improv
Double stamp
Echo Tune
# of Heel downs (dancing across the bars of music)
I use the term vocab or vocabulary to refer to the different movements and sounds our feet can make. Quite often when I teach I have a warm up before we start that includes the vocab steps. These steps are a great place to start out as an absolute beginner. They can be danced as whole notes, quarter notes and eighth notes depending on what sound you want.
We will explore hornpipes, both traditional old style and Sean-nos inspired steps. Over the month each of will work on creating our own steps and style for dancing to hornpipes.
week 1
WEEK 1 | Class notes
week 2
WEEK 2 | Class notes
week 3
WEEK 3 | Class notes
Week 3. Find a tune that you like dancing to and put steps to the tune. Hornpipe steps, reel steps, jig or slide steps. You can create steps or create a routine or just improv to the tune.
