Steps of Freedom (2021) - full transcript

Confucius has a quote,

"you can tell the condition,

"of a man's kingdom,

"by the state in which you find the
dance there."

Irish dance,

was born out of oppression.

It's such evolved form of expression.

We were colonised for 800 years,

that's bound to make a mark on how
we dance.

And how we see ourselves as dancers.

People respond to oppression by
resisting it.



People were determined not to be
swallowed whole.

The Irish have developed a style of
dance that is so intricate.

The fastest footwork of all the folk
dances in the world

But passion is the heart of it,

it's not only dancing to music but,
dancing as music.

It's something that's deeply human.

I've always been awed by the beauty
and the sheer joy

of being alive,

coming out in motions,

Irish dance has been hugely
influential.

It has become part of global popular
culture.

A lot of the best Irish dancers,

are no longer from Ireland.

They're from Australia, North
America or Canada



and they can take Irish dance to a
new place.

The big question is,

how and why the traditional dance of
the Irish people

has grown to become a world wide
phenomenon.

We have to think about why the dance
was happening,

the way it was happening,

who the people are that made the
dance at that time.

What the social structures were at
that time,

what the political structures were
at that time.

That all feeds into Irish dance.

Dance won't be captured,

it flies free.

My name is Morgan,

Morgan Bullock.

I'm a school teacher in America and,

an Irish dancer.

For me, dancing is something that I
do

almost naturally.

It does just give me a sense of
freedom.

Some people ask, how come seeing as
I'm not Irish,

I choose to dance in the Irish
style?

Well, the answer to that question
begins a long time ago,

in Ireland's ancient history.

You really want to go a long way
back,

our only real knowledge of dance in
Ireland comes through the musical
instruments, which survived.

And our oldest musical instrument,

is a set of melody pipes from
Wicklow.

The tuning is so good on them,

that you can play a modern dance
tune.

The original set of melody pipes,

were carbon dated at 4,150 years
old.

They're over 3,000 years older than
anything else like them.

We're terribly lucky to have the
Vespasian Salter,

which is a book of Psalms,

from approximately 720 AD.

In that book, there's an
illumination of a group of
musicians,

and dancers.

They're doing a sort of a two-step,

and at the same time, they're
clapping their hands.

And to me it's particularly
interesting because,

the nicest tempo that I can find to
do that,

is a 110 beats per minute.

I'll show you.

We haven't changed much in 4 or 5
thousand years.

I have no doubt,

people jumped around and had exactly
the same fun,

as they do now.

The instruments are all very
complex,

very beautifully made,

and they want to be played,

with a lively skip to them.

Music and dance,

is and has been probably throughout
all of our culture,

a very important thing in Ireland.

Dance is so ephemermal,

it just hasn't left the same mark on
the landscape as other forms of
settlement have

over the past few thousands of
years.

But one thing that I think we can
say with some confidence,

is that Irish people did perform,

ritual dances.

"The god Lugh supports the Earth,

"the sun and the moon.

"His posturing involves circular
movements,

"and a special use of the feet."

Dance was something which was very
much to the fore to mark

the important days of the year.

St. Brigid's Day and Bealtaine

and Midsummer, and Lughnasa.

These were all days when people were
celebrating a change of season.

This is that time of the year,

when all the animals that have been
brought up to the higher region,

or pasture during the summer,

when they're being brought back,

into the closer lands for the
winter,

this is when people are out, singing
or dancing,

and having a great time.

There are very few records of
dancing from the ancient Gaelic era.

But encoded in the Irish language,

there are a few clues about how
people may have danced long ago.

Two different words for 'dancing' in
Irish,

both Rince and Damhsa,

neither of which are actually native
Irish terms.

Both came originally from old
French,

and presumably passed into Ireland
through Middle English.

They can be used to refer to
frolicking or gambolling,

frisking.

Lambs ag rince.

We have words like Leimneach,
Opaireacht,

Cleasaigheacht.

They certainly communicate a sense
of freedom,

the freedom of movement,

and a sense of enjoyment.

Many of the ancient tales,

do have references to heroes who
were ag leimnacht or

displaying their sporting prowess,

or their agility, or athleticism.

We see this in some of the stories
that refer to Cu Chulainn,

or to Fionn Mac Chuaill.

Folk tales often begin with this
phrase,

'this is how you should spend your
day'.

Spend a third of your day eating and
drinking,

a third of your day with music and
dancing,

and you should spend the last third
of your day sleeping.

Dance is a universal language, just
like music.

Everyone experiences the rhythm,

in some kind of way, shape or form.

Your heart beat has a rhythm.

It is our primordial mother tongue.

Psychologists talk about it as a
state of flow,

an altered state of the mind.

It might connect to sort of the
shamanic,

ecstatic religious sort of voodoo.

You are on a high,

your endorphins are going,

and you're disconnected with other
people

and it's a state of bliss.

We begin to bounce in our mothers'
wombs,

we respond to rhythm,

and sound and pulse,

and heartbeat.

We leap to our feet as soon as we
can,

we bobble and wiggle and wobble.

You do it because it's in you,

you can't really keep it out.

Look at the courtship patterns of
birds

and the elaborate dancing of animals
and mating rituals.

Mating, sex, that's all part of it
too.

Dance is a fundamental human
expression.

It could be THE fundamental human
expression...

...before language.

It's a way of people coming together

and showing community,

and there's a sort of form of
evolutionary adaptational advantage,

to people or communities that dance.

It means that you're looking after
and attending to the group.

We also dance to connect to our
soul,

we dance because the planets dance,

we dance because the Earth turns
round,

we dance because our spirit flies,

we cannot not dance.

If you listen to the old Gaelic
songs,

they have these rhythms.

Where did these rhythms come from?

I think traces exist in the music,

and in the history but

for example,

the old Irish clan march, which is
not a dance, but it kind of was a
dance.

They were jigs.

In fact, you can't say they're jigs
a such,

but they work in a kind of a triple
time.

1, 2, 3,

1, 2, 3.

That's an incredible rhythm to me,

it's kind of very energising.

You could kind of imagine them going
to battle... boom!

Boom, boom.

They would have been marching to the
sound of the pipes.

The tactic was to kill the pipers
first because,

that would cut the heart out of the
Irish Army,

if you could stop the thrilling
sound of the pipe march.

It was around this time,

about 400 years ago,

that we began to get the first
written accounts

of what Irish dance might have
actually looked like.

One of the most extraordinary dances
that was recorded,

was called 'The Rince Fada', 'The
Long Dance'.

It's known that in the procession to
or from the Battle of the Boyne,

that Kings James the Second's
entourage,

was preceded by people dancing the
Rince Fada and strewing flowers.

One English lord was so impressed
when he saw Rince Fada,

that he wrote to Queen Elizabeth the
First about the dance.

"They're very, beautiful,
magnificently dressed and first
class dancers."

The Rince Fada was a long line of
dancers,

meeting and dividing and, maybe
changing places and back to place.

Everyone joined in a line,

and that of course is a form that is
found all over Europe.

It's sometimes called the 'Cagole',

or the 'Carole'.

