Soft Shoes

Soft Shoes

The Many Various Steps in Irish Dancing

Executive Summary about Soft Shoes by Brendan Hiqqins

Just like other dances from around the world, Irish dances are opportunities to socialize and to perform for family and friends as well as admirers.

Lest you go into thinking that Irish dancing is just the step dancing of the highly popular Riverdance and Lord of the Dance performance, think again. Irish dances are as varied, as colorful and as engaging as Irish culture itself.

Social Irish Dances

The first category of Irish dances is the social dances, which are further classified into set dancing and céilí dancing.

Both are performed as part of daily life although these dances can also be enjoyed on stage, thanks to changes in perception of the differences of venue between social and performance dances.

Set dances are performed by four couples in quadrille fashion. You can choose from more than 70 set dances in the Irish dance repertoire, all of which share basic dance steps and terms although with significant variations once the music starts playing.

Just to name a few of the céilí dances, there are the popular The Waves of Tory, The Walls of Limerick, and the Bonfire Dance.

Performance Dances

As previously mentioned, performance Irish dancing was made popular by theRiverdance and the Lord of the Dance shows.

Stepdancing is performed using either soft shoes or hard shoes.

The costumes hark back to the old times of Irish dances although modern variations are being introduced.
Irish dancing is for everybody.

Check out my other guide on Shoes Ecco.