Frequently Asked Questions
About Irish Dance.
Real questions I've seen people ask (or been asked) about Irish dance. Not that I blame anyone for having questions.
Why don't you use arms?
The number one question of all time!
Yes, I'm sure it looks strange to the uninitiated. Yes, I'm sure you want to make a Ministry of Silly Walks joke.
There is no definitive answer. There are many myths and legends and tales that are often shared as hard fact: everything from not wanting to raise arms in front of Queen Elizabeth I, to avoiding being noticed by British occupiers, to being told by the Catholics not to be too saucy. There's also some history about trying to differentiate (what is now called) traditional Irish step dance from other forms of Irish folk dancing, some of which is much more relaxed in posture, akin to tap or clogging. A trip through time shows you that solo Irish dancers sometimes placed hands on the hips (something done now only in shows or group choreography). Group dances have always involved arms and holding hands. I'm afraid that the real answer is: don't really know and aren't going to change it.
Do you have to be Irish?
Absolutely not. Nobody asks, nobody cares.
Why does it look like that?
Why does ballet look like that? Why does tap look like that? Why does Lindy Hop look like that? Why does any dance look the way it does? It looks the way it looks because different dances evolve differently.
Understand that Irish dance has a recreational style, a competitive style, an elite competitive style, and a show style. While they all come from the same roots and technique, the level of crazy, mind-altering, show-stopping choreography depends on the context.
What is it called?
Formal name: Irish step dance (or step-dance/stepdance). Usually just refered to as Irish dance/Irish dancing. Yes, it's the stuff in Riverdance. Please don't call it Riverdancing.
Why the wigs?
Vying for probably the new number one question, at least online.
Let's get this out of the way first: There are no actual rules that say you have to wear a wig or even curl your hair.
The origin comes from the idea of Sunday Best being worn in competition. You styled your hair in whatever was trendy for the era, and also for the age of the dancer.
For example, photos of dancers in the 1920s show bobs and sometimes big bows (and now big bows are back). Shirley Temple curls on the little girls in the 30s. Dancers in the 60s had bubble cuts and bouffants. Dancers in the 70s had long, straight, or even feathered hair. It's not until the 1980s that we really see the look begin to standardize, and competition hair divests from what's trendy into just being curled, because curling your hair is dressing it up. (I can't help but wonder if the popularity of perms in the 80s also influenced this change. Someone old enough in the 80s, please let me know.)
By the 1990s, the look of curled hair had taken over. So to make the process faster and to relieve the pains of sleeping in curlers and the time it takes to style them, half-wigs began to show up. At first, these were quite subtle and natural in appearance, not specifically made for Irish dancers, and not everyone wore them. (And yes, people found the idea of wigs to be silly right from the start.)
But by the early 2000s, the wigs stopped appearing natural, because they just kept getting bigger and shinier. They were still pretty simply styled on the head, though. Usually you just put your hair back in a bun, slid on the wig, and pinned it. Easy.
Maybe to keep up with how ostentatious the solo dresses were becoming, the wig continued to spread up and out, and the exposed hair started to get more elaborate, and now doing up Irish dance competition hair takes longer than it ever did with a head full of curlers.
Do all Irish dancers love wigs, you might also ask? No. It's been a contentious subject since they first appeared. Unfortunately, even dancers who don't want to wear them feel a social pressure to do so, as there is a fear (sometimes justified) that they will be marked lower than a dancer with the whole competition kit, wig and all.
Why do the costumes look like that? Is this an American thing?
This question is only put forth regarding solo costumes, which are typically covered in rhinestones and garish patterns and colors.
The story of the solo costume is similar to the story of the wig. You have to blame the world of intense modern competition for the desire to have a flashy costume. Everyone wants to stand out the most on stage and dressmakers want the promo of being worn by a top dancer. It's a symbiotic relationship forged in a multi-million dollar industry. That's it. That's the answer to the question.
In decades gone by, the solo costume was your Sunday Best, with added knotwork and probably a shawl or cape to show that it was for the Irish culture. Then they got more definitively folksy. In fact, for a while in the mid-Twentieth Century, the costumes didn't radically change at all.
The modern solo dress, like the curls, was basically standardized in the 1980s with the appearance of the stiff panels (sometimes split), heavy velvet, dense embroidery (by hand and later machine), and a fancy headband. Still, though, the dresses were noticeably and undeniably meant for an Irish folk dance, and the silhouette remained similar until the later 90s, when the skirt started getting wide and neon. That's right, non-traditional fabrics and colors became popular. So did sequins and rhinestones. There was still a strong Irish theme and lots of knotwork, though it might not be done in embroidery, or in any combination of colors meant to be seen by human eyeballs at one time.
With Irish dance suddenly a global phenomenon, there was more money to be made. Certain dressmakers became Known and Desired. Grandma can't be hand-making these things anymore!