The first pair turn,

so that you get a column,

and then you get the chance of more
complicated manoeuvres.

The couple move forward,

and then the first pair, castaway,

and everybody else follows them.

Some of the earliest accounts that we
have about Irish dance,

were actually written by British
visitors.

There was a perception of something
different about the Irish.

More interesting, more vibrant,

more... charming.

They dance passionately.

"We frog blooded English dance as if
the practice were not congenial to
us,

"but here they moved as if dancing
had been the business of their
lives!"

The male dancer with his arm above
his head,

waving and... the woman dancing with
her hands akimbo.

There wouldn't have been
prescriptions as to how,

you held your arms.

You weren't dancing to a rigid
pattern of behaviour,

prescribed by church, state, or
anybody else.

People were free to be themselves.

We danced with a lot more abandon.

We were probably less self
conscious.

I think it was more like the Garden
of Eden before the apple and the
serpent.

Subtitles

The dancer drives the tune.

If the dancer doesn't come down on
that beat,

there's no driving.

I would tend to learn the tune and
embody the tune

so that I have the tune inside of
me.

Then I let the head go and let the
feet take over.

I tune in to the musician and the
musician tunes into my steps,

so we meet somewhere in the present
moment,

listening to each other.

In Irish music when they talk about
rhythm,

what they're really talking about is
the internal rhythm of the
diddle-diddle...

So when we say that musician has
great rhythm,

it's a perfect taca-taca-taca...

A perfect clock-lock rhythm.

You can't be too slow because when
you're dancing there's gravity.

You want the tempo of the music to
be where when you lift off

you're going to land on the beat.

When I dance, I'm someplace else.

I go off to this place and I don't
see anything.

It's like I'm tuned in to a
different frequency

and then I transport my body into
that different frequency.

I'm dancing. It's an expression of
freedom and it's such a lovely place
to be.

That performance even if I say so
about myself

you can hear the feet beating out
the tune.

De-de-de-de-de...

Each beat on the music.

We had developed a style of dance
that is so intricate

with the beating. The percussive
dancing.

Percussive steps are the heart of
Irish dance.

But where did this foot battering
style come from?

Did the Irish invent it?

Or did they absorb it from far away?

RHYTHMIC DRUMMING)

I look at Irish dancing and it
definitely looks more like African
dance to me.

Percussion is the heart of it.

It is one of those forms that is
both music and dance.

It's not only dancing to music but
dancing as music.

That's very common around the world.

Whether that's Flamenco in Spain or
Kathak in India.

If you look at a map, you see
there's a straight line

going down from Ireland to
north-western Spain, Galicia,

Portugal, West Africa.

The Spaniards traded with the Irish
through west Ireland

and also with the Africans and the
Arabs.

Personally I think that's where you
find that connection.

"Is his dance the precursor of
Flamenco?"

"Even the remote ancestor of
Connemara dancing?"

That's the thing with dance.

You carry it in your body,

so if your body moves, the dance
form moves with it.

"Even this Connemara dancing could be
explained away as being related to
Flamenco."

"In Connemara it's called the
battering."

In Connemara, Galway and Mayo, the
freestyle foot battering became
known as sean-nos

which simply means 'old style'.

Subtitles

Now we'll go on with the next
hornpipe step.

Go.

There's a family of dance in the
world.

English dancing, Scottish dancing,
Welsh dancing, Irish dancing.

They have a germ of similarity.

The sound of the dancer's feet.

It's been a bit lost in England and
Scotland

but it was there at the beginning of
the 20th century.

Stop. That will be all for tonight.

The thing is that the Irish have
managed

to make something quite prominent
out of their step dancing.

It has an intrinsic spectacle about
it.

The hard drumming of the feet and
the swiftness of it.

And that is really special for
Ireland.

What's important to understand is
the floor in a lot of old cottages

was made of mud.

So you couldn't hear the sound of
the dancer's feet.

They used to take the door off the
hinges

and put the door down on the floor

and they would jump up on the door
and dance.

If we were dancing on a flagstone
floor or even the stones

you won't hear it as strong compared
to here.

And when you have that sound and
there's a musician playing for you,

that sound really drives the music
on,

which in turn drives the dancer on
as well.

Traditional Irish dance gathering
were often in the kitchen.

So the dancing that was valued in
that space was very physically
constrained.

You didn't have a huge space so the
dancer considered good

was the one that could dance on a
sixpence.

You danced in place.

They danced on doors, barrels, on
the table.

Not just for sound but possibly for
the craic and to challenge
themselves.

There's one story of the door being
put on the top of a chimney

and the dancer dancing on top of
that.

A-hey!

She's rocking. You were nearly
dancing yourself!

"On the patron day in most parishes,
the more ordinary sort of people

meet and dance for the cake.

The dances that hold the longest win
the cake."

Of course any time you have roosters
together of any culture,

you have competition.

You have stamping and spitting and
one-upping and strutting.

We see this throughout Irish
history,

this sense of competition, proving
your athletic prowessness,

proving that you are the most
successful, strongest, able
person.... man!

It absolutely parallels what happens
in the wild.

Who's going to be the alpha male.

I think at the heart of Irish
dancing is a one-upmanship.

It is about distinguishing yourself
from others.

The whole engine of innovation is
competition.

Trying to do better than the other
guy.

The challenge in Irish dance is at
the heart of the form.

In 1649 during the English Civil
War, Oliver Cromwell leads his army

into Ireland, to suppress the Irish
Catholic Confederacy.

Cromwell's army lays waste to
Ireland,

ushering in an unprecedented
dispossession, land confiscation

and the forced resettlement of the
Irish.

"We are here to carry on the great
work against the barbarous and
bloodthirsty Irish."

Cromwell is probably the most hated
man within Ireland.

He comes to Ireland for some very
strategic reasons.

He wanted to make Ireland English.

Trying to bring English people in
and bring Ireland under the control
of England.

There are very memorable sieges
where there are massacres of people.

Between 1649 and '53, 600,000 people
were killed or they died of disease

or they leave Ireland.

And that's out of a population of
around 1.5 million.

That's a 40 percent decline in a
handful of years.

Cromwell basically rounds up a lot
of people as indentured labourers

and sends them off to the West
Indies.

Indentured servitude is a time
limited version of slavery.

You get 'em to sign a contract which
says I'm your slave for usually
7 years.

Then you work 'em like dogs while
you have them for those 7 years.

There were many hundreds of
thousands of Irish indentured
servants.

The 17th century also witnesses the
mass enslavement of Africans.

Between the 17th and the 19th
century,

millions of Africans were sold or
born into chattel slavery

across North American and the
Caribbean.

People for their own reasons these
days often call the Irish and
African experience similar.

Well we weren't.

The big difference between
indentureship and chattel slavery

is that under chattel slavery,

the body and progeny and owned
completely by the slave master.

Even in indefinite indentureship
only the labour of the person is
owned,

not the body and certainly not the
progeny.

That's a huge difference.

It's a fundamental difference that
has to be stressed.

Literally beside the African slaves
in those plantations

were Irish indentured servants and
overseers.

