Irish dance provides fun, exercise
March 7, 2008
Musician Jim Ruth plays the violin during the Irish ceili event on Feb. 8 at the First Christian Church in Columbia. Ruth and his group played Irish dance music.
Attendees learn to dance at an Irish ceili dance sponsored by the Central Missouri Celtic Arts Association on Feb. 8 at the First Christian Church in Columbia. The event caters to experienced dancers as well as beginners.
The Central Missouri Celtic Arts Association holds an Irish ceili dance every second Friday at the First Christian Church in Columbia. Every month, the organization hosts live Irish music to which attendees can dance.
(Click graphic to enlarge)
Young and old clasped hands, hips and shoulders as they twirled around the gym of a local church, turning it into a festive dance hall. Women in billowy skirts stood across from men in jeans, waiting for the instructor to tell them when to take their neighbor’s hand.
Some dancers wore buttons proclaiming, “I’m dizzy,” to warn potential partners to take it easy on the spinning.
When there are not enough men to go around, the ladies wear ties and dance the man’s part. If there are not enough ladies, sometimes men will wear skirts to fill in for the missing women.
As it turns out, Columbia has an untapped dance scene. On the second Friday of every month, the Central Missouri Celtic Arts Association hosts an Irish ceilis dance. A ceilis is a social event that features a live band playing up-tempo Irish music the locals can dance to.
“It’s pretty big,” local Irish events organizer Kate Akers said. “We have a really solid community of people that come to our events.”
But for the adventurers who like to try new things, another type of dance takes place on the first, third and fifth Friday of the month.
That unique dance is called contra dancing and operates much like square dancing.
Dancers line up in the beginning, rather than starting off in the shape of a square.
The two types of dances are alike in some ways, but they differ in their footwork.
“Irish dancing has basic footwork, and it’s not hard to learn,” Irish dance teacher Kathryn DiFoxfire said. “After practicing it a few times, you become comfortable with it. Contra dance has walking steps and no fancy footwork.”
MU graduate Cliff White has been coming to contra dances for longer than he can remember. He chuckled when he described what it’s like.
“Sometimes it’s square-dancing for dummies,” White said. “We do a little square dancing, but it’s more fun than that. It’s hard to have much more fun than this.”
Both types of dance are forms of social dancing, which means dancers always end up dancing with someone different than their original partners.
“You always get a new person to dance with,” White said.
Various steps in all of the dances lead dancers to weave in and out of the people around them. It might seem confusing to learn the steps, especially for new dancers.
That is why these dances have a caller. A caller is a person who yells, or calls, out the steps that come next in the dance.
This helps people keep up and learn along the way.
This week’s caller, Otis Watson, started with a sense of humor to make people feel a bit more comfortable.
“The only rule is to have fun,” Watson said. “It’s the most fun you can have with your clothes on standing up. As my wife said, just relax and have a good time.”
When he said that, people giggled and began to spin. Both of these dances are made for a social setting, as opposed to a performance setting such as Riverdance, DiFoxfire said.
“It’s social dancing, so you don’t have to put on a show,” contra dance regular John Quint said. “It’s repetitive, so if you make a mistake it’s easy to catch up and get back in there.”
For newbies who are intimidated to come into a dancehall and try to fit in with a bunch of regulars, DiFoxfire has a solution.
“We have a free beginners lesson before the dance begins, and we teach each individual dance before the music starts,” DiFoxfire said. “It makes you remember what it was like when you were learning, and you get to see the dance again with new eyes.”
Interaction with the teachers makes dance more accessible and less difficult.
“I think one of the nice things is that just about anyone can do it and enjoy it,” first-timer Heidi Stillman said. “If you’re a good dancer you can add flourishes to make it fun, but if not, you still have fun. It’s a nice dance form and lets you dance with lots of people.”
DiFoxfire has always known she wanted to teach, so it’s only natural that she likes to work with beginners. But even people who don’t teach still enjoy it when new people attend the festivities.
“Actually, the dance would be boring if everyone knew what they were doing,” dancer Al Klein said. “Don’t apologize for being a beginner. People would pick each other apart if we were all great.”
Klein drives to Columbia from Kansas City often to get his groove on and to hear the live band.
“Dancing is a way to listen to the music, a physical activity that’s listening,” Klein said.
Another aspect that makes Irish and contra dancing fun is that there is always a live band to play the jams.
“I like the live band,” Klein said. “I’ve been to places that do it with records and it just doesn’t work.”
After each dance, most of the dancers had sweat dripping from their bodies and were flush in the face. The facility has a water fountain in the back for people to rehydrate themselves before going back to boogie.
This is an event for people to attend if they either like dancing or would like to test it out.
“It’s an amazing way to meet people in a no-pressure environment,” first-timer Sherry Nicks said.
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