Holly

Dad kept hiding pine nuts in the pages of this magazine and letting Edgar root around for them.

Sean nós is a totally different type of dance separate to this mainstream “Irish dance”. It is a much more loose and free type of dance where the dancers always wear hard shoes since the sound of the feet is very important. There are a few basic moves (the “shuffle, shuffle stamp”, the “heel and toe” and the “slide and shuffle” being the basic foundation steps) but once you have the basics you can combine steps, free style and even make your own steps. You can move your hands and arms to the music unlike in mainstream Irish dance too. Sean nós is often seen as the sexier Irish dance as the dancers are allowed much greater hip and general body movement and can laugh and interact with the audience as they move. There are no particular costume rules for sean nós competitons. Unlike Irish dance, people can really wear whatever but the norm is comfortable and simple dresses or skirts or trouser/top combinations made up from whatever the dancer chooses from their own wardrobes, a huge contrast to the heavy Irish dance costumes and the expense and pageantry associated with them. Part of the appeal of sean nós is that it has not been commercialised and commodified to the degree that Irish dance has and has a much more casual and fun feel to it in contrast to the strict routines and costume norms of Irish dance.

The most skilled sean nós dancers are able to dance a “barrel dance” where they dance at high speed on top of a barrel without knocking it over. It usually takes years to get to this level of skill so people normally start on the ground and then work their way up from a quarter barrel to a half barrel until they can dance on the top of a full one. This is Emma again doing a barrel dance on a half barrel:

Another sean nós dance is Damhsa na Scuibanna “The Brush Dance” where dancers pass a brush between their legs at speed. The still images don’t really do it justice so here’s a clip of three members of the Cunningham family dancers performing it: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX3Z8qG7AKo