These became the cornerstones of the
plantation economy in sugar, cotton
and tobacco.

Both enslaved people and indentured
Irish servants would work all day

and then dance all night.

Dancing around the campfires.

When you're all kind of down here,
being pushed down,

then the energy goes this way.

'Cause it can't go up.

In America, Africans and Irish
continued to work side by side,

often on the toughest jobs.

We took over a lot of jobs and
sometimes shared a lot of jobs with
African-Americans.

Anywhere there was construction
going on,

Irish and African-Americans met.

Oppressed, suppressed, depressed,
compressed people blended.

What came out of that blend is
something miraculous.

I'm from the Zambezi Valley,
southern Africa, Zimbabwe.

I'm from Limerick City and I now
live in County Clare.

I'd never met you before. No.

And we had kind of a...

...we didn't even practise anything.

So that's the beauty of dancing.

We found similar steps that we do.

There was a time when you did a
Clare step

and I said, my grandfather used to
do that!

It happened a lot along the
waterways and it was on ships, on
boats.

It was in labour camps, on the
railroads.

It was all these places. So what did
they see in each other?

It wasn't just that they were at the
bottom of the totem pole.

Both people share the notion of
Diaspora.

Both hear the drums and melody of
the place they left

mixing with the place that they
arrive in.

You can forge a bridge over
anything.

But it's so much easier when there's
already recognition.

And I think that was just going on
all over the place.

Of course there was shared culture.

People were looking at one another
all the time,

copying, imitating one another.

They're sharing rhythm and poly
rhythm.

4/4, 6/8 time.

The other is contributing
polyrhythm,

the overlaying of rhythms within a
metre of music.

The dragging of the beat from one
metre of music to the next

is the first emergence of a strange
and wonderful crossover between
Blacks and Irish.

A new way of dancing was born in
those work camps

which would one day develop into one
of the most famous dances in the
world.

But meanwhile in Ireland, things
were going from bad to worse

for most of those bottom classes.

The 17th and 18th centuries were
particularly challenging for most of
the population of Ireland.

The Irish rebelled and tried to
resist but the Crown was determined

to pacify Ireland through force and
law.

The Penal Laws were a series of
discriminatory laws introduced from
1649 to '53

and thereafter, right through into
the 18th century.

It meant that Catholics couldn't
vote.

They didn't have a right to public
office, they weren't allowed to
worship,

they didn't have a right to
education.

The British project was to eliminate
Irish culture.

You can take everything from people.

You can take their possessions,
their livelihood,

you can try to strip their culture
or whatever,

but you can't take away their body.

And that's why singing,
storytelling, dancing have always

been central especially to
subjugated or relatively
impoverished cultures.

"Dancing is very general among the
poor people.

Almost universal in every cabin.

Dancing masters of their own rank
travel through the country

from cabin to cabin.

It's an almost absolute system of
education."

In the 1700s, dancing masters became
an important part of the Irish
cultural scene.

Some taught in the grand houses of
the rich.

But there were others, iterant
masters, mostly very poor,

who went from village to village
teaching dance.

I suppose they were trying to
strengthen the Irish culture.

The arrival of the dancing master
was a major event

particularly in small rural areas.

It was an occasion of great
celebration, a huge social event

for the people in the region.

When the dance master came to town,

they were held in high esteem.

The clergy, the teacher, the doctor
and the dance master.

They were all held in the same way

so they were very important.

And these itinerant dancing masters
cultivate step-dance

as we know it today.

Without these dance masters, a lot
of the steps and tradition would
have been lost

because it was their responsibility
to travel around and make sure

that it was passed to the next
generation.

A good dance master would tell you
how to stand,

would tell you how to hold your back
straight,

would tell you to put your shoulders
back,

would give you a good stance and
poise.

The dancing masters were the ones
who codified a lot of Irish dance

and standardised it.

They are the ones that made it erect

and this whole idea of not using the
arms.

There are stories of them putting
stones in their student's hands to
keep them down.

Irish dancing can be seen as a dance
of resistance.

And not just resisting a stereotype

that the English might have put on
the Irish as a people and a nation

of people who ungovernable, who are
unruly.

I think that the resistance is also
in the dancer really working

with these two divided halves of the
body.

This tension.

There's a pride in that.

The names of some of these old
dancing masters are still
remembered.

One whose influence continues to be
felt was O Ceirnin from north County
Kerry.

O Ceirnin would have been teaching
at the end of the 18th century.

1775-1780, around that time.

O Ceirnin passed his steps on to a
master called Thomas 'Muirin' Moore.

Muirin was born in 1826 and also
came from North Kerry.

He took those steps and invented a
few more including one called the
Blackbird.

This traditional dance is today
danced by almost ever dancer in the
world.

Ireland wouldn't be the only country
in the world that has been colonised

and that's bound to make a mark on
the dance.

Dance is that form of expressing
yourself

and literally lifting yourself out
of the mire of the ordinary

and escaping into some other space.

Dance at its best is the ultimate
freedom.

Subtitles

in America, a different evolution was
underway.

200 year ago,

America was a tough place for all
those immigrants and former slaves,

who crowded into the slums of the big
east coast cities,

often in difficult circumstances.

You gotta remember at that time,

the Irish and the Africans, they
weren't friends.

You know, the Irish were definitely
opposed to the Africans

because of the way they were taking
the jobs.

So it wasn't a necessarily friendly
relationship.

This was the time when the minstrel
shows began.

White men blacked their faces and
performed on stage.

Often side by side with the African
Americans they were mimicking.

Irish Americans were always involved
minstrelsy.

From the very start, and they
blacked up.

Minstrels shows are racist,
absolutely, absolutely.

But you gotta understand that, you
know, at that time, what was it?

Racism was profitable.

You gotta remember what the minstrel
show was,

it was an imitation of the African
slave.

And all lot of those were Irish
performers,

who could imitate the African slave
the best

because they had already had some
relationships with the Africans.

So as before, when the dance was
mainly about interchanging cultures,

it's about telling stories,

now it's become, "Okay this is
actually a way for me to live."

It became about what money you can
get,

and how you can advance yourself in
this new country.

In the 19th century, we find Irish
and African Americans

dancing off against each other in the
bars and on the street.

What these people were doing is
undoubtedly

influenced by Irish dance.

It's called jig,

so it's some kind of local
adaptation of dances

that had been brought by the people
who are here,

and people who are here are coming
from Ireland.

They're also from African Diaspora.

When we talk about the Irish style
of dancing

in the middle of the 19th century,

the first move might be a jump into
the sky.

Whereas the first move in African
dance was to shuffle down,

bend the knees, and go down into the
earth.

In Ireland, I'm dancing here.

And if you move, it's wrong.

In Africa, I'm dancing here, and if
you don't move it's wrong.

So you get these tow people who meet
each other and are like,

"You're doing it all wrong. But I
kinda like what you're doing."

And, "I would never do that, but do
that again."

Money could be made from dancing on
stage, or in face off competitions.

Always the game was to show off, to
be king of the dance.

"A match has been made between John
Diamond and Master Juba

by some of the sporting community.

