I am happy to share that my essay, “Irish Dance on Repeat: Archiving the Dance and Dancing the Archive,” was just published. The essay was commissioned by Our Steps, Our Story: An Irish Dance Legacy Archive, created and produced by Jean Butler in partnership with the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library. Our Steps is a project that I have been watching for a number of years and I am thrilled to contribute my story to their dialogue series. It was also wonderful to be in conversation about Irish dance with Jean Butler, whom I have long admired and looked up to.
Again. And again. One more time. And…again. I always agonized over this never-ending refrain from my teachers, who called it out as we drilled a tricky rhythm bit or tried to get that perfect foot placement, sweaty, our calves aching. My classmates and I would sigh and roll our eyes, but I secretly loved the repetition—the pursuit of getting something just right, in the pocket, locked in. This is what has always kept me coming back to Irish dancing: the quest to lock in to these repetitive sequences that are passed down from teacher to student and to feel grounded by the ongoing effort to perfect these rhythms.
Read the full article on the Our Steps website:
https://www.our-steps.com/dialogue/irish-dance-on-repeat-archiving-the-dance-and-dancing-the-archive.