Episode 5 Jigs and Wigs: The Extreme World of Irish Dancing

DANCING MUSIC

This year marks the 20th anniversary

of Riverdance's seminal Eurovision performance,

which thrilled and inspired a worldwide audience.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The dance form has since enjoyed global success,

admired and practised by people of all ages,

backgrounds and ethnicities.

But in one small corner of Ulster,

there is a traditional form of Irish dance

that has been somewhat overlooked.

VIOLIN MUSIC

Having resisted wide-scale changes for 70 years,

festival dancing is now finding it harder than ever

to hold the attention of young dancers,

attracted by the lure of the feis.

The festival community stands at a crossroads.

To survive, must they adopt the wigs, fake tan and glitter

of their more popular cousin?

Or can this Ulster tradition continue to say no?

APPLAUSE

Festival dancing is a tradition, or a genre, of Irish dance

that really only exists in Northern Ireland.

And in particular counties of Northern Ireland,

those east of the Bann.

Irish dance, whether we agree with it or not,

is looked upon as a Catholic pastime.

And festival dance has always been the form of Irish dancing

that Protestants felt happy and comfortable with,

in taking part in.

I myself, like many, many other people,

were taught in Protestant halls throughout Northern Ireland.

In fact, up to about 20 years ago, the British national anthem

used to be played at the end of quite a lot of our festivals.

And it goes back in many regards to how festival dancing came about.

Irish dancing was once governed by a single body,

set up by the Gaelic League in 1927 to promote the dance form.

An Coimisiun, and later its myriad offshoots,

became the holders of the feis tradition,

which today enjoys worldwide renown

for its high levels of technical ability and athleticism.

The festival tradition, however, has historically stood apart.

Somewhere around the late '40s, early '50s,

several teachers broke away from the main body that governed

Irish dance at that time,

one of whom was my teacher, Patricia Mulholland.

She was classically trained as a violinist,

but decided early on in her life to teach dancing,

and oh, what a teacher she was.

She taught me that it was important

to perform above and beyond simply dancing steps.

So, to move your audience, to connect with them.

The concept that Patricia Mulholland taught,

who was one of the mothers of festival dance, if you like,

was all around the set dance,

the drama that there was within the set dance.

There's got to be the little moments where you pause for breath,

the little moments where you can make people's hair stand on end.

Therein, I suppose, lies the art, touching people.

It's spectacular and it tugs at the heart strings,

and it should be seen by more people.

It needs to be seen by more people.

While fervour among its supporters is strong,

festival dancing is often perceived as living under the shadow

of the more well-known styles of feis dancing.

Despite this, the community have so far refused

to conform to modern dancing stereotypes,

favouring a more pared-back style in both dance and appearance.

I wouldn't want to see anyone wearing a wig at a festival,

because that's not acceptable within the festival tradition right now.

Younger dancers do not wear tan or make-up.

I don't think that if that were to come in,

that that would be progress.

I strongly believe that that would be a backward step for something

that has a very clear identity in its own right.

Compromise is not something that we here like to do very often,

and it's probably a national trait.

But there are times in life, I think,

when compromise is the wrong thing to do.

While a strong element within the festival tradition

refused to compromise, there is a growing trend

in some festival schools to compete in feis competitions.

These open platforms invite Irish dancers from all organisations

to compete against each other in events like

the CRDM Leinster Championships.

Well, we started our organisation 11 years ago.

We wanted to promote and preserve Irish dancing,

so that's why we kept it and wanted it open platform,

so that you had all aspects of Irish dancing,

all styles of Irish dancing, coming in.

When we got the festival dancers in,

we welcomed the traditional aspect that they were bringing.

They have something to offer. They had beautiful dancers.

Just, they weren't doing what we were doing. But they still won.

They started with much more basic and slower style as dancers,

with very little make-up, and no wigs on them,

and maybe some had the pumps that they wear in the festival dancing.

As time came on, within about a year or two, they all changed.

They all came wearing the wigs, they have the fancy costumes,

and they have everything that the Irish dancers,

competitive dancers, would have.

You don't have to wear wigs in our organisation.

It's your own choice.

However, children are looking for these costumes

because it's been shown on TV.

It's been shown everywhere round where they live,

and when people start wearing the solo dresses,

everybody wants to be that person.

For dancers from the Seven Towers School of Irish Dancing

in Ballymena, who have been producing

festival champions for 70 years,

Feis competition is now a reality.

And it seems to be a hit.

I like feis better,

because you get to meet new friends,

and do different dances,

and you can change what style you want to be.

There is, like, the big earrings.

If you wear a bun wig, and the make-up, and the eyelashes,

but the festival, that's just like...

Bland, and stuff. No eyelashes.

I love the sparkly eye shadow,

the glitter spray, the diamonds.

Diamond socks. It's really fun.