The stake is large,

? nd an unparalleled display will be
the result."

The contest that we love to talk
about the most

is the contest between William Henry
Lane,

who was called Master Juba,

and John Diamond.

John Diamond was an Irishman. He was
the leading

Irish contest dancer on the P.T.
Barnum circuit.

He was a white man, but he was
famous as

the king of the negro dancers

because what he did was dance in
blackface.

That was his specialty.

William Henry Lane was a free black
man.

The first records of Lane are of him
dancing

in Irish pubs for coins at age 15.

Now a young black boy dancing in an
Irish pub at age 15

better dance his as off, or he
wouldn't make it out the front door.

So Juba had to be pretty good.

"Single shuffle, double shuffle,

cut across, spinning about on his
toes and heels

- in what walk of life, or dance of
life does man

ever get such stimulating applause
as thunders about him?"

The dance off prize fight that the
great showman

P.T. Barnum staged in 1843,

between Master Juba and Master John
Diamond was a major event.

They were each supposed to dance 16
dances inside the competition.

That's a lot of energy, that's a lot
of dancing.

A lot of pounding, a lot of
gyrating,

a lot of jumping, a lot of twisting,
a lot of contortions.

It was a free-for-all.

And it was brilliant.

I'm a tap dance historian and I
think of it all as proto tap.

There are many names for it - jig
dancing, break down.

On the first day, Diamond wins.

Hands down.

But on the second and third day,

Juba overcomes him and what are
called the conundrum dances.

Dancing on glasses.

Dancing with a glass of water on
your head.

Dancing while you jumped on either
side of a rope.

And Juba won the title King of All
Dances.

Diamond called himself authentic,
and Juba called himself genuine.

Each embraced this amalgamation
between blacks and Irish.

They, to me,

are the great great grandparents of
what we call tap dancing now.

If you look at the origins and the
history of tap,

I can't say there's nothing Irish
about it.

What becomes complicated, especially
with African Americans

just because so many times, over and
over again, things have been taken.

And even when we do create things,

history has been written to say that
we were apart of it,

or we didn't create it. And so
sometimes it can be hard to watch

someone doing something that you
know is part of your culture.

And you being written out of its
history.

This is not an idle fear.

There's a long history of whites
taking credit for black innovation.

In fact,

whites imitating blacks and taking
credit for it is American culture.

From minstrelsy, through jazz,

through rock and roll, through
hip-hop. I mean,

it happens over, and over, and over
again.

I have gone looking for the edge of
where it cases to be African,

and begins to be Irish.

The upward movement Bill Robinson,
Bo Jangles, is like Fred Astaire.

They both dance in the Irish style
of the weightless upright body.

Tap dance is a new form that emerged
out of the concurrence,

collision and competition between
Blacks and Irish.

All art is assimilation, all music
is assimilation,

all dance is assimilation.

The famine effected rural areas
disproportionately.

How many dancers,
and singers and musicians died?

How much music did we lose?
How many steps did we lose?

After the famine, there's that
remarkable that change

that Irish culture kind of shakes
itself. Kind of says, "Okay,

we've got to get up off the canvas
here,

we've been absolutely flattened."

The Gaelic League organised dances
and ceilis to bring people together.

Irish dance became iconic of
Ireland.

Almost an embodiment of Ireland.

In Irish America, dance was really
important.

Because it displayed Irishness.

The Irish American presence in
Vaudeville,

Broadway, Hollywood is very strong.

Can anybody ever forget Michael
Flatley strutting his stuff like a
peacock.

It's not only a rapture from the
rules, but it can also be seen as

a recapturing of parts of the
tradition that have been forgotten.

Dance is important because
it's non-verbal communication.

It can be decoded.

What does the dance tell us
about the culture, about the people.

Dance gives us the lens.

Irish dance
has developed over centuries.

Long ago, it may have had
a wilder, freer energy,

but as Ireland was
colonised by the British,

our style became more constrained.

We learned to dance
in confined spaces

and we began to focus
on the skills of our feet.

You'd find itinerant dancing
masters going from cabin to cabin,

nurturing the dance
and sustaining the culture.

Many of the steps they danced
are still danced today.

'Irish immigrants
brought their dance with them.'

'In America, some lived and worked
alongside African-Americans

and they influenced each other.'

'One of the outcomes
of that fusion was tap.'

Irish dance
is a form of freedom

because the body allows you
to express yourself

even in conditions
of great poverty or oppression.

And dance is that form of expression

and literally
almost lifting yourself

out of the mire of the ordinary
and escaping into some other space.

And dance at its best
is the ultimate freedom.

'So fond are the Irish of music

that in some form or other,
they must and will have it.'

'In spite of oppression,
they laugh and sing,

free as the mountain air.'

Asenath Nicholson says
when she came to Ireland

that she had a pain in her head
from all the talk.

That everywhere you went
there was people talking,

there were people singing,
there were people dancing.

By the mid 19th-century,

Ireland's population had reached
eight million and was growing fast.

So at the very period
when Irish people were poorest,

there were more and more people

spreading into areas that
had never even been settled.

And Asenath Nicholson also says
the little children,

they were surrounded
so much by the music,

could dance before they could run.

The famine was
a watershed in Irish history.

It originated from the blight which
arrived which in Ireland in 1845.

There was a great dependency
upon the potato

from those who were very poor,

and this was a repeated failure,
year after year after year.

The scale of the Famine

was compounded
by British mismanagement.

Belief in laissez-faire economics
and divine providence

ensured that the government
intervention was kept to a minimum.

Britain was probably
the richest country in the world,

but ideology meant
that Irish subjects

were largely left
to fend for themselves.

"It was no man's business
to provide for another."

The Famine leaves
one million dead,

and over two million people
emigrate within a decade.

Three million people
disappeared, almost overnight.

After the Famine,
the population collapses.

We're the only country in Europe
which has lost population

since the 19th century,
the only one.

The Famine affected rural areas
disproportionately

due to the subsistence
way of living.

So, unfortunately,
many of those communities

that were most affected
by the Famine

were Gaelic-speaking communities.

The Famine was sometimes
called the Great Silence.

This noisy, talkative,
vigorously active culture,

that's the one
that the Famine wipes away.

How many dancers and singers
and musicians died at that time?

How many songs did we lose?
How many steps did we lose?

How much music did we lose?

There's a huge amount of our culture
that we did lose at the time.

But then the brighter side is,
"OK, what survived it?"

And the likes of Muirin
survived the Famine,

brought something
out of the Famine like that,

and was able to pass it on
to the next generation again.

And without people like him,
we could have lost way more

and who knows what kind of
a situation we'd be in today?

Thomas "Muirin" Moore
died in the 1870s

in poverty in a workhouse.

Before he died, he passed his steps
to another North Kerry master

named Ned Bad Welsh.

Welsh then passed
his steps on to a man

called Jeremiah "Munnix" Molyneaux.

Munnix was the last
of the itinerant masters

and his steps can actually
be traced

to people who are teaching
and dancing all over the world.

Jimmy Hickey
was my original dance teacher.

Jimmy would have taught me
at the age of probably five or six.

