Situating the Choreographer in Irish Traditional Step Dancing
Situating the Choreographer in Irish Traditional Step Dancing

Author(s): Catherine E. Foley
Subject(s): Anthropology, Theatre, Dance, Performing Arts
Published by: Етнографски институт САНУ
Keywords: Irish traditional step dancing; Ireland; political ideologies; choreography; choreographer
Summary/Abstract: In Ireland, choreographic work in traditional step dancing exists on many levels: amateur to professional and within diverse cultural systems and contexts. These systems and contexts support particular communities of practice, which in- fluence and shape choreographers’ choreographic work and the meanings that these dances/works embody and express. In this paper, I select and examine different Irish traditional step dancing communities of practice and their respective aesthetic sys- tems. In so doing, I explore how choreographers situate their work within and around these systems of cultural practice. Located within specific ideological discourses and epistemologies, I contend that today, choreographers of traditional step dancing either conform to, or challenge, the boundaries of discourses associated with the respective aesthetic systems of these practices. The paper focuses on group dancing and not solo step dancing.

• Details
• Contents