People who grew up around Irish dance and are only just seeing how it looks today seem to blame Americans for the costumes. In the 80s, it was allegedly the Americans ruining Irish dance with more non-traditional choreography. In both cases, the changes were actually a collective effort and not the fault of one country over another. It's the winners at the top level who end up influencing popular trends, and dressmakers take advantage of it. All Irish dancers within organizations dress similarly. Irish Irish dancers look identical to American ones.
As mentioned about wigs, there are fears that adjudicators will mark dancers down or ignore them if they don't have a trendy, up-to-date costume. Sometimes dancers are pressured by their school to wear a certain style of dress or wig (usually for those same fears). Sometimes that pressure is peer pressure. So if top dancers have X thing, suddenly ALL the dancers have X thing. Even if that thing costs $3000 or $5000.
I will note that, though there are always new trends, the overall silhouettes and style of the costumes don't change as radically from year-to-year as they have in the past.
Why are the legs tanned?
Because no one outside of the community has seen how offensively dark (or even kind of green) these white girl legs get and twitter hasn't canceled it?
Simply, it's a part of aesthetic competition culture. A way of dressing up. That's the realest answer. Just be happy that dancers are getting better at also matching their hands, necks, and faces. It's been a rough road to get here.
There are other justifications, though. I am now going to refute all of them.
They prevent a dancer from looking blown-out under stage lights!
What stage lights! Most of the time, dancers are at little local feiseanna in gyms and hotel ballrooms. Even at major competitions, the hall is fully lit! And I don't see ballerinas with orange or green tans on their bodies under real stage lights. Also, if Irish dancers are so worried about being blown-out, they wouldn't wear white poodle socks with white laces and white tape anymore. That gets blown out. Solo dancers used to wear black tights more often, and they're standard in most shows. Why not go back to that?
They show off our muscles!
This isn't a body-building competition. Adjudicators aren't looking at a twelve-year-old's muscles like, oh wow amazing quads I'm ranking them first. The dresses are already perilously short in the back as it is. Let's not make it weirder.
Some nebulous and not-at-all-insulting idea that pale legs look less healthy.
White Irish people are not known for their tans. Dancers survived until the late 2000s without regularly tanning on stage. Splotchy tans and hard bronzer, particularly on young faces and bodies, look far less put together than a pasty knee.
As for the history of tanning for competition, I first heard rumors that people were self-tanning way back in 2002. It was rare and natural enough that I have no memory of seeing it (it was my teachers who told me it was happening). I would guess the influence came from other competitive dances that tan (ballroom, freestyle disco), combined with the skirts of the dresses getting shorter, thus showing more leg. Some people blame Americans, again. I've seen people say it started in Canada. I've seen people insist it came out of the tanning culture in the UK. I assume it started in multiple places at the same time. Once one top dancer does it and gets away with it, more will follow.
As with most elements of Irish dance competition costumes, tans are not required. But as I've said, the pressure to look a certain way so as to not potentially lose marks means that people continue doing it.
Why the white tape and white laces?
People say it's to enhance the line of the leg down to the pointed toe (if you're wearing poodle socks).
The first instances were people taping over the strap of their hardshoe in, like, 2010 or so. It had to do with reducing the profile of the hardshoe. Then, gradually, more and more of the top of the hardshoe was taped over, so that now they often look like spats sitting on a sliver of a black sole. Or, in the case of softshoes, white laces and tape make it look like the dancer has big white feet. And the extra silly thing is that the buckles dancers wear (sometimes on softshoes now) get totally lost in the white tape. Can't even see them. And you don't even want to know what the whole taped contraption looks like up close.
There are some hardshoes made with white leather straps and tops, but taping still dominates (probably because black tights are often also worn, and having two separate pairs of new hardshoes is very expensive and doubly annoying to break-in).
Like wigs, solo costume trends, and tans, it's not a requirement to have white tape and laces on your shoes. You still see top dancers with black laces. But there's a fear that not doing these things will get you ranked lower in competition. Athletes can be very superstitious.
It's not traditional anymore!
Well, it is. By definition it is.
As I mention elsewhere, Irish dance is a living folk dance and an aesthetic sport. This means that it continues to evolve from its original roots. You cannot measure the whole of Irish dance by the top 1%. Worlds level competition is choreographed to win, which is usually where a lot of envelope-pushing happens, for better or worse (join in on the neverending community drama). All of these dancers can treble out a traditional set. We are taught the traditional choreography throughout our time in lessons. It's the entire foundation. If you want to teach, you have to go through the Grade Exams, which are all about the basics. Sometimes a very non-traditional movement gains popularity and divides the opinions of dancers, teachers, and adjudicators, but that's the nature of an aesthetic sport.
Organizations like CLRG make it a mission to preserve choreography, dances, music, and the Irish language (there's some nuance to that conversation that doesn't belong in a FAQ). The CLRG World Championships are a bilingual event, announced in both Irish and English, with Irish on the official podiums and placements. I promise you that beyond the bling, Irish dance still knows where it comes from.
Though I do have a theory that if our costumes looked a little more folksy again, people online wouldn't be so rude when they see videos of dancers. John Cleese could never.