Jimmy was taught by Liam Dineen,

and Liam Dineen was taught
by Jerry Munnix.

The Blackbird you showed me?
Yeah?

That's a Munnix step, is it?
That's Jerry's Blackbird.

Yeah, and that came from Jerry...
...to himself.

To Liam, to you? Like that.

And that's as close as we get
to a Munnix Blackbird as we know?

Jerry's Blackbird.
Yeah.

"We foot it all the night,
weaving olden dances,

mingling hands and mingling glances
till the moon has taken flight."

After the Famine
there's that remarkable change

in the late 19th century that
Irish culture kind of shakes itself.

"OK, we've got to get up
off the canvas here."

"We've been absolutely flattened,
but if we don't get up,

if we don't take responsibility
for ourselves, this is over."

In the late 19th century,

cultural revivalists
establish organisations

like the Gaelic Athletic Association
and the Gaelic League,

and in the words of Douglas Hyde,

these aimed to de-anglicise Ireland
and to reinvent Irish culture.

The Gaelic League organised
social and cultural events.

These ranged from literary talks
on Irish literature,

historical talks,
and also dances and ceilidhs,

which provided a social platform
to bring people together.

Irish dance became iconic of Ireland,
almost an embodiment of Ireland.

The first ever
Gaelic League ceilidh

was held in London in 1897.

And from then on
they became hugely popular

throughout Ireland,
England and America.

But from the start,
there was controversy

over what dances were pure
or authentically Irish.

"Those dances are brazen impostors,

and a disgrace to the Gaelic League."

They were looking at the set dances
that they performed at the ceilidh.

And some people said,
"They're not even Irish!"

They were questioning,
"Well, what is Irish dance?"

So let's ask ourselves, what is
Irish? That was a huge debate.

What that does then

is put enormous pressure
on the dancing movement

to get rid of anything that smacked
of fripperies from France,

especially anything
that smacked of Englishness.

"We have the foreign dances
simply because we were half slaves,

and these were the things
danced by our masters."

They were saying,
"But they came from France."

"They're the quadrilles
or the sets."

The head must be erect.
The shoulders held back.

People always want to know

what the latest
fashionable dances are,

and they can see and copy.

Quadrilles came into Ireland
through the upper and middle classes

and then... picked up in turn
by other lower social classes.

In London,
you had the King of England

doing quadrilles in the court
with a quadrille orchestra.

And how they danced
was totally different

to how they were danced
in rural Ireland.

In rural Ireland
they were dancing to polkas

and they were dancing to slides
and dancing to reels and horn pipes.

They were not originally Irish.
They were Irish-ed.

If you've not got the money
for a large space,

you use your kitchen to dance in.

You use your barn.
You use the crossroads.

What happens then
is that the quadrille square set

becomes a little bit more
compressed and neat and tidy.

So, it does become an Irish dance.

Ho!

But no,
the Gaelic League felt

the roots of it came from France.

And it wasn't enough that the Irish
people had made it their own,

it was decided that it was foreign,

so it shouldn't be allowed
to be danced at future ceilidhs.

The Gaelic League
came out with this philosophy,

"From now on, at our ceilidhs,

you are not doing the quadrilles."

Why are you not doing them?

"Oh, they were brought in
by the British soldiers."

And they banned them.

Ho! Hup!

And it was such a shame
because the sets

had meant so much to the people
in these rural areas of Ireland.

Ho!

Although the Gaelic League
was originally founded

as a non-sectarian
and apolitical organisation,

we know that many members
became more politicised in it.

At the Gaelic League's
ceilidhs and feiseanna,

ideas would have been discussed.

Ideas to do with rebellion.
Ideas to do with resistance.

So for people like
Padraig Pearse, Eoin MacNeill,

Gaelic League events and activities

brought them into contact
with others

who were more in favour
of a militant form of nationalism

to rid Ireland of British influence.

There were reports of rebels
dancing in British prisons,

and in prisons in Ireland
like Kilmainham Gaol.

In the gaols,
they did dance,

both as a way
of keeping physically fit

but also as a way of kind of saying,
"You're not cowing us."

Or, "You're not bullying us."

Dance now becomes an expression
of nationalism now,

but also with that very rigid
body posture.

People respond to oppression
by resisting.

If you look at the ambition
of the Gaelic League

to instil a sense
of pride in our culture,

are you going to present something
that isn't other

than what the Irish dancing body
is presenting,

which is absolute control?

It's a kind
of a martial stance.

It's an expression of pride.

This rediscovering
of what it meant to be Irish

is completely crucial to
the transformation of Irish politics

in the decades that were to come.

It started off with the Home Rule
campaigns from the 1880s,

but then it accelerated into
something much more significant.

After the Easter Rising of 1916,

this turned into a mass movement
for independence from Ireland,

which of course results
in the Treaty of 1921

and the creation of Ireland,

the 26-county entity
that exists today.

Because by 1921, Ireland had gained
independence from Britain.

When a visiting dignitary
rolled into town,

in the early years
after the foundation of the state,

the three things they could
probably be guaranteed

were the national anthem,
a benediction,

and a nice performance
by some Irish dancers.

'What can be
more pleasing to the eye

than the dancing
of lasses and lads?'

'For there we have the beauty
of the perfect step.'

The Gaelic League sets up
a new organisation in 1930

called An Coimisiun
le Rinci Gaelacha

to oversee and further
the development of Irish dance.

An Coimisiun
is the governing body

of Irish step dancing globally.

It was set up as a committee to
basically regulate Irish dancing.

They set up
rules and regulations

in relation to feiseanna
and oireachtas,

which would have been
the competitions in Irish dance.

Out of that came the interminable

and incessant desire

for medals and competition.

The young Irish dancers

looked like superannuated
Prussian field marshals

with hundreds of medals
clanking on their chests.

It became the raison d'etre
of the dancing schools,

winning competitions.

Dance became much more
an expression,

not so much of joy,
but of technical accomplishment.

Can you do these steps?
Can you dance to a time?

And it becomes competitive,
where you're being marked.

The notion of time and step
and execution of step and posture,

all could be measured.

Aon, dha, tri.
Aon, dha, tri. Aon, dha, tri.

This made it more feasible
for adjudication purposes.

How straight are you?
Are you in time to the music?

Are you not in time to the music?

Aon, dha, tri. Coig, sia, seachd.
Aon, dha, tri. Aon, dha, tri.

The Coimisiun,

it was wonderful how they revived,
revived Irish dancing,

because if they didn't revive it,
I don't know where it would be today.

But in reviving it,
they selected particular dances.

You know, it was the Munster
style of dance that was cultivated.

And they omitted,
excluded other dance styles.

Irish dancing as we know
was an invented tradition,

to a certain extent, by An Coimisiun
and the Gaelic League.

It codified the form,
it moulded the form into being.

The Irish dance teachers
in the Gaelic League,

they were anxious to portray
a proper image of the Irish.

So the dance masters
told the dancers

to keep their hands by their side,

so it was reinforced
in competition.

We have no movement
from the waist up,

and all the movement and activity
happens from the waist down.

