Hiya. In the middle of doing a research project and i thought it might be a good idea to ask you guys for any stories or info on the relationship between musicians and dancers. Im sure there are stories to tell! My brief is this
Discuss the ongoing, changing relationship between Irish traditional music and dance with reference to specific dance types, styles and contexts and to individual musicians, where appropriate.
Im sure there is stuff to be said and it would be great to here from ye’s
If you have a scout around http://www.thesession.org there are a bunch of stories about musicians and dancers and how they (often fail to) get on.
The most regular complaint I notice is that dancers want the tunes played faster, and the musicians’ observation seems to be that “faster” means “less skilful dancing”.
My own experience is mostly with English Ceilidh Dancing, rather than Irish or Scottish. I’m a regular at the Haddenham Ceilidh, which is a regular venue near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, UK.
Over the years I’ve been going there, I’ve come to realise that nearly all of the regular dancers are musicians … and that includes me, I suppose. But that’s not your remit, so I’ll leave it alone.
That’s an interesting question. I’ve been playing for a step dancing show for about 10 years, some extremely skilled dancers, many also dance instructors. We get along fabulously for the show, but once the show is over, the musicians go one way, the dancers the other. We even have a group Christmas party every year, but still its like two separate but interdependent tribes. We’re like clownfish and sea anemones…
One thing I learned years ago when I was an organizer of festivals that presented stepdancing extravaganzas as part of the event (and this was even before Riverdance) was this. If you’re ever trying to find your dancers in the minutes before they’re due to go on, there’s only one place to look. The bar. And as soon as the gig’s over, there’s only one place they’ll be going. The bar. (One time a dancer I knew was receiving a very prestigious national award, in which there was a concert where all the honorees performed. He did his bit during the first half, and at intermission I ran into him in the lobby, headed out. Says he to me, will you be coming over to the bar? I had to remind him that he needed to hang around for the big gang-bang at the end when all the honorees came out for a bow. He was sorely disappointed to hear that!)
Of course trad musicians are known to spend a good bit of time at the bar as well. But sooner or later, the instruments come out, and hence the divide with the dancers. Dancers seem to be able to separate the dancing from the bar, while musicians cannot tear themselves away from the tunes for long no matter where they are. It remains an open question as to which group really has its priorities in order.
Good musicians, amateur or professional, are dancers.
Take someone famous for instance like Martin Hayes, the Fiddler.
He dances when he plays. I don’t mean he is doing a set piece of dance. Dance is an emotional expression of form (body) in time (rhythm).
In my experience, most of my friction is with callers rather than dancers. Due to the fact that most of the local dance schools dance to canned music, there is a lacking in relationship between the dancers and musicians (and many dancers couldn’t care less about traditional music) but there doesn’t seem to be much friction on the occasions they do get together (they rather enjoy it actually).
As for the callers, they tend to show up at community events, take over and start calling set dances while the players are having tunes. There’s nothing wrong with that (we love to have the dancing) but they take over the room and don’t let the musicians do their thing anymore. For example, if the set dance has ended they expect us to stop playing within 8 bars or we get the “look”. It would be one thing if it was an organized ceili or something but I’m talking about random and spontaneous community events here, often-times highly attended by musicians. Musicians seem to be thought of as a CD track, there to serve the dancers should they show up rather than musicians who enjoy what they’re doing.
I’d say that’s my major complaint. Having dancers adds great fun for the audience, but the usual case here is that dancers just show up, start telling us to play reels but don’t have a clear idea of the tempo, expect us to magically know where and when the turn should be, and dance 'til they feel like quitting and then we’re supposed to just cut off the tune in mid-phrase. And of course, they’re never happy with the tempo. Basically, they do treat us like a CD player, and it feels very un-musical. If we all played at feis and understood the drill it might be different, but we don’t go to feis and, with a very few exceptions, it seems dancers don’t come to music sessions. So it feels like the music and the dance are very separated here. No one’s fault, but the two seem worlds apart in our neck of the woods.
