When people think of Irish dancing, they think of the stage show "Riverdance" or a line of short-skirted girls with big, curly hair, their arms held straight at their sides and their lower legs snapping like scissors.
But there is a different side to Irish dancing, a social tradition that has little to do with performance or competition.
At an Irish social dance, or "ceili" (pronounced KAY-lee), anyone can learn a jig or reel.
"When you say Irish dancing, people will say, 'Oh, like "Riverdance"? I can't do that,' " says Tom Juenemann, who plays accordion in the Twin Cities Ceili Band. "And that's true, they can't. Step-dancing is a highly stylized dance form that you have to really learn how to do and practice. It's more of a sport.
"In contrast, ceili dances are just about having fun," Juenemann says. "It's nice to be able to do the footwork -- the sevens and threes and skipping and hopping. But the primary goal of a ceili dance is to laugh."
People head to ceilis on St. Patrick's Day and also year-round for regularly scheduled dances at the Dubliner Pub on University Avenue and elsewhere. I recently took my husband and two children to a kid-friendly ceili at Celtic Junction in St. Paul.
As we walked up to the building, we heard music drifting through the walls, beckoning us into the dimly lit dance hall. The five-piece Twin Cities Ceili Band played on stage under the backdrop of a painted yellow St. Bridgid's cross.
We settled into chairs on the side of the room and watched 40 or so dancers moving through patterns in several long lines. A mother danced while nudging her preschooler in the right direction. An older man shuffled, barely lifting his feet. There were middle-aged couples and a handful of teenagers with some impressive high-stepping, synchronized footwork.
Above the accordion and fiddle, you could hear instructions.
"Forward! Forward! Back! Back! Do it again! Trade places! Pass
The five-piece Twin Cities Ceili Band plays traditional Irish jigs and reels for the
monthly Celtic Junction ceili dances in St. Paul. (Pioneer Press: Sherri LaRose-Chiglo)
LEARNING THE STEPS
Our family has no Irish heritage and my husband dances only grudgingly, but he loves Celtic music and his foot already was tapping. I decided to hit the floor with my 7-year-old-daughter and left our 10-year-old son to listen to music with dad.
I think we danced to "The Siege of Ennis," but frankly, it's all a blur. Maybe it was "Siege of Carrick." Could have been the "Fairy Reel" for all I know.
I was listening to Doran's instructions with the intensity of a teenager trying to follow a driving
instructor's directions for merging onto the highway.
My daughter and I faced another couple in a line going down the dance floor. We skipped sideways. We all put our hands in the middle and danced in a circle. We hopped forward and then stepped sideways and separated from our partner to allow another couple to walk between us.
I would steer my confused daughter out of the way of incoming dancers and pull her back toward me for a spin. As we moved down the line, we danced opposite different people, a few almost as confused as we were, and many others who pointed us in the right direction.
We got the hang of it, and by the end of the dance my daughter was even trying to lift her knees in a little jig step like the teenagers.
"If you can move forwards, backwards and sideways, I can put you into a ceili and there will be no blood," Doran told me later. "I consider it a bonus if you know your right from your left. It does not require a high level of skill in terms of the steps.
"I think it's very family friendly," she added. "I've had kids as young as 3 move through patterns on their own."
Doran is a member of an adult Irish social dance group called Mooncoin, which does demonstrations at fairs and schools. Members of the group were helping run this particular ceili while the regular caller, Mike Whalen, was out of town.
"Oh, my goodness, it's fun," said Elizabeth Merrit, a Mooncoin member who had brought her young daughter,
Evan
Lowe, 17, front middle, and Kelly Reiling, 13, back left, of the O Shea
Irish Dancers show off their moves during Celtic Junction's monthly
ceili dance. (Pioneer Press: Sherri LaRose-Chiglo)
ALL THINGS IRISH
The dance at Celtic Junction grew out of a longtime monthly ceili dance held at Oddfellows Hall in the St. Anthony Park neighborhood of St. Paul. Organizers were looking for a more visible venue and found a natural home at Celtic Junction and enthusiastic hosts in Natalie O'Shea and Cormac O'se (he prefers the Gaelic spelling).
