Irish Dance: History, Form, and Freedom – Notes from Jean Butler (Dance Index, Spring 2025)

Dance Index Context

The Dance Index journal was founded by Lincoln Kirstein in 1942. Over the next six years, 56 issues were published, offering original scholarship on a wide range of dance subjects.
In 2017, the Dance Index relaunched to explore the multi-dimensional richness of the world of dance and to surprise and educate a general audience about the importance of dance.
The publication emphasizes accessibility, historical depth, and critical engagement with dance as both art and cultural practice.

The Essay in Focus: Irish Dance – History, Form, and Freedom (Jean Butler)

The essay in this Dance Index issue centers on Butler’s career arc from a celebrated Irish-dance star to a contemporary-dance maker, scholar, and archivist.
Butler frames Irish dance as resistance and traces how she renegotiates tradition to express herself in a contemporary context.
Central throughline: using history and archival work to ground new work, while challenging conventional representations of Irish dance (especially Riverdance-era imagery).
Butler’s collaboration with Neil Martin (cellist/composer) in this is an Irish dance (2015 Danspace Project) spotlighted the move from strictly music-led, time-fixed dance to improvised, mutually responsive making with live musicians.
The piece used stark imagery (mounds of white shards) to evoke a ruined, prophetic material world, signaling a shift from polished spectacle toward applied historical inquiry and aesthetic risk.
Critics’ reception highlighted the tension between Butler’s past as a Riverdance star and her contemporary practice—some welcomed the transformation, others questioned the departure from expected Irish-dance forms.
Butler’s broader project includes the Our Steps/What We Hold lineage, archival practices, and a project to democratize access to Irish dance history across generations.
The essay blends personal memory, critical reflection, and historical overview to argue that Irish dance continues to evolve through conversation with its past.

The Beginning

Butler’s first Irish dance class took place in a long, dark hall with two red-haired teachers emphasizing posture: “This is the most important thing in Irish dance: your posture.”
A rigorous, ritualized entry: students stood in line, were observed, and often told to sit; the class ended with most students unable to stay upright, leading to a vow never to return—a vow later broken.
A renewed first experience occurred in a brighter space with music and movement; Donny Golden became Butler’s teacher and mentor for the next 25 years.
The early memory anchors Butler’s lifelong relationship to Irish dance as both personal identity and artistic discipline.
Definition moment: Irish dance is recognizable by vertical posture, rhythