Shannon Rowbury
Anybody else notice the word “sport” creeping into the Irish dancing vocabulary? “Irish dance is a great sport,” declares one teaching academy which boasts several North American Irish Dancing Champions among its achievements. About a tenth of such dancing schools drop the word casually on their websites. Elsewhere a dancer tells a forum “how superficial the sport is becoming”.
Or take this headline from Spikes magazine: “Irish dancing is the secret of my track success”.This is about World Championship 1500m bronze medalist Shannon Rowbury who as a young girl took up Irish dancing on the advice of her Irish grandmother to help her recover from a fractured tibia sustained while playing basketball. In fairness to Shannon she was serious about her dancing and travelled to Ireland twice for the World Championships.
Then there was the case of Devin Nelson of Orange County who had to retire from dancing competitions at 17 because of body stress and injuries due to hours of practice.
The Irish language channel TG4 recently showed a wonderful series called Ceol na nOileain – Music of the Irish islands. As well as the well-preserved music and singing, it illustrated how important dancing was in bringing the islanders together. Contrast that with the criticism hurdled at Tony MacMahon for saying Riverdance lacked intimacy. Thankfully set dancing and ceilis still preserves that intimacy.
But step dancing with all its competitiveness, neon dresses and wigs, it must be remembered, is an invention of Irish cultural nationalism and not necessarily of the people. True there was always an element of competitiveness in Irish dancing in the form of challenges or the colourful showdown between Juba and Jack Diamond. But this was always peripheral to the main business of people coming together in rural Ireland and, despite their hardships, having fun to a bit of music.
But if Irish dancing does evolve as a sport, can we expect it to become an Olympics event? Will there be dope testing, even gender testing – lest a Chinese girl runs away with the boys’ gold medal?
- Mac Entee
