Competitive Irish Dance:
Art, Sport, Duty
“Competitive Irish Dance: Art, Sport, Duty” is an absorbing book. It brings together the disciplines of anthropology and dance to provide a fascinating interpretation of competitive Irish step dance. It is a valuable resource for dancers, anthropologists, and others, and Frank Hall and Macater Press are to be congratulated on its publication.”
—Dr. Catherine Foley, The Irish World Academy of
Music and Dance, University of Limerick, Ireland
Click here to read a review of Competitive Irish Dance from the New Hibernia Review 13.4 (2009)
What happens when you put an expressive form in a competitive frame? This question motivates Frank Hall’s study of competitive Irish stepdancing. He examines this dance tradition — from the organization of competitions to the movement of the dancers’ bodies — in relation to themes of authority, authenticity, and control.
Irish stepdancing, known for many decades primarily in ethnic enclaves, expanded tremendously as Riverdance and other shows took this dance form to new performance contexts on the world stage. In describing and analysing the history and development of competitive stepdancing in Ireland, the United States, and beyond, Hall reveals the issues, forces, and values that entwine all participants, including competition organizers, judges, dancers, parents, and teachers. Investigating the process of teaching and learning the movement and analysing its stage performance, he elucidates the syntactic and semantic dimensions of Irish dancing as a body language.
Frank Hall holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Indiana University. He is an Irish musician living in Co. Galway, Ireland where he is active in community service with The Kinvara Area Music Collective (KAM). He has taught at Indiana University and the University of Limerick, and his writings on Irish dance have appeared in Dance Research Journal, Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement, New Hibernia Review, and Visual Anthropology.
November 2008
166 pp. 6x9
27 illustrations
ISBN 978-0-9814924-2-1 Paper $24.95
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