When I mention that,
people find that fascinating.

They've never thought about that.

They've never wondered
why Irish dancers

keep their arms at their sides.

And also crucially, you now
begin to wear a special costume.

The costumes portrayed
their Irishness.

There were certain symbols and
things that you had on your costume,

like we adopted the Tara brooch.

And in the earlier days,
the embroidery reflected,

er, shamrocks and even leprechauns
to some extent.

Eileen Battersby brilliantly
described the Irish dance uniform

as looking as if they'd been
bespattered with the Book of Kells.

.

'The annual procession
of the Eucharist.'

'Almost the entire Catholic
population is marshalled

to join in this public act of homage
to the King of Kings.'

Another facet of the rise
in cultural nationalism

was the growth
in a strict moral code.

And we see this reflected

in the influence
of the Catholic Church

on appropriate public activities
for young males and females.

"The dances are
unmistakable incitements

to evil thought and evil desires."

Dance was seen as an occasion of sin

and the agents of The Wicked One
would come along

and mingle amongst the dancers.

"Dancing halls have brought
many a good, innocent girl

into sin, shame and scandal,

and set her unwary feet on the road
that leads to perdition."

The next thing you know,

is that the dances
the clergy favoured most

were the safe ceilidh dances

and the pure competition style
of An Coimisiun.

Ceilidhs were very much controlled
by the local priest,

men on the one side of the room,
women on the other side.

And everybody would be watching.

It was George Bernard Shaw,
at least it's accredited to him,

who said that dancing was a vertical
expression of a horizontal desire.

Now, in Ireland there was
going to be none of that.

You didn't hold somebody closely.

It was hand across the body.

You know,
the hand would separate you.

The hand would always separate you.

You could swing like this,
or you could swing like that.

Holding the hand,
but you didn't get too close.

As they used to say,
I think in Irish America,

when kids were
dancing in high schools,

"Leave room for the Holy Spirit!"

The straight-backed posture
seems to me anti-sensual.

No funny business going on here.

It also splits the body into
the top half, which is rigid,

and then the bottom half,

and pay no attention
to this part in between.

That does tie together, I think,

with this church and state control

of women, of premarital sex,

of contraception, divorce,
and many other social issues.

It's like as if
it was another planet.

But no, it wasn't. This was real.

Aon, dha, tri, ceithir.

For centuries,

the traditional spaces
people used to dance

were the crossroads
and in people's private homes.

Traditional Irish dance
gatherings

were often in the kitchen.

"Round the house
and mind the dresser."

You know, so your body
wouldn't hit the dresser

and knock off the good crockery
or whatever.

Mam was dancing... I'd say old-style
step dancing really, isn't it?

All the modern Irish dancing
you'd see now has evolved from that.

It's what you do with your feet
as you're moving around the set,

the toes and the heels,
and, you know,

battering down around those parts
it can be quite intricate.

They're putting a lot into it
but it's so rhythmical, so musical.

I think that probably goes way back

and it's all connected
between step dancing and shuffling

and Sean-nos dancing and set dancing.

Like, the lines are, are blurry where
one stops and the other one starts.

We seemed to get it
from older people, you know?

You'd watch, and you'd hear.

You have to be dancing
with the person too,

because you feel the energy
in that person.

You can't learn from a book.

You have to be dancing
with the person

to really get the dancing
into your feet.

Whoo!

In 1935, the Irish state,
under pressure from the church,

introduces a new law

which effectively brings dancing
in private homes and crossroads

to an end.

The Free State government
imposed a Dance Hall Act in 1935

which sought to regulate,
and in some ways control,

the gatherings of people
to engage in dancing.

What the Act does
is effectively makes dancing

in people's private homes
or at the crossroads illegal.

It got very, very weak.

There was definitely a big fear

that the way the sets were
being danced was going to be lost.

This beautiful tradition,
that was going to be lost.

People who were
running dances in their house,

they were prosecuted.

It had terribly deleterious effects,
erm, on rural life.

It's crazy, isn't it, to think back
that they had such influence

on how our dancing is done today.

Like, my grandparents
always spoke about

playing music and dancing
at each other's houses.

That's how my family
learned how to dance,

passing it on
from one generation to the next.

So when the 1935
Dance Hall Act came in

and it was illegal to do that
in your own house

or at the crossroads
or wherever it may be,

essentially a way of life
was completely stopped.

All around Ireland
there were stories

of priests raiding private houses
and crossroads dances.

"Wooden roadside platforms
were set on fire by curates."

"The priests drove their cars
backward and forwards

over the timber platforms."

"Concertinas were sent
flying into the streams,

and those who played music at
the dances were branded as outcasts.'

We see first-hand accounts
from the 1960s,

even as late as the 1970s,

of the parish priests
coming into a dance hall

and literally lifting
the needle on a record player

because he had seen
a young man and woman

dance too closely together.

So all these factors
led to a very repressed society

in the mid 20th century in Ireland.

I met so many people
in my researches

who were virtually in tears
at what had been done,

to the way of life
that they valued so much.

In reality, there are
two wellsprings of Irish culture

in the early 20th century.

One is on the island
of Ireland itself,

but the other is
a sprawling diaspora,

and nowhere is this more evident
than in the United States.

There are about 40 million Americans

who declare themselves
to be of Irish descent.

That's a lot more than is on our own
little speck of an island.

In America, Irish dance
was on a very different path.

It was becoming
part of the mainstream.

Dance was really important
because it displayed Irishness,

and the dance schools
and the dance music

is a really vigorous
part of the culture.

Many of the dance masters
went out there

because they found
that they could make a living

out of teaching Irish dancing.

And they had a far better standard
of life than we had,

in America.

Hence those people...
Pat Roche from County Clare,

Tom Hill, an enormous influence,
James McKenna,

they brought the Irish dancing
with them.

James McKenna
and many other dance masters

had been taught by
Jeremiah "Munnix" Molyneaux.

So his steps are connected
to the dancing masters

of North Kerry
and the pre-Famine period.

And this Munster style
becomes the main style in America.

Five and six, and seven...

It was basically the Munster style
that was danced in New York.

It was called the McKenna style then
but it was a faster-paced dancing,

very, erm, solid, strong rhythm.

Down to the floor,
dig in as much as you can

was kind of the idea of it,
of his style of dancing.

And then, some dance masters
like Donny Golden

combined the Munster style
with the Ulster style

which has a lighter step.

It was more into the technique

and the lifting and bringing yourself
off the floor as you dance,

you know, in a more stylish manner,
instead of, like, pounding it out.

So they wanted to take that...

And they wanted to go...

And, you know,
and do it at that pace,

and put fancier material in
and fancier steps.

I think Irish dancing masks

a certain trauma
for the Irish diaspora.

It allows people to stay
connected to their homeland

and allows them to almost forget
that they're not there.

That they had to leave,
not by choice, but by necessity.

My mum started me out to keep
some culture in the family

and tie to the Irish roots.

Since she moved to America,

she wanted us to have
a bit of Ireland in our home.

Most of the people have
emigrated through the years,

so their history is,

they really wanted to keep up
the traditions of the past.

