I am excited to announce that I will be starting a new weekly Irish dance class at CityDance in Rockville, MD!
Over the past few years, I have been honing my vision for the kind of Irish dance classes I’d like to offer and we are finally here. I feel bolstered by all the many teachers I’ve studied with and been inspired by over my 34 years (so far!) of dancing and I’m thrilled to now have a weekly opportunity to work with students on the aspects of Irish dance that I love the most.
What are those aspects? The musicality and rhythm, the elegance and control, the loudness, the softness, the creativity, the traditional continuity, the sense of community, the individual showmanship, the structured mathematics, and the playfulness of it all. I struggled for many years to find a way to develop and embrace these sometimes-contradictory aspects but I’m now in a place where it all feels good.
A lot of my vision over the past four years has developed from two important teachers, Lauren Smyth and Otávio Bastos. Coming from the festival style tradition, Lauren has shown me what Irish dance can look like and sound like from a different perspective than the one I grew up in—that is, An Coimisiún feis style. Her Lauren Smyth Academy classes have offered me the opportunity to go deeper into my practice with new skills and focus within the festival technique. She has inspired me to create more of my own dances because suddenly the “rules” of Irish dance seem to have shifted and expanded. It’s been really liberating and I want to share this experience with others!
It may sound surprising that my Brazilian frevo teacher, Otávio, has inspired my Irish dancing, but the playfulness of his Mexe Com Tudo teaching method has taught me how to explore my individuality while keeping within an established cultural form. Sometimes it feels like anything goes, but it always comes back to the core of frevo, which I like to describe as “aggressive joy.” With his training, I feel more creative and I hear music in a dramatically different way. I’ve become more comfortable improvising and trusting myself in the creation process in any genre.
As such, my new program is for dancers interested in exploring the diversity of Irish dance, beyond just the competition world, to gain a holistic understanding of the genre. Classes are strongly rooted in traditional Irish dance techniques but also encourage dancers to develop their own voices as performers and creators. The program emphasizes playfulness while taking seriously the Irish dance tradition and its history. My approach is informed by inspirational dancing masters who have made significant contributions to the genre from inside and outside of Irish dance’s larger governing bodies over the past century. I have been inspired by the steps and stories of a wide variety of dancers from past and present, such as Patricia Mulholland, Jeremiah Molyneaux, Donncha Ó Muimhneacháin and Celine Hession, Peggy Cannon, and Frieda and Muiread Gray, as well as my own teachers over the years, Laureen O’Neill-James, Carmel O’Rourke-Tighe, and Catherine Foley, to name just a few.
Classes will be offered through EducArte, the non-profit organization that I co-founded with Pablo de Oliveira to bring equity to cultural arts that are underrepresented in the DC area.
I hope you’ll join me in the studio!
