Tag: Old-Style Dance

Past Classes

2023 October | 10:30am Wed | Old Style Step Dance | St. Patrick’s Day

maldonm

intro

Welcome Step Dancers!

Discover the roots of modern Irish step dance with old-style step dance. This traditional style, distinct from sean-nós dance, will be familiar to experienced step dancers. In old-style step dance, each step is performed for eight bars, alternating between the right and left foot. In this course, we will focus on learning St. Patrick’s Day, a captivating set dance. Set dances are known for their unique rhythmic patterns, with varying bar counts that add an intriguing twist to the music. St. Patrick’s day has an 8 bar first part and a 14 bar second part.

Damhsa áthais sona ort! (Happy dancing to you!)

  • Frist Step
  • First Set
  • Second Step
  • Second set
  • Finishing Step
St. Patrick’s Day, whole tuneDownload

Michael Tubridy’s Book A selection of Irish Traditional Step Dances – This whole book is available free of charge. The videos that accompany this book are also on youtube now. Michael created a notation system and had the sheet music as well as the dance notation and words for the steps written in the book.

week 1

Week 1

Frist Step

Shuffle Down Shuffle Down Shuffle Down Shuffle Down Shuffle hop treble hop back hop out hop out

hop down kick hop down shuffle down tip heel down shuffle hop treble hop back hop back 2 3 4

St. Patrick’s Day, A partsDownload

week 2

Week 2

Frist Set

Hop hop back tip down down tip down down shuffle down tip heel down tip down down tip down down

back down kick hop down shuffle down top heel down shuffle hop treble hop back

shuffle down tip heel down tip down down tip down down tip down down kick hop down

hop right left right shuffle down shuffle down shuffle hop treble hop back hop back 2 3 4

St. Patrick’s Day, B partsDownload

Practice tips

  • Listen to the B part and sing, hum or speak the steps without dancing
  • Using the Amazing Slowerdowner, YouTube or another app that slows music down and dance the B part only until you can dance it at the speed of the recording without mistakes. If you are using YouTube there are several recordings of the tune the tune. Quite a few with the bpm listed. The best one in terms of quality of playing is: Cover the Buckle.
  • Drill just small parts of the dance that you are struggling with.
  • Next step: download the whole tune (found in the intro tab) and dance the 1st sep and the 1st set together.

week 3

Week 3

2nd Step

week 4

Week 4

2nd Set

Finishing step

more lessons

Woodshed | St. Patrick’s Day
1-22-21 Winter 1 Keep Her Lit Old-style St. Patrick’s Day
Playlist | St. Patrick’s Day

Old-Style Step Dance

2022 Summer 1 | Old-Style | Endurance

maldonm

intro

A summer of old-style step dance!

Endurance – 15-30 min (depending on the style/material)

Our Endurance sessions will vary in length depending on the style of dance and material. I will create a playlist of tunes/dances that we will dance at full tempo. You can follow along with the specific dance or you can just dance to the music with the steps you have. Think of this as a full rehearsal of material or session dancing. The idea is to build up your endurance as if you were on stage dancing a full performance.

Old-Style 

Class – 55 min

  • Wed 12pm – All
  • Fri 12pm – All
  • Sat 11am – All

Woodshed – 25 min

  • Tue 2pm – All
  • Thu 2pm – All

Keep Her Lit -25 min

  • Wed 3pm
  • Fri 3pm 

Endurance – 15-25 min

  • Tue 4pm – All
  • Thu 4pm- All

week 1

week 2

week 3

week 4

Old-Style Step Dance

2022 Summer 1 | Old-Style | Keep Her Lit

maldonm

intro

A summer of old-style step dance!

Keep Her Lit – 25 min

Keep Her Lit sessions are back as well. These sessions are designed to help you keep your reputaru fresh and ready to do. We will be rehearsing complete dances from past courses. We will work on having clean transitions and perfecting a whole dance for performance or dancing in sessions. 

Old-Style 

Class – 55 min

  • Wed 12pm – All
  • Fri 12pm – All
  • Sat 11am – All

Woodshed – 25 min

  • Tue 2pm – All
  • Thu 2pm – All

Keep Her Lit -25 min

  • Wed 3pm
  • Fri 3pm 

Endurance – 15-25 min

  • Tue 4pm – All
  • Thu 4pm- All

week 1

week 2

week 3

week 4

Old-Style Step Dance, Past Classes

2022 Summer 1 | Old-Style | Classes | All

maldonm

classes

woodsheds

Tuesday June 7, 2022 – St. Patrick’s day, the whole thing.

Patti asked about style and we worked on getting the cross over in the hop backs as well as keeping the rock nice and tight. For myself I’m working on doing a full hop rather than a lazy (sean-nós) heel drop.

We also talked about dancers who have great old-style form and style. Jackie O’Riely, Kieran Jordan, Céline Tubridy, Michael Tubridy and Pádraig McEneany. Here are a few reference videos for style. I have put a few videos for style reference. I will keep looking for nice examples.

The Tubridy’s

Kieran Jordan and Caitlín Nic Gabhann

Old-Style Hornpipe

keep her lit

endurance

Endurance Playlist

Tuesday June 7, 2022 – Maggie Pickie, Priest in his Boots and St. Patrick’s day. We danced all three dances twice in a row. It was 14 minutes of straight dancing. Sadly it didn’t get recorded. We will continue to work on endurance and adding more time as the weeks go on. It endurance the goal is to keep going and to prepare for a performance and situation where you will be dancing back to back dances in a show. Don’t worry about being perfect. As you dance and finish note what went well in your endurance session and what needs work. We are all coming out of 2 years on not performing so be kind to where your level is now and work on improving it. I keep a practice journal where I take notes of what was amazing and rocked and what needs improvement. The woodsheds and keep her lit sessions are where you prefect parts of a particular dance and get it slowly up to speed. Just keep at it and you will get better and better. When I have followed this practice session on a regular basis in the past I have been supper ready for a show. When I have not followed it quite often I get on stage and the band is playing much faster than I have been practicing or the show is longer than I have been practicing in a row and there are always surprised. The endurance sessions help you with as much before hand as they can.

June 16, 2022 – Maggie, Priest in his Boots, St. Patrick’s Day and Old-style hornpipes.