Step Dancing in Ireland

Name: Step Dancing in Ireland
Brand: Taylor & Francis

Taylor & Francis

This book provides a rich historical and ethnographic account of step dancing, step dancers, and Irish cultural institutions. Catherine Foley tells the story of step dance from its roots in eighteenth-century Ireland to its modern globalized appeal. Foley applies a regional focus to her examination of step dance, looking at three step dance practices in North Kerry, in south-west Ireland: the rural Molyneaux step-dance practice; the urbanized, staged, competition-orientated practice, cultivated by the cultural nationalist movement, the Gaelic League; and the stylized, commodified, theatrical practice of Siamsa T\u00C3\u00ADre, the National Folk Theatre of Ireland. > For many people step dancing is associated mainly with the Irish step-dance stage shows, Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, which assisted both in promoting the dance form and in placing Ireland globally. But, in this book, Catherine Foley illustrates that the practice and contexts of step dancing are much more complica.