St. Patrick’s Day – Join me for Teatime at 9am, dance a jig for yourself, family or friends, attend a virtual or social distanced event. My plan is to visit The Edgefield, a lovely outdoor venue in Troutdale featuring a few local Irish musicians.
Do you have a solid practice routine? If not, don’t panic!
Simply start with five minutes, one step or one dance. Pick a time of day that works for you and decide where you will practice. Example: I will practice the Murray’s #2 for 5 minutes everyday before I have my lunch. This week there are no Keep Her Lits or Woodsheds. Experiment with using the past recordings for this term to keep your material lit.
It was exactly a year ago that Oregon shut down and we began celebrating and visiting each other on zoom. At the time I was scheduled to play an informal session with all of my favorite people at the Candlelight, neighborhood Chinese-American karaoke dive bar here in Portland. The bartender was so looking forward to our event and was crushed when it was canceled. So, instead he bought 20lbs of corned beef and cooked it all for himself.
This year I’m excited to be able to hear some live music on St. Patrick’s Day and to have someone else cook the corned beef!
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.
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 ZOOMWoodshed | 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 ZOOMKeep Her Lit | Winter 1 Old-style
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
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
5 – 6pm Class | Sets & Calling: We will continue to call dances from our night of sets. Please contact me if you’d like to be a dancer.
6 – 7pm Class | Intermediate Feet & Voice: the intermediates will also be working with the song Cúnla. Beginners, you are welcome to come along for some extra practice!
Friday, February 19
12 – 1pm Class | Waltz Clog We will add more waltz steps to our repertoire. We will also drill each “trick” from last term as well as the basic step and ending steps. An then create a few steps as a group.
2 – 2:30pm Keep Her Lit | Acapella Jig Routine into Acapella Reel Routine. We will dance the whole routine Acapella. We will work on keeping a steady tempo and transitioning from jig time to reel time.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
This 4 week course covers the fundamentals of Sean-nós dance and introduces students to Irish music.
Learn how to shuffle and do the Connemara basic step. Get familiar with foot vocabulary from step one. Learn the difference between jigs and reels. Hear other rhythmic tunes such as polkas, hornpipes and waltzes. 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.
Welcome to your sean-nós dance practice!
class 1
The first class we learn jigs. Jigs are in 6/8 time.
We will be learning to dance to the human voice. Through song and lilting we will explore the voice repertoire. The voice is the oldest instrument. It has been said that if there was music there was dancing. In areas where instruments were hard to come by dancers often danced to lilting. Ronan Regan recently came and talked at our tea time where he spoke of house “parties” and homes where there might only be one fiddle. Players would pass the fiddle along each taking a turn to play. There was a lot of listening and conversation about the music. Rather than formal teaching. This term we will look lilting and dancing to the 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. There will also be a woodshed for each level. Woodsheds are a place for you to practice the material.
class 1
Many of the link and notes for this class are the same as the beginners class 1. Here is a link to that page for your reference.
We will start with the song Cúnla
Sometime spelled Cúnla, Cúnnla, Cunla and Cunnla. You will find the song in English, in Irish and Macaronic (English/Irish).
Cunla resource page on this site.You will find the playlist for YouTube and Spotify. Also included here all the links and the lyrics in one place.
class 2
6pm PST | 7pm MST | 8pm CST | 9pm EST on ZOOM Class | Intermediate Feet & Voice: the intermediates continue to work with the song Cúnla. Beginners, you are welcome to come along for some extra practice!
