Set dancing is a beloved social dancing tradition in Ireland, with roots hundreds of years old.
If you visit Ireland in the summer and throw a stone, you’ll hit a summer school or festival that teaches and celebrates Irish traditional music alongside set dancing and old-style percussive dancing (sean nós).
Through our Set Dancing Club, co-hosted with the Bluegrass Irish Society, we’re trying to bring a little bit of the Emerald Isle’s social dancing tradition right here to central Kentucky.
join us for Set dancing club
Our Set Dancing Club meet-ups are usually held from 10:00am - 12:00pm on the 4th Saturday of most months at the McTeggart studio. You are welcome to simply drop in, or let us know you’re coming. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, we are offering free virtual Sean Nós and clogging lessons in place of the set dancing club. Information forthcoming about 2021 schedule!
how Set dancing club works
This is how our in-person club works; we’ll get back to this as soon as it is safe!
We let you know which set we’ll dance. A few weeks in advance of Set Dancing Club, we’ll share the set we’re going to dance, with links to dance instructions, videos, instructional tutorials when possible. Sets from previous club meet-ups available below.
You practice! We recommend you acquaint yourself with the set before you come to the Club. If it’s hard to navigate and understand, don’t worry and don’t let that stop you coming to the Club! We get together to work it through and dance together.
Grab your dancin’ shoes and come to the Club. Feel free to just drop in, but if you can, please let us know you’re coming. Suggested donation $5. For dancing, really just wear a shoe that’s comfortable. If you have one that can make a nice sound, that’s a bonus (a shoe like this). Please avoid wearing shoes with metal or fiberglass taps (i.e. no tap shoes nor Irish dance hardshoes).
Help us create a welcoming, inclusive, fun Set Dancing Club community.
We want our Set Dancing Club to be welcoming to beginner dancers, to enthusiasts who want to watch and learn about the dancing, as well as to more experienced dancers who want to encourage newer dancers. At each Club gathering, we’ll have a Club leader who guides the dancers to keep everyone involved and enjoying their experience. When possible, the leader will be a professional dance educator who can also teach and coach participants along the way.
In many traditional and folk dancing spaces, gendered terminology of “gents” and “ladies” is common.
In our Set Dancing Club scene, we are working to create an inclusive space and use gender-neutral language. We use clé, the Irish Gaelic word for “left,” to signify the left spot in each couple, and we use deas, the Irish Gaelic word for “right,” to signify the right spot in a couple.
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FEBRUARY 29 DANCES
On February 29, we will learn/dance the Clare Lancers. There are five figures; videos below. We will also review the Merchant Set and Connemara Set, the selections from August and September 2019. You’ll find those dances if you scroll down further.
Material from Previous Set Dancing Club Meet-Ups
October 2019
Megan Moloney, TMRF (Bluegrass Ceili Academy) will be the Set Dancing Club leader on October 26. Here are examples of dances for Club that day:
September 2019
We have selected two sets for the September 28 Set Dancing Club: the Connemara Set and review of the Merchant Set (last month’s selection). Below, we share videos for basic “three’s” used in set and Irish ceili dancing, as well as some more complex “battering” steps which we will review at each Set Dancing Club meet-up.
Steps
Basic Steps for Set Dancing: See this video we posted on Facebook.
Connemara Set: 4 Figures
AUGUST 2019
For our first Set Dancing Club, we will dance the Merchant Set!