In my case, my parents
never did Irish dancing

but they made sure
we all did Irish dancing.

Like it or not!

Give yourselves a hand there.

The Irish stick together
in the United States.

They work hard and they climb
the socio-economic ladder.

They rise in blue-collar jobs
in the police force and in politics.

They're grafters
and they're networkers

and many of them rise
in the entertainment business,

becoming Hollywood
and Broadway stars.

The Irish-American presence

in Vaudeville, Broadway, Hollywood,
is very strong.

There are important figures
who happen to be Irish-American

like George Cohan, Gene Kelly
and Jack Donahue.

"In Boston, the kids didn't worry

about what they were gonna be
when they grew up."

"You were either gonna be
a dancer or a fighter."

"A lot of these Irish-American
dancers, they were hoofers."

"Most had to graft and hustle
to make their way to the top."

Camera!

I've read about Jimmy Cagney

growing up on
the Upper East Side of New York.

And you proved you were a man
by being able to duke it out

and by being able to out-dance
the next fella on the next block.

That was Irish dancing
in the Irish-American tradition.

"I learned how to dance
from learning how to fight."

"It was feint, duck,
quick dance around your opponent."

"On your toes mostly, then shoot out
the arm like a bullet!"

Keep that camera going!

In this culture,
dance is a kind of sport.

It's like boxing. Both of those
are avenues of mobility.

They are open to the Irish-American.

The man who couldn't dance
couldn't fight.

And the man who couldn't fight
couldn't dance.

Great dancers like Cagney
and like Gene Kelly,

you put the fists up
or you danced it out.

I think that's pretty much gone
from Irish dance now.

Nobody expects you to put up
the fists after, you know,

winning the regional competition
and prove that you're a man.

The Irish have been dancing
like this for many, many years.

Head proudly held high,
shoulders back,

arms stiffly down at the sides.

Their dancing is based completely
on the movement of the legs

and the sound of the feet.

People want to know
about Singin' In The Rain.

He always said it was just a simple
Irish clog dance that anyone can do.

He had really studied Irish dancing.

He was very proud of being Irish,

and I think he felt a real identity
with the dancing.

You could say that
one of the biggest drivers

of change and evolution
in Irish dance in the past 50 years

was the setting up of the World Irish
Dance Championships in 1970.

In the 1950s,

Irish dancing
was very popular in Britain.

And they'd travelled to Dublin

to compete
at the All-Ireland Championships.

And, lo and behold,
they actually beat the Irish.

We realised,

"Wow! There's this wealth of
Irish dancing all over the world!"

And we opened up
the World Championships

and found out how much
of a wealth there was.

Irish dancing
had been moving around,

of course, people emigrating,

so there was Irish dancing
in so many countries now.

So, creating the World
was bringing these people

from these countries
back to the homeland

and back to their heritage
and competing with it.

It becomes more and more
about the contest,

speed, percussion.

They're always
looking for something

to push out the boat
a little bit more

to get the adjudicator
to look at me.

Tiaras and headgear, everything.

Everybody knows the dress
of a young girl

who is in an Irish jig competition.

That skirt is designed
to open like a bell,

and everything about her,
except for her curls,

you know, their bob, their weave,

is about keeping
that geometry of form.

It's a big, huge industry

and the wigs are now
a serious element.

You cannot dance
at any of those competitions

unless you're wearing a wig.

Now they have introduced
rhinestones

glittering
from one end to the other.

The philosophy is, anything that
glitters will attract attention.

It's not
just about glitter and wigs.

Competition has brought
whole new levels of skill,

dexterity and athleticism
to Irish dance.

People are so much more
into fancy footwork

and this twisting of the ankles,
which is great.

Where years ago, a few years back,

it was the highest jumper
who could lift the highest.

And every time it changes
to a different thing.

It's a solo form

and it is about
distinguishing yourself from others.

And I think of the fact
that Irish dancers

don't have the use of their
upper body to leap into the air.

They don't have the plie,

a softening of the knees,
to get higher into the air.

So we're defying gravity,

and we're resisting, doing things
that we wouldn't be expected to do

if we didn't have
our hands at our sides.

You have to be very well fit to keep
pulling yourself out of the ground,

and then look like it's nothing.

The question comes up,

especially when it comes
to the competitive world,

and it's very similar to diving,
to gymnastics, to figure skating.

They're very similar
and they're all sports.

The question is, is Irish dancing,
when it comes to competition,

is it a sport or is it an art?

.

'We have the Bunclody Ceili
Band here with a selection of reels.'

Musicians were meant
to be heard and not seen.

They were meant to be in the corner,
play the damn music,

play it at a steady tempo,
don't do anything too fancy.

And the music was merely there

to supply the rhythm
and the tempo for dance.

And it's really only in the 1960s

that you get a major step forward
in creativity in the music.

The 1960s and '70s

were a time of radical change
for Irish traditional music.

The era of the ceili band
began to wane,

and a new generation,

deeply influenced by developments
in America and Europe,

arrived to shake things up.

It was kind of a revolution.

There's a modernisation
of Irish society in the 1960s

which drives profound
cultural and generational change.

We see a new, optimistic, idealistic
generation of Irish people.

And we see everything from
free education and EEC membership,

and the ups and downs of politics,

the economy and society
driving a wider cultural shift.

And these are the things

that start to filter into lyrics,
into dance and into music.

In this way,

Irish people are processing
a new Ireland through music.

And they're articulating it

with their fingers, with their
fretboards and with their feet.

What happened with Irish music

was that there was
a young group of people

who started to play around with it.

Certainly with people like
Donal Lunny, Andy Irvine,

Sweeney's Men, The Chieftains.

Those musicians who began
to play bouzoukis and mandolins,

they invited a contrapuntal
accompaniment of the tune.

So it was that period
that suddenly was explosive

and it felt electric.

Every generation
throws up a phenomenon.

It's just the way that art is.

People emerge and astonish everyone.

Michael Flatley
bursts onto the scene in the 1970s,

and he was the first Irish-American
to win the Worlds

and would soon become
the first Irish dancer

to become a global star.

Michael Flatley is from Chicago,
a working-class guy,

who comes up
in the competition realm.

At one point,
he won the Guinness World Record

for 29 taps per second
or something like that,

reaching the limit
of human possibility

and then pushing that limit.

I think Michael Flatley is absolutely
part of this Irish-American tradition

of pugilism and dance
being connected,

and dance being a competition,
dance being a macho kind of thing.

Actually, Michael did
some boxing in his early life

and he did connect the two.

He was as light as a feather
on the floor.

The same way on the ring,
he could move and fly.

You started seeing him
Moonwalk.

You started seeing him doing
all these different styles of dance

with Irish dance

and saying, "I'm going to be
the best and the biggest

in this culture
and in this dance."

Michael Flatley wasn't
the only rising star

in the Irish-American scene.

In New York, Jean Butler
was learning her steps

from dance master Donny Golden.

Swing two, three.
Then swing two, three.

Then swing to the back.
Four, five, six, seven.

When Jean even came to class
as a beginner,

she just had this... so erect look

and so intent in class.

