BACK to the Business of Dance!

As the stay at home order eases in many parts of the world, we are seeing competitions restart and dance schools re-opening while diligently adhering to recommended safety restrictions and guidelines. It's a new dance world, yet the return to dance is thrilling. Dancers could not be more excited to be BACK TO THE BUSINESS OF DANCE!

Competitions are Baacckkkk!!

Last weekend life took another step towards the pre-pandemic norm with several schools hosting full feiseanna. With full Covid-19 precautions in place, these competitions allowed dancers to once again publicly demonstrate the skills & steps that they have been working so hard to perfect.

Dance Shoe History

The History behind Modern Irish Dance Shoes

..with Julian Wild, founder of Corr's Irish Shoes

Modern Irish Dance shoes have come a long way from their origins. One manufacturer stands out for integrating pioneering modern shoe technology in traditional Irish Dance shoes. And if you own a split sole hard shoe, or a split sole soft shoe, or love the foam padding in any of your Irish Dance shoes, or the heel guard, or the inside angle of the toe chip on your hard shoes, you have Julian Wild of Corr’s Irish Dance to thank.

Irish Dance has a long and storied history, dating back millennia. But dedicated Irish Dance footwear is a much more recent development.

According to Melissa Russell, who operates the online Irish culture resource The Emerald Isle, “step dancers in the 18th and 19th centuries wore their Sunday best. Dancers would simply wear the outfit that they normally wore to church and dance bare foot.” And, for dances that necessitated hard shoes, “metal panels and even nails would have been attached to the sole of the dancers own shoes to allow them to make the ‘bangs’ and ‘taps’ required.”

By the mid-20th century, companies began making specialized versions of these shoes that consisted of more-or-less standard leather oxford shoes modified with thick layered leather heels and added toe tips set with specialized tingle nails to produce the sound.

Dance Dad DIY Project!

Build an At Home Dance Floor

One Step at a Time

Proud dance dad, Robert McAvoy, recently built his daughter, Addi, of the Blackbird Academy of Irish Dance in America, an at home practice floor. The project turned out amazing and is a true mini dance studio for Addi. This is a perfect DIY summer family project!

McAvoy says, “I would like to start with giving props to the website ‘What The Feis.’ I Googled ‘build an Irish Dance floor’, and although there were many ideas, the one I found on his site was, to me, the least complicated and most affordable.”

Using the instructions as a guide for his project, McAvoy then developed his own process to build a larger floor.

There is no better time than summer to take on a fun DIY project, so let's get started!

What you will need:

McAvoy recommends coming up with a plan of attack, as he did, before building. “Cut everything you need to cut outside, but then bring it to the location and put it together there. Colors work for me, so I coded the pieces of wood so I knew what I would need. I am not a professional carpenter, so I need all the help that I can get,” says McAvoy.