Lord of the Dance Memories

Watching Lord of the Dance with my students this spring brought me back to my childhood memories of watching the show on DVD...

Right before the summer of 2001, I watched Lord of the Dance in school.  I was in 6th grade.  I was also about to move to Virginia at the time.  As we got settled an began to explore the area more, we ventured out to the Blockbuster and Hollywood Video by our house to rent new films to watch on Friday night pizza night.  Having seen the first half of Lord of the Dance and been blown away, I convinced my parents to let me rent it (and eventually copy it for future use).  That led to renting the original Riverdance: the Show with Michael Flatley.  At 12 years of age, that didn't interest me as much because it was old and more importantly, short.  I soon found (and rented and copied) Riverdance: Live from NYC which was more exciting to watch.

I spent at least two hours every single day of that summer in front of the television watching either Lord of the Dance or Riverdance.  My two sisters would occasionally join me, their favorite to watch being Lord of the Dance.  The three of us eventually got to the point where we had the show memorized, so naturally the next step was to perform the show ourselves while watching the DVD.  One of my sisters played the Lord of the Dance, the other played Don Dorcha (the dark lord), while I was the Little Spirit.  There were dance battles and lots of pretend Irish dancing happening, which I'm sure was a riot to watch.

To this day, my sisters will refuse to watch either shows unless they're seeing it live, while I can't watch the shows without dancing.

Don Dorcha, Little Spirit, and the Lord on the first day of school.

Goals: Rest and heal
Days till Os: 115

Irish Dance in the Public School

A major part Virginia fourth grade curriculum is studying the history of my lovely state, from Jamestown to the geography.  The culmination of their studies is usually (depending on the school) a 'colonial fair.'  For these colonial fairs, the students learn a dance (or more!) in music class or PE, the most popular dance being the Virginia Reel.  Upon my arrival at the school, I noticed just how similar this was to a certain ceili I've learned in my Irish dance days...



I knew that jumping in to being a long-term music substitute was going to be awesome if my fourth graders were doing ceilis every day.  And it didn't stop with the Virginia Reel/Haymaker's Jig.  The students were responsible for knowing six other line and square dances.  Armed with my New England Dancing Masters books (Ar Rinci Foirne for elementary music teachers), I learned and taught the other dances.  I was quick to see that square dances are like 8-hands.  They even had some of the same moves with different names!

Lead around  -----> Promenade
Chain            -----> Grand right and left

Once the students knew their square danced, and to encourage them to be serious about their own dancing, I told them I was an Irish dancer and showed them two Youtube videos: one of Haymaker's Jig and one of the Three Tunes.  The students were all impressed with how precise their handwork and lines were, and how well they danced without 'calls' with the music.  Of course, after introducing myself as an Irish dancer, brought on quite a few questions, so I decided to dedicate a day in the last few weeks of talk about solo Irish dancing, costuming, and yes, teach a jig.

Teaching a simple light jig step is attainable for fourth and fifth grade classes.  Most students were just happy to be jumping around and didn't care if they were doing it right or wrong.  A lot of the girls enjoyed it and told me how they practice at recess.  I was also surprised with the natural ability of some of the boys!  They're at an age where most think dancing is "for girls only," but if they knew how many competitions they would win as a naturally talented boy, I bet they would think again.

To culminate this activity, we watched my Lord of the Dance DVD. (skipping the "boring" singing and fiddle parts.  Also Breakout.)  Watching that DVD inspired my dancing career, so who knows, there may be some new Irish dancing students!

Goals: Re-figure SJ lead so there are no jumps off of bad foot
Days till Os: 170

General Updates...

Finals are over! I can concentrate on dance now!

Today was just not a hornpipe day. I have started running recently to work on stamina, but it just wasn't happening today. And my back trebles. Oh, my back trebles...
I'm reelly excited for my reel (bahaha, couldn't resist). My second step now has this nice spinning move a la Ciara Sexton. Here's to hoping I don't fall on my face at a feis...
My new set would be coming along, had I not decided finals were more important... :] Now that I am done, I think I can actually focus on learning it for real, and not just having to remember parts of it when I get to class.
Oh, and I have also learned my umpteenth spot in the figure. This is mine for real now (or at least until nationals). There is something about this new place I'm doing that just seems...easier for me than the spot I was doing prior to it. I like it.

A few weeks ago I went to see Lord of the Dance at UVA. It most certainly was a once in a lifetime thing in a not-so-good way. I don't think I will ever go see it again live, I will just stick to my DVD of one of the original performances. Don't get me wrong, the dancers were good. The show just pisses me off because so much of it is pre-recorded, and it's so obvious. I can't wait to go see Riverdance in June to erase this bad memory from my mind...

Goals: Remember Drunken Gauger, back trebles
Days till NANs: 52