Irish dance involves specific basic techniques such as turning out the toes, crossing the knees, and staying on the toes as much as possible. To start dancing, you keep your toes turned out, knees crossed over each other, and try to stay high on your toes throughout the dance. A beginner routine can be learned by practicing basic moves like skips, point hop backs, and side sevens in counted sequences, often choreographed in eight-bar sets to match the music rhythm.
Basic Techniques
- Turn your toes out at all times during the dance.
- Keep your knees crossed over each other.
- Dance on the balls of your feet, staying as high on your toes as possible.
These fundamentals provide the posture and foot placement essential for Irish dance.
Beginner Steps to Practice
- Point: Strike the floor with your big toe.
- Skips: Small hopping movements in a circular pattern.
- Point hop backs: Stepping back on hops combined with pointing.
- Side sevens: A traveling step moving sideways.
Practice these moves in sequence to match musical counts (often 8 bars per side) to build a basic routine.
Structure of Irish Dance
Irish dance movements are often done in choreography that uses symmetric sequences on the right and left sides of the body, done in timed counts with music, which helps in learning and performing even complex dances.
By mastering the basic foot positioning and practicing common beginner steps in counted sequences, one can start learning to Irish dance effectively. More advanced steps and dances (hard and soft shoe dances, set dances, céilí dances) build on these foundations. This approach captures the essence of how to Irish dance starting from basics to beginner routines.