Four years ago, the O'Sheas purchased and remodeled an old mobile phone warehouse in an industrial area north of University to house their booming O'Shea Irish Dance School. A champion in the competitive dance circuit of his native Ireland and a performer with "Riverdance," Cormac O'Se was eager to promote more social side of Irish dancing even as he trained young competitors.
"We wanted to have a place where we could do quite a lot more than run a dance studio," said Natalie O'Shea, a Minnesota native who met Cormac while she was working as a "Riverdance" stagehand. "We founded Celtic Junction as space for dance, music, visual art and language."
The Center for Irish Music is a major tenant, teaching fiddle, accordion and other traditional Irish instruments to 130 students. The center also hosts Gaelic language classes, various clubs and O'Shea Irish Dance, which has 250 students.
Sometimes, the O'Shea students and their parents drop by the monthly ceili.
On the night I was there, Doran invited the teenagers to show off their moves. One boy, who looked about the age of my 10-year-old son, drew the biggest whoops as he flung himself down the hall at a diagonal, skimming the floor with his feet as people clapped in rhythm to the music.
"This type of event is great because you get to enjoy the students," said Elaine Black, who was standing next to me.
Black learned ceili dances as a child in Ireland but set them aside for 20 years after emigrating. She rediscover them in St. Paul as a member of Mooncoin.
"There is a tradition in Irish culture that at the end of the night, you bring out your 'party piece,' either a piece of poetry or a piece of music or a dance. That's what these dances are," Black said.
SOCIAL GATHERING
I caught up with some of the athletic teen dancers in the lobby, taking a break from dancing and lounging on sofas.
David Ochs, 15, is part of a eight-member O'Shea team that will dance a competitive version of ceili at the World Irish Dancing Championships at the end of the month in Boston.
The style of ceili they perform is synchronized down to the height of their jumps and angle of their knee lifts, nothing like the social dancing we had been doing in the dance hall.
"It has to be completely symmetrical in every way," said Ochs, who lives in Minnetonka and is at Celtic Junction almost daily, either dancing or taking fiddle lessons.
The social ceili is a welcome break from the intensity of training for competitions. "It's nice to get away from the synchronization and just get loose," he said.
I told the boys that my 13-year-old son had not wanted to come to the ceili and was glad to have gotten out of the family outing by landing a babysitting gig.
"Your son is missing out," said Liam Slatterly, 15, of Roseville, another competitive dancer. "Just tell him there are, like, 50 million girls here ..."
"... and, like, six boys," Ochs said.
I headed back to the dance floor and tried to coax my 10-year-old out onto the dance floor. But he preferred to lurk on the sidelines nursing a root beer. His father and I shuffled through a couple of dances and had a good time.
As we moved down the line, we danced a few patterns opposite two teenage O'Shea students, Kelly Reiling and Amy Green, both of Minneapolis. It was a joy to watch them move, but I wondered if they thought it was a drag to dance with clumsy people the age of their parents.
"No! It's just so fun to see other people having fun," said Green right after the dance. She seemed shocked, hurt even, that I would even think she held my two left feet against me. "No one should ever feel self-conscious!"
Maja Beckstrom can be reached at 651-228-5295.
THE SCOOP
What: Irish ceili at Celtic Junction
Where: 836 Prior Ave., St. Paul
Information: 651-528-7979 or thecelticjunction.com
When: 7 p.m., usually third Saturday of the month
Cost: $5 person, $20 family
Target audience: Anyone who can't sit still when they listen to Irish music
Crowd pleaser: Learning the Haymaker's Jig
Avoid: Feeling self-conscious
Tip: The evening often starts with the easier dances.
Special event: The March ceili at Celtic Junction will not be held on the third Saturday as usual, but instead on Sunday, March 17, to coincide with St. Patrick's Day. Twin Cities Ceili Band will play live music, and Paul McCluskey will provide instruction. 6 to 10 p.m.; $10, $5 children ages 6 through 12 and seniors 65 and older.
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