Everybody just likes to have a bit of sparkle, to stand out.

It's just the way it is down here.

Whenever I have fake tan, make-up on, it just makes me feel,

like, pretty and special and stuff.

It's just really fun.

-It's just like being an actress, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-Would you like to wear this all the time?

-Yes.

-And who doesn't allow you?

-You.

What's that? Pot, kettle, black?

It's completely different from festival,

because all you really have to do is straighten your hair

and put a bit of natural make-up on, and that's it.

Festivals, I could have Ellie's hair

washed and straightened the night before.

You get up, you have something to eat,

you go to the festival, you put your dress on, you put your socks on, and that it.

This can run into an hour, an hour and a half prep.

-Even more, sometimes. It all depends.

-I don't like this bit.

-Ow!

-Just as long as it stays in, it doesn't fall out.

-Yeah.

That's the worst thing that could happen.

You do not want your wig to fall off. It has happened to people.

I'm not a trained hairdresser, just was coming over the years,

doing the girls' wigs, you just get used,

and you just learn how to put the wigs in yourself.

Because their mammies don't do it, sure they don't, Edwina?

I just stay away from wigs. I don't feel confident,

and sometimes Ellie and I have a few disagreements over what way it should be.

Do I need it tighter or is it bobbing about?

My feis dress is white and pink

and it has lots and lots of diamonds on it.

The dress and the wigs and the fake tan, it makes it more fun

because the festival dresses are nice,

but I sort of prefer the feis dresses because it's original.

Ellie has just took on a character.

When she steps into her feis dress with her tan, her make-up,

she is a completely different child. She smiles the whole time.

In festivals she has this wee glum face.

So, personally, I feel it has actually been really good for Ellie

to portray a character that she wanted to be

that she can't be in festival.

While cross-platform competition

is clearly popular among young festival dancers,

it also leads inevitably to them

being influenced by styles

outside their own tradition.

When you go to different feis, you would see new tricks,

and then we would go back to practice

and try and incorporate them into our own steps.

It's fair enough to say I think that we have seen a bleed in to festival

from other styles. I don't view that as progress.

I view that as festival dancers morphing into something completely different,

rather than bringing the purity of our art form

to other audiences in its existing form.

Absolutely go down there and dance our tradition.

But don't try and...

..you know, fit in with everyone else.

Yeah, they should go in there and dance as festival dancers,

but first of all, the tempos are different.

If they want to do a slip jig, they have to do fast slip jigs

even though in the festival tradition it's slow slip jigs.

so that's a change that they're required to make,

and then they'll just sit back and they'll watch who's winning,

and the vast majority of the adjudicators are going to

relate a lot more to the Commission tradition

and therefore that might be the stuff that wins.

And then if you are a festival dancer you're going to think,

"I'm not going to waste my time doing this competition unless I'm in with a chance."

So they start to evolve and they say,

"This is what works, this is what wins, I'm going to start doing that."

And they're going to eventually adjust their style.

So, yeah, it could happen that it won't have a unique identity any more,

it'll be very much the same.

They're quite clear on our identity.

And we are very respectful of others' identity within that,

but we just won't morph or change in terms of, perhaps, competing in other platforms.

Festival, they are trying to hold on to their heritage,

the tradition of the Irish dancer.

But they have to move forward when they come into feiseanna.

So that's where I think it's not that the feiseanna

want to take away their heritage and the way they dance,

it's just that's what happens.

Migration from festival towards feis dancing

has had one undeniable result.

There is now a distinct lack of male festival dancers.

Ruth Long comes from a family with 47 years' experience

in teaching festival dance.

But when it came to her own son, she saw no place for him within her tradition.

At that time, the festival style, I felt, was changing.

I did at that young age look at the way things were going

and how many boys were there, and wonder in a few years' time

what Curtis would be dancing,

and that was not the style I wanted for my son to be dancing,

so I then decided I would send him

to a Commission dancing school.

That's better! Put it right out.

Ruth sent Curtis to the Doherty School in West Belfast

where dance teacher Gavin Doherty, also the top name in dress design,

has experience in training festival dancers in An Coimisiun style.

One of them even has high hopes of winning the top spot in this year's World Championships.

Daithi just won the All Ireland, so it's looking good for him

if he can just keep his head and not do anything silly on the day.

He had went as far as he was going to go in Festival, and when he

come across he had the ballet pumps and it was pretty effeminate.

You know, he danced more like a girl than a boy,

but that was, you know,

that was just the way he was taught, that was the style of dancing.

So, even still, I would be working bits with Daithi

and he would be doing everything up on his toes

when we're trying to get a bit more strength into him

and make it look sharper and stronger and a bit more manly.

He still would be a manly dancer, but it's just...

Still sometimes that festival thing comes out

and we're still trying to just get him, you know, just fired up.

