The Abominable 'Spirit of the Dance'
written November 2000
Spirit of the Dance was a travesty; a crime against all that true Irish dancers hold sacred. Sitting there, in the Arizona State Fair Coliseum, my (recently qualified to compete in Worlds) friend Kirsten and I (also a champion in my own right) were just dumbfounded at the type of swill that can nowadays pass for Irish step dance. We sat there, our mouths agape, groaning at the sins that dared to assault our eyes. With each passing moment, I grew more and more nauseous. I doubt I have ever been so repulsed.
Purporting to be the "next dimension of Irish dance", the group appears to be made of rank amateurs who were perhaps the stars of their tawdry studios' jazz classes, but who had almost certainly never taken formal Irish dance lessons before. Had they learned from a certified teacher, they would have been embarrassed to even stand on stage, let alone try to trample a sound out of it.
There are several aesthetic concerns one must take into account when he or she intends to perform something vaguely resembling Irish step dance. The most important of these "rules" concern the placement of the feet. At all times, unless it is quite obvious that the intent is to defy the standard, feet must be turned out and crossed. Although there is no obligation to also turn out the knees (unlike in ballet), there is absolutely no room in the form for legs that are turned inwards. Also, limbs do not often jut out randomly to the side, or in any direction but forward, for that matter. There is a general expectation that the music will be exactly followed, and that the dancer will stay in time with it. I can attest to the fact that all of these "laws" were violated (constantly) throughout the show, often simultaneously.
However, lapses in technique are forgivable in my book if they are accompanied by a sort of validating overriding thematic or choreographic intent. I am not very critical of revolutionaries whose movement is slightly flawed. This, however, was not one of those types of occasions. The show, while featuring Irish dance as its center attraction, also managed to make forays into incredibly poorly performed ballet, jazz, flamenco, and a sort of hoedown-ish square dancing. There was also a very odd Scottish-looking dance to JIG music. Besides this mish-mash of racial and stylistic insults, and the inherent trashiness of the entire production, there was very little continuity to the show. This disjointedness perhaps made the whole affair a good deal more captivating. Each new section raised Kirsten and I to even higher levels of horror and shock.
There were of course, the choreographic devices that have been the staples of Irish dance choreography: the subtly (or not so) sexually charged duet, the rockette style line, musical solos, and obnoxiously jerky arm movements, "precision" work, and gaudy/glitzy costumes. While some of these were not to the level of Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance, they were, as stated before, accentuated by the shoddiness of the production.
There were also several unusual aspects to this performance. One was the use of ballet. One of the main characters, strangely threaded through the entire performance, was a girl in white who, en pointe, could barely muster anything more impressive than a series of chaine turns. I am being completely serious when I say that I am probably a more skilled ballet dancer than she is; this is a standard to which no professional ballet dancer should ever be compared. Watching the woman was, frankly, a surreal experience.
Also striking were the attempts at large group choreography, which dominated. There were seemingly no attempts to remain in unison, which confounded me, because I would think that anyone who was getting paid to do such repetitive and simple movements (how many times can one cut or perform awful clicks?) might take the care to perform them with some semblance of accuracy. There was also, apparently, a moratorium on traveling across the stage during any of the Irish numbers. The dancers were capable of doing it; the actually halfway credible jazz performances (I concede) illustrated this. However, without these flashes, one would never know that these dancers were more than "sticks in the mud".
Although the music was, for the most part, canned, there was a violinist who occasionally appeared. His performances had little to do with the dancing (he generally appeared "solo", performing with a recording). This would not necessarily be a detractor, as it might have provided a welcome release from the spectacle that was unfolding. However, I was very surprised that he would play the same exact 8 bars of a jig for the entire 5 or so minutes (including encores). Normally, musicians vary the music every 16 bars, and change the tune at least 2 or 3 times. His insistence upon not varying his performance became, like the rest of the show, altogether grating and annoying. On top of this, the tune he was playing was a light jig; while traditional, and thus needed, the light jig is one of the most inalterable and pedantic of all forms-- I couldn't even create my own exciting visual.
On several occasions, Kirsten and I felt motivated to step out into the aisle and show the audience (who, by the way, seemed to relish every moment, to give you a little perspective upon my elitism) "how it was really done". Had my father not been present, there is little doubt in my mind that we would have. At that point, we really weren't very concerned with rudeness. We discussed thoroughly the extent to which the cast might learn from our demonstration.
We exited the site of the fiasco still in shock. We just could not believe that something so horrible was actually touring professionally as Irish dance. We also found it incredibly insulting that their producers apparently never even considered finding "actual" Irish step dancers. There was not one on the cast, and be sure that we looked, who looked like they had ever taken a real lesson from a Comisuin or Comdhail (or Festival, for that matter) certified teacher. We were disturbed by the waste-- there are so many talented dancers in the world who are actually trained who are not performing and not making any money off their skills. It is frustrating to try to understand why anyone would cast such beginners.
In the end, I suppose I do have to give them credit for their courage. The whole thing came off like a studio recital gone horribly, horribly wrong. I would never have had the strength to appear in something so abominable. Also, the show did have a positive motivating effect upon the two of us. We have been working on a type of Irish-modern hybrid (in the style of Trinity company, but perhaps beyond that). We were absolutely convinced that we need to show the world what the real "next dimension" was.
