Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Irish dance and its identity crisis

Every ice breaker game I have ever played someone will ask the group to write and/ or say aloud a sport  I play. I always say Irish dance and inevitability some smart ass kid will tell me Irish dance is not in fact a sport. According to dictionary.com sport is defined as:
an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis,golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.
I would include Irish dance in that category. Unlike most forms of dance, Irish dancers compete regularly and it is these competitions that help to dictate how the culture of Irish dance evolves and progresses. It take a great deal of athleticism to do many of the modern Irish dance steps especially as a dancer moves up levels. An Irish dancer trains just as hard if not harder than your average football player or baseball player. A friend of mine spent five days a week for four hours a day practicing in preparation for the world championships. Some people may have a hard time calling a form of dance a sport, because dancers are usually trying to express emotion or feeling through the way they move their body. Many say the expression of emotions and feelings does not belong in the realm of sports it belongs in the art world. Maybe these people are right but I would also say that some people might think that when a quarterback throws an 85 yard touch down with two minutes left in the game a work of art. Would that mean we categorize football as an art form? Probably not but I think there still is real merit in calling Irish dance a sport. The average person has probably only been exposed to Irish dance in the form of performance though Riverdance or some St. Patrick's day related event, so all this talk of competition might be confusing. In reality almost every dancer onstage in Lord of the Dance is either a world medal holder or World Champion. They have all competed at the highest level for years. Many of those jumps where the girl just seems to float in the air or the beats that progressively get faster and more complex with every twist of the ankle were born not because of some choreographer in search of dance steps for a show but a dance teacher trying to make their student more competitive. Many other dancers who something more established, like ballet, say that calling dance a sport cheapens the art form and having dancers compete is blasphemy. Competition in Irish dance is nothing new nor was it some "look-at-me-I'm-better-than-you" American conspiracy. Competition has been taking place in Ireland for at least 150 years and not only that but there is an official regulating commission like the NFL. Elizabeth Bowen said it best when she said, "Sport and death are the two great socializing factors in Ireland." She did not say art and death and I would say Irish dance is quite social so it must be a sport. :-)
To read the opinions of other dancers on the topic go here or to read what Irish dancers think on the topic go here






Aspersion: A curse, an expression of ill-will The dancers casted aspersions toward each other after they competed  
Assiduous: hard-working, diligent She qualified for worlds after four years of assiduous practice 
                    

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