By Sylvia Benavidez
Swirling skirts, lively music, green shamrocks everywhere, and expressive dance performances filled the activity room of the Albion District Library on St. Patrick’s Day. The Irish Dancers from the Jackson School of the Arts began their late afternoon performance at 5 p.m. and for the next hour with each dance took the audience through Irish history. The audience was delighted with traditional jigs and community dances and with the final performance fusing traditional Irish dance with Hip Hop moves.
Dance instructor Angie Dickinson also teaches ballet, ballroom dancing, and contemporary dance. She shared with the audience that these dances mean so much to her personally because of her Irish heritage. “A lot of times, Irish heritage has a lot of things that people think about that is a little bit cartoony and this is a way to connect to Irish heritage in a really real way. Irish people have been dancing these styles for time immemorial. Nobody knows how long they have been dancing these styles, but they are very universal…they bring community.”
Dickinson wants others to experience Irish dancing because of her passion for the immigration message. “The fact that Irish immigrants brought their culture and something so vibrant here and I really love to share the idea that people were coming, and they may bring different traditions than what we’re used to, but it becomes a part of our culture,” she said. “So, we are here celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in America and enjoying the fact that these Irish immigrants brought over some beautiful elements of their heritage that we can all enjoy.”
Between dances she explained each dance style and the story behind it. “We had lots of different styles. We had jigs. We had reels. We had hornpipes. We had ceili dances, which are partner dances done in a community style. There are step dances which are solo dances, which are your jigs, reels and hornpipes and then you have your group dances or hands dances and those are the ceili dances,” she said.
The various forms of Irish dance told stories from the friendly relationships with the Vikings to the tune of the “Walls of Limerick” revealing a story about an Irish medieval city, to moves showing the pain of the potato famine, to the struggles of unrest in Ireland during modern times, to the joy of community.
Dickinson explained the people of Ireland have had their challenges for survival, but they never gave up. Their joy of life and inspiration for courage was expressed through dance despite war and famine. “There are a lot of myths about St. Patrick, and a lot of people don’t know the person of St. Patrick and the things that I think summarizes him the best is courage and that is something that is really ingrained in the Irish people,” she said.
The 20 or so dancers were all ages from grade schoolers to teenagers to adults. Some came from the dance classes Dickinson teaches at Caring Community Church in Albion.
Evie Hattrem, 13, from Albion, participated in the St. Patrick’s Day performance. Her journey to Irish dance started out in acrodance, a fusion of classical dance with precision acrobatic elements, but got interested in Irish dancing through a friend. In addition to liking the history of the dancing style, she said, “I like the music. It’s really peppy and nice. I like how there is a lot of jumping and it’s really fun.”
Riley Schafer, 16, from Jackson, finished the night fusing Hip Hop with Irish dancing. She has been practicing for over a decade and now can create her own performances. Schafer came up with the idea of fusing the dance styles and asked for help from Dickinson. “I started Hip Hop three years ago and realized that they have such stark styles. It would be really fun to combine them. It was a tongue twister for me. It was really hard to practice it and practice it and even make the dance.”
Schafer loves the culture and loves the language, her dream is to someday go to Ireland. She finds the discipline most challenging. “There is a lot of rigid upper body but fluid lower body so it’s a lot of training to keep everything above the waist stiff and controlled and everything below the waist fluid and moving.”
Schafer’s sister Izzy isn’t far behind. “I saw my big sister doing it so I wanted to try it,” said Izzy Schafer and true to the persistence of St. Patrick, she’s stuck with it for three years now and still finds it fun.