Daithi! Strong!

You know, the reason why Ruth got Curtis to move at such a young age

was because she thought there was no future for her son in festival.

It's an amazing form of Irish dancing, it's brilliant,

it's so elegant, it's so graceful.

But for boys it's really...

It's difficult for a boy who has grown-up

and wants to dance like a boy but can't be taught like a boy.

Curtis, is that as far as you're supposed to go?

If I had continued to dance festival,

there would probably be about three or four boys

compared to what I dance against now.

Now I'm under 16 and there's at least 50 to 60 boys,

and I find it a lot more challenging now

because the boys would have more

technical stuff than girls sometimes.

Boys in Commission are very, very strong from an early age.

Curtis went into the Championship level

when he moved over at seven to eight,

and the level at that stage when I moved him over,

I sort of thought, "Oh, my goodness, he's never going to change over here," you know?

But he was quite successful early on.

But he had to keep working. Like, you're talking four, four, five,

sometimes six classes a week, you know, to keep up at that level.

That will be one of the big things if we ever have kids

coming from festival is the level of fitness wouldn't be quite the same.

Commission dancers probably would be a lot fitter, a lot more athletic.

They're dancing three or four times a week.

You know, when they don't have class they're out running with me.

We're putting them through their paces.

They're training as hard if not harder than any Olympic athlete.

Ten seconds left.

I would love to go to the shows and tour while I'm young,

you know, cos there's a lot more in it, if you know what I mean.

The boys in festival,

there wouldn't be just as much

opportunity for them.

You do what you think is the best

for your child and what you think

your child would be happy at.

And as I say, at this stage, yes,

I have made the right decision to move my son.

Despite some movement away from festival,

the tradition is beginning to make a mark on the wider world stage.

The opening ceremony for the 2013 World Police and Fire Games in Belfast

successfully showcased a troupe of 75 dancers, some boys among them,

led by current Riverdance lead, Lauren Smyth.

A lot of people might be surprised, me being a festival dancer

and being the lead in Riverdance, but I think I was eight years old

when I first seen Riverdance on the Eurovision,

and, you know, from then, that was me hooked.

I always wanted to be in an Irish dance show.

Even when I was in school,

if teachers asked me what I wanted to do, I would say,

"I want to be in an Irish dance show, I want to be in Riverdance.

"I want to be up there in the big shows." They'd say, "Now, you need a

"real job, you need to be realistic."

I always thought to myself, "No, that's what I'm going to do."

I think that I think that Lauren Smyth is a complete trailblazer.

There's no doubt about that.

When she performed, you would have been hit,

really, in a very high impact way as an audience member or

an adjudicator by her sheer stage presence.

She radiated out to the audience everything about the dance -

the music, the performance.

I won the Northern Ireland Championships nine times

and the Ulster Championships five times.

For me, because festival dance is my passion, it's what I love, what

I have loved since I started Irish dancing, I was satisfied with that.

I didn't strive to go to any other competitions, because, for me,

the Ulsters and Northern Irelands were the highest I could get,

but I felt I wanted something more than competition.

I did want to make it my career.

But at that time, a career in the shows was not considered

a serious option for young festival dancers.

For me, personally, when I was a senior dancer

and had achieved what I had wanted to achieve,

I didn't do it because, simply put,

no festival dancer had ever knocked on the door and been accepted.

I thought, "Well, I don't want to be known as the girl who got

"rejected from Riverdance," because she was a festival dancer,

or possibly because she wasn't good enough,

but maybe because she was a festival dancer.

Lauren was not to be put off, however, and she is now

the first festival dancer to have a principal role in Riverdance.

Tonight, the troupe will perform for her home

crowd in Belfast's Odyssey Arena.

A lot has changed, but I think that Lauren has been

instrumental in pushing herself forward.

I think she had to knock the door a couple of times to convince.

I auditioned for Riverdance in 2006.

I think, really, I didn't understand the level

that was needed to be in Riverdance.

I really had to turn my feet out more.

I had to really work hard at my heavy dancing.

So I unfortunately didn't get in.

Then, a few years later, I sent off another audition tape

and just said, you know, I understand now what the level

is that's required and I'd really appreciate it if you watched it.

So they watched it and then, luckily enough,

I was invited for an audition.

Here I am.

I was in the original line-up of Riverdance at the Eurovision.

It was a one-off, you know, five-minute interval piece,

but by '95 they had created the entire show.

About a year after that, I was made principal dancer.

I did that job for about seven years.

Just about a year before I finished up,

it was 2002, here in the Odyssey.

Here we are, myself. Well, I could be anybody.

That's Joanne and the rest of the company.

But in 2007, they asked me back as dance director.

One of the jobs you do is audition the cast. I auditioned Lauren Smyth.