Like, so serious to get everything
exactly right, that I was like,

"Wow, this kid has got
something going for herself!"

Soon as she walked on stage,

you just kinda say,
"This kid's gonna be good."

In the 1970s I started the group
The Green Fields Of America.

I knew from the audience response
that there was an appetite for it.

And through Michael Flatley and then
Donny Golden and Jean Butler,

who were all part of our group
at one point or another,

the music and the dancing,
certainly in my life, came together.

It's important to note

that it was the musical act
that people came to see

and they weren't expecting dancers.

And when the dancer did come
flying out from stage left,

it was an enormous,
energetic response,

because something just happened
that they weren't expecting.

The idea was to come out there
and shoot out there

and, like, bring a rise
to the middle of this tune

and a lot of energy
and perform out some great rhythms

and do some fancy footwork
and get the audience into awe.

That was the goal.

I understood that Irish dance
did have the power that it had

because of those experiences.

It really forced me to figure out
how I wanted to be on stage

and figure out what I needed to do
to be on stage.

And by the end of my time,

I wasn't wearing
a traditional costume anymore.

I was trying to dance
in a very particular way.

I was evolving as a performer
as the performances were happening.

'Then, in 1994,
a catalytic event occurs

that will have a dramatic impact
on Irish dance.'

'Ireland was by now enjoying
a new-found confidence.'

'Producer Moya Doherty brings
Michael Flatley and Jean Butler

together with a troupe of
award-winning competition dancers

and composer Bill Whelan,

to create the interval act
for the Eurovision Song Contest.'

'And following its success,
with director John McColgan,

they go on to create
the stage show Riverdance.'

This show had the potential
to be a world show,

to have international application.

And we both felt that we could take
what was a basic folk dance,

make it exciting, make it modern,
and excite a modern audience.

I grew up listening to Dave Brubeck.

So, here's this guy Dave Brubeck
playing jazz,

but he's using
mixed time signatures.

So instead of four beats
to the bar where you go,

"One, two, three, four.
Two, two, three, four. Three, two."

Instead of that, you go,

"One, two, three, four, five.
One, two, three, four, five."

So, the downbeat
that we all kind of beat along to

is happening somewhere
a little bit odd.

And when I did Riverdance,

what I tried to do
was to create attention

by writing a piece which had
six-eight and four-four together

in honour of Irish music.

Because Irish jigs
are divided into threes.

And reels, which are four-four.
One, two, four.

But I mixed the two and went...

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

Ladies and gentlemen,
Riverdance.

Can anybody ever forget
Michael Flatley coming on stage,

strutting his stuff like a peacock?

Absolutely sexualised male body,
but incredible energy.

He's bounding on the stage
and he's not embarrassed.

He might be embarrassing,
but he's not embarrassed.

I think that pride is really
what the innovation was.

That was what people responded to.

Drawing on some of that
American cockiness

and combining it
with his Irish heritage.

That moment in Riverdance
could not have happened

with Irish-born dancers
as the lead dancers.

It had to have happened
with Irish dancers in America

because they had that long history

of other percussive dance forms
like tap dancing.

The Irish have travelled
to other cultures

and there is a cross-fertilisation
between Vaudeville tap,

old-style American tap
and Irish dance.

There is a rhythm relationship
in the music.

When I saw her flying out on stage,

you know, my heart raced and I got
goosebumps and I got chills.

I was so proud.
I was thrilled to death.

And then, of course,
Jean Butler coming in,

sexy, in black and whatever,

and you've got an adult form
of Irish dance.

It was such a revelation
because, as I say,

it had been in some respects
juvenilised and desexualised.

Riverdance essentially put
the sex back into Irish dancing.

It's not only a rupture
from the rules,

but can also be seen as a recapturing

of parts of the tradition
that had been neglected or forgotten.

I can't tell you the thrill for me
dancing with these 30 Irish dancers.

They're the best in the world.

Michael Flatley certainly
didn't come out of nowhere.

He inherited a tradition
that had gone on before him,

and he ended up being
an embodiment of that.

We can trace
the dance lineage

from Muirin to Ned Bad Welsh
to Jeremiah Molyneaux.

He would have taught James McKenna
who taught Pat Roche in New York,

and then Pat Roach would have taught
the Dennehys in Chicago,

who taught Michael Flatley.

So in some ways there's a lineage
going from Michael Flatley

all the way back to Muirin,

the father of dance in North Kerry.

And Jean Butler,

she is also connected
all the way back to Muirin

through her teacher Donny Golden,

whose own teacher, Jerry Mulvihill,
was also taught by James McKenna.

Of course, Riverdance wasn't the
only show taking the world by storm.

Shows like Feet Of Flames
and Lord Of The Dance

also reached audiences of millions.

It's the culmination
of hundreds of years of evolution.

It didn't just drop out of the sky.

All the countless musicians,
singers and dancers

who have gone before them
went into creating those shows.

Since the 1990s, Irish dance
has exploded across the world

in ways that would have been
unfathomable before.

Before then,
Irish dance was just not cool.

Now it is seen
as a cutting-edge dance form.

It came from the streets.
It came from the crossroads.

It came from the kitchens.
It came from the houses.

It's not something
that you can put into a box.

Everybody who does a freestyle dance,

they've put a part of their
own spirit and soul into it.

It's an expression of freedom.

All forms of Irish dance

have seen a huge increase
in popularity.

Step dancing, Sean-nos,

and the many regional styles of
step dancing are all growing strong.

Even crossroad dances
are making a comeback.

At Effrinagh Cross, every year
the community comes together

to continue a tradition
that goes back centuries.

Six or seven years ago,
I organised a crossroads dance

and there was like
300 people showed up.

It was huge and we've just done it
every year since. It's magic.

Patrick Kavanagh said the spark
of creativity strikes on memory

and on understanding your tradition.

And, you know, creativity isn't
moving outside your tradition.

It's bringing it on, literally
taking the next few steps.

And if you look
at the dancing masters,

they did pass on their style
and their ethos that way.

For a living culture,
you've got to keep innovating.

You've got to keep inventing.
You've got to keep moving forward.

It's about the music

and giving the music
a beat and rhythm and a lift.

People are still doing
that part of it.

They're just changing it around
and adding, doubling and tripling,

and doing so many things
with the rhythm

and trying to do
so many triple clicks

and so many... you name it,
these days.

Irish dancing especially

is something that is,
you know, made to be shared.

It's something that was
born out of oppression

and it's such a raw form
of expression.

There are people from so many
different cultural backgrounds

who are able to express themselves
through Irish dancing

and enjoy the fun and the love
and the passion for Irish dancing.

'From ancient roots,
Irish dance has grown

and spread its branches
over continents.'

'Today, Irish dance
belongs to the world.'

Lightnin' Hopkins,
an American blues musician, says,

"God approves of us when we work,
but He smiles on us when we dance."

This dance is a heaven-sent
kind of thing.

I don't think we need to take it
apart to see how it ticks.

I just we just need to love
the fact that it ticks, you know,

and that ticking
sets our feet in motion.