The Reason Behind the Look -- The Competitive Irish Dancer

I've got so much to say to the author of the article "Why Irish dancing has lost its way and needs to change." If you don't know about it, it's the article that is enraging Irish dancers everywhere.

Rather than spouting out my feelings in a blog post, I'm going to (hopefully) calmly tell Cahir O'Doherty, the author, some of the facts he carelessly didn't check before writing his poorly researched article.

Mr. O'Doherty, you first stated, regarding the Irish dancer's modernized look, "They need costumes and giant wigs and spray tans and extensive wardrobes. We need to hide them beneath multiple layers of pan stick and polyester if they're to stand a chance on the stage on their own."

There are reasons behind everything you mention here. You didn't care to research the "whys" behind the costume (solo dress), the wig, the spray tan -- you just decided to write down your shallow opinions. 

In a competition, dancers get less than a minute to make an impression on the judges while they are dancing. Traditional athletes, as in basketball players or footballers, etc., get hours of game time to make an impression of their talent. 

We don't have that luxury.

That's why we have to make every second count.

We spend money on solo dresses that, first, represent ourselves. The solo dress is a reflection of the dancer wearing it -- their personality, their style, their interests. The dress also needs to draw the eye of the judge to the dancer. We're fighting for the spot light -- that opportunity to be seen! That's one reason why glitter and stones are so popular right now. They add flash and attract the eye of the judge to our outfit, and ultimately to ourselves. 

It's a tactic.

There's so much truth in this picture:

And another thing!

Who are you to say what we spend our money on??? That's none of your business!

*calm down*

Back to the points:

Irish dancers wear wigs as a symbol of our traditional roots in old Ireland. Irish girls would curl their hair before they went dancing. We do the same thing. It's important to keep tradition when your activity is rooted in a folk dance. 

And there's this indisputable fact:

Who can argue with that???

O'Doherty then mentions spray tans. Here's my question for him:

Have you ever seen a bodybuilder?

They're pretty tan aren't they? Why would they tan their bodies?

Think about it...

There's an important similarity between bodybuilders and Irish dancers, believe it or not. Each tans their bodies to enhance the visual muscular definition. Muscle definition can be more easily seen on darker skin than fair skin. This is why Irish dancers tan their legs. We are athletes, muscle strength is essential and the adjudicators look for strong legs while judging. Irish dancing is all about legs. We've got to make them look good!

Woo! Look at that!

Ultimately, Mr. O'Doherty, we look this way because it has the power to make us feel invisible. When you look good, you feel good, you dance good.

I hope all my readers take this next quote lightly. Being a strong, technically savvy dancer is what gets us trophies, but looking good can't hurt.

I love how modern Irish dancers look. It makes sense, the way we dress, if you think about the overall goal of wanting to shine on stage. 

I hope with all the backlash Cahir O'Doherty has received, he'll think twice before he messes with Irish dancers again.

*fierce*

If you want to hear an NPR (National Public Radio) piece on competitive Irish dance, click here. You'll love it.

The Intoxication of Irish Dance

Do you remember the first time you saw an Irish dance performance?

For me, it was a junior high talent show when I was 13.

A family performed made up of 5 children including 2 sets of twins -- a set of boys and a set of girls. They were perfect for Irish choreography.

I didn't remember the dance but what I did remember was wanting, with all my heart, to be able to dance like that!

Do you share this feeling with me? Were you drawn to Irish dance when you first saw it? Heard the music? Felt the rhythm of the hard shoes? Did the memory of the dance performance keep pleasantly nagging at your brain until you found out where the nearest place Irish dance was taught?

This was basically my story of how I became to be an Irish dancer.

Never have I yearned to become another kind of dancer. Irish is what I feel I was born to do.

Am I not alone?

It's one of my favorite parts of a dance performance, while looking out from the stage, and see little girls in the audience jumping around to the music.

I imagine they are little Irish dancers in the making. *sigh*

I found this video on Pinterest. She is an amazing dancer but what I really loved happens just after the 1 minute mark in the video.

Watch...

The woman videotaping says "She makes me want to do it."

I love that!

By this simple performance, a woman in the audience wants to learn how to Irish dance. And she can't be the only one.

Irish dance is so intoxicating and so catching. Whenever I tell people I Irish dance, 90% of the time the response is, besides "Is that the same thing as Riverdance?" but rather, "I love that kind of dance!"

It's exciting to be apart of something that not many people do but a lot of people know.

Please share your first-witness-of-Irish-dance story with me! I'd love to see how you felt when you first saw Irish dance.

The Power of the Irish Dance Solo Dress

So here's a question:

If you are able to remember, can you recall what you thought of the Irish dance solo dress the first time you saw it?

Positive? Negative? Blown away?

Me, I was blown away.

"Really?? How can anyone dance in that? How much fabric did it take to make? How many jewels are on that dress?"

And finally,

"How much did that cost?"

Little by little, I've come to realize how FABULOUS the solo dress is.

They certainly have evolved from what Irish dancers used to wear:

I found this article from the New York Times about the Irish dance modernized look. The interviewee, author John Cullinane, explained the solo dress in an interesting way:

For girls’ costumes, there were certain things that constituted the early Irish dancing costume: the shawl, the use of the Tara brooch as an Irish national emblem, a lot of Celtic embroidery and Celtic lace. Now you look at some of the contemporary creations. They are fashion creations — lovely colorful designs, etc. — and not a scrap of identity to say that they’re Irish. Also, the costumes nowadays are designed to facilitate a very elevated kind of dancing. The dancers appear to float about three feet off the floor. That wasn’t the case in my time, in the 1960s. So the dancing style has changed enormously, and so too then has the costume.

It's interesting that perhaps the costumes we wear have changed in order to incorporate the new and different dance moves we progressively learn.

Have you noticed this? How so?

It's always a new Irish dancer's dream to work up to the level it takes to get a solo dress. I love how the dresses can be completely personalized to represent the personality of the dancer. 

I've never owned a solo dress. But this year I finally get to buy one so I'm on the look out for my dream dress. 

Here are some of all-time favorite dresses I have found on Pinterest!

(Click on each picture to pin it on Pinterest if you want)

I LOVE the twist on this next dress!

I adore the simplicity of this one.

And this picture is absolutely adorable!

But here is my all-time favorite dress! I want this in my size, on my body, right now! I don't care what it costs!

(Famous last words)

And just for fun, take a look at this old set dance recorded in 1963 and compare our style of wardrobe and dance moves to the man dancing. :)

Fun fact: The man dancing is the same author I quoted above.