If you listen, her tapping very much adds to the music.
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Thatâs Emma O'Sullivan! Sheâs a famous tap dancer (all-Ireland champion) and you can see her often if you walk the streets of Galway, dancing in the street!
Iâd just like to add (for non Irish people especially) that she isnât actually a tap dancer but a sean nĂłs dancer. Sean nĂłs is a traditional Irish dance (sean nĂłs means âthe old wayâ) but it isnât the same as the mainstream Irish dance which people would be familiar with. In mainstream Irish dance the dancers have carefully choreographed routines that need to be learned and replicated and keep a rigid upright position at all times. They either wear soft shoes which make no sound or hard shoes which make a tap sound which are worn for different types of dances. People can also usually recognise Irish dance pretty easily at a glance due to the extravagant colourful costumes, white âpoodleâ socks, white undershorts and heavy wigs and make up that the dancers wear at competitions.
Sean nĂłs is a totally different type of dance separate to this mainstream âIrish danceâ. 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 âshuffle, shuffle stampâ, the âheel and toeâ and the âslide and shuffleâ 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 nĂłs 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 nĂłs 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 nĂłs 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 nĂłs dancers are able to dance a âbarrel danceâ 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 nĂłs dance is Damhsa na Scuibanna âThe Brush Danceâ where dancers pass a brush between their legs at speed. The still images donât really do it justice so hereâs a clip of three members of the Cunningham family dancers performing it:Â
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX3Z8qG7AKo
Itâs important that people call it by its correct name of sean nĂłs or damhsa ar an sean nĂłs rather than just âtap danceâ as itâs an important part of our cultural heritage and a type of dance that is barely known about outside of Ireland. Sean nĂłs had almost fallen into total obscurity outside of small pockets of rural Ireland until dancers like Emma O Sullivan and the Cunningham family dancers repopularised it in the early 2010s through their acclaimed performances and TV appearances as well as their classes for children to keep the tradition going into the next generation. Sean nĂłs is still threatened with falling back into obscurity, if you search online most of the popular videos and photos of it are from about nine years ago during this revival and itâs still largely a rural, West of Ireland phenomenon which even people from within Ireland donât really know about. Calling it by itâs correct name helps to keep it alive and allows new people to find out about it.