It was pointed out to me that this person wanted to be seen

a second time, and that doesn't happen very often in Riverdance.

But what I saw was great posture, a great sense of command,

that sense of self on the stage.

She ticked a lot of the boxes.

Then, very soon afterwards, it was across the hierarchy that they

thought that this girl was right for lead.

In true festival style,

Lauren refused to adapt simply to fit in with the crowd.

Even in the principle role, she continued to celebrate her

identity as a Northern Irish festival dancer.

Belfast!

My family, you know, we come from a festival background.

I would not change it for the world, you know.

It's really added to me as a performer and taught me

how to interpret the music, how to tell a story when I dance,

how to feel the music when I dance and express it.

I think that does come across when I'm performing here with Riverdance.

'Lauren has stayed with festival.

'She has the support of the organisation

'and that's going to be obvious tonight, cos I hear a lot of them

'are going to be here to support her.'

-How does it feel, how are you feeling?

-Eh, I'm feeling good.

I'm excited, like. A wee bit nervous.

Loads of people in tonight, that'll get me through it.

A lot of pressure when there's so many people...

I know, but you know when you know they're all here to support you?

-Absolutely.

-It'll be a special night.

Who is in? Is it like dancing class?

I have a bunch of festival dancers from all over the place.

My dancing teacher, parents, granny and grandda, brothers and sisters.

Anyone and everyone. School teachers from school.

-The support has just been... cannot wait.

-Just, you know what? Enjoy.

I know, I want to make the most of it.

-It's going to go so fast.

-I know.

-God knows when we'll be back here again.

-Mindfulness.

-Stay in the moment, because it'll be over before you know it.

-I know.

Listen, I'll let you get ready.

-I'm sure you'll want some headspace as well.

-Do a good warm-up.

Lauren now leads a 40-strong troupe,

who represent a variety of dancing backgrounds.

I'm Brendan Dorris and I'm the male principal tonight

here in Belfast for Riverdance.

I came from a Commission background.

An Comhdhail background, originally, and then Commission.

I was always aware of festival, but Lauren's actually...

Herself and another guy have only actually come across them

two in my professional career.

Everybody brings different things from their backgrounds to the

show and the performance.

I think that's one of Lauren's greatest strengths -

her experience in festival and being the star that she is.

Coming here was just a natural progression for her.

Programmes, CDs, DVDs.

As the crowds begin to stream into the Odyssey, Lauren's friends

and family are among them.

Well aware of what Lauren has achieved for both herself

and festival dancing.

Tonight is obviously a massive night for us,

because our big sister's doing lead in the Odyssey.

A lot of people put her down, but she's achieved it.

It's a very emotional night for us all to see her on such a big stage.

The support is massive.

We've got so many family and friends here, it's unbelievable.

Just even bumping into them here and now.

I think now the nerves have almost passed a wee bit.

I'm just a wee bit... can't wait to get out there.

I'm really looking forward to it. It should be a brilliant show.

The atmosphere seems to be great already.

The troupe here are so supportive.

Everyone's delighted to be here, so there should be a good

buzz on stage as well, so fingers crossed it goes great.

IRISH MUSIC PLAYS

CHEERING

Festival dance - it encourages you to make a story out of your performance.

You can kind of get into character,

so I think it reflects really well in Riverdance,

because when you're in that lead role,

you have to get across the story of the show to the audience.

You have to be graceful.

You have to be a powerful woman at the same time as well,

so I think my festival background has really stuck well with me.

It's just so special.

It means so much for me to come here to Belfast tonight

and perform to a home crowd.

Especially, there's a bunch of festival dancers in,

seated all around the audience. The atmosphere's amazing.

I hope younger dancers can look up to this and believe in themselves

and follow their dreams and believe that it can happen.

Yes, you might get a knock here or there, but you can't give up.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

20 years of Riverdance and 20 years it's taken to get a festival

dancer as a lead dancer in Riverdance.

We're all very emotional tonight.

We're celebrating the fact that this fabulous

dancer from within our ranks has broken through, finally,

and is not only dancing a lead but is really shining up there

and expressing herself in the way she was taught.

I haven't stopped crying hysterically for half an hour.

I'm so proud of who she is, what she stands for.

I think, above all, she most certainly is the poster girl,

if you want to use that term, for festival dancing

because her training in elegance, sophistication

and style shone through tonight more than anything

I could have ever hoped or dreamed for.

She was fabulous with a capital F.

CHEERING

THEY CHANT: Lauren! Lauren! Lauren!

CHEERING

The reason why I don't think that it's anywhere too late for

festival dancing is because everyone that I have encountered loves it.

Even Feis people who have not encountered festival

dancing before love it.

They love the naturalness of it.

Whether or not festival dancing can resist

the pull of the Feis remains to be seen.

Ultimately, the fate of the tradition now lies with a new

generation of dancers.