I do not like it when (a group of dancers) shows up at a session. They usually call for a very long, too fast set of reels. Sessions are precarious enough as it is with most people playing faster than they should, and to kick it even higher for a dance set is the death of much of the music, especially piping. I find that I am throwing at vast amounts of that technique that was so hard won when I play for dancers at a session.
I guess Jimmy O’Brien Moran said it best. To paraphrase: sessions are social occasions, not a musical ones.
I remember when one caller sent out an email to gather musicians for dancing events; he made sure he’d hit every bodhrán and backup player, but only a few melody players, as I recall. I called him up and asked what he’d do if only the drummers and backuppers showed up. He was taken aback, as he hadn’t thought about it. I asked him to please do so for the future.
Tom, I understand your feelings about dancers at sessions. For the most part, at sessions - at least in my experience - on the infrequent days they show up they are considerate and actually suppliant (awkward word, but it works) about it when they ask for chunes. Often as not they just dance away in their corner taking what they get. Generally, they also thank us, which is nice. Of course there are the exceptions that are like infants demanding to be fed, but my experience is that your usual dancer is not so socially crass at sessions.
For some reason, I would see it as a betrayal of ITM to dismiss dancers at a session because they force us to play differently. I know it’s a bit silly, but I’ve been to so many session in Ireland where I could see older ladies (and men) dance to the music, enjoy themselves so much, in a very informal way, but still, the connection between the music and the dancers seems to be too strong to dismiss.
I’m not saying I’d enjoy it, but I feel it’s our duty to promote dancing on this music when we can, or it would be a total disrespect of it’s origin. Maybe I’m just being idealistic, and maybe I’d get overly irritated if dancers would show up at the session all the time.
No question it’s dance music first and foremost, which is why we do our best to accommodate the dancers here. The fact that the audience likes it is a good thing, too. However, we don’t have very many social sorts; thus, most of those who show up here are from the local Irish dance schools. That’s a bit of a different animal, especially when there are 30 of them and they all want a solo turn on super-extra-deluxe fast reels (hard on the carpal tunnel, those days). And, since they do mostly dance to recordings and don’t know anything about the music, talking about what they want is a bit like the old “dancing about architecture.”
As a friend once said “Divided by a common language, we are.” It’s not the end of the world, but the Riverdance movement has definitely changed some stuff around here. Though I am glad to see some sort of interest!
How well I know. Especially with the little ones, sometimes we have to arrive at a sort of mutual pidgin-and-sign language. Takes a bit, but eventually it works. The best case is if they already know if it’s a reel or jig, and I just ask them to indicate the pace of the beat they want.
One thing I’ve noticed is that for slip jigs your usual recording-trained dancer can’t make heads or tails of O’Farrell’s Welcome into Limerick no matter how rhythmically you emphasise it. Their comfort zone is often The Butterfly.
Oh, alright. You have all softened my edge. Compromise: in the future I will discretely not play for the giant-reel-set-that’s-going-to-destroy-Tokyo!
It is true that spectators (and the publican) seem to appreciate the dancers adding to the milieu.
And that is the first and last time I will use milieu on these forums. Instead I will henceforth substitute the word maelstrom.
I enjoy playing for dancers, played for sets for hundreds of nights over the years.
Hehe, just found these pictures on-line playing for a strawboys night, I think this one was for the wedding of one of Tom and Annette Munnelly’s sons.
I am sitting at my (then) usual corner of the stage, I see Mary Nugent playing the flute, Jackie Daly was parked next to her, on the left is a bit of fiddle visible so Eamonn McGivney would have been there. Not sure if there was anyone else playing that night.
One of my brothers has married a Macedonian lady and when I go to their major family functions I notice the traditional Macedonian musicians and the Macedonian folk dancers get on just fine and enjoying it.
My brief is this
). I can tell you that there are dancers who understand that playing instruments is a physical investment, particularly during long sets. Not that that makes it hurt any less, but it’s nice to be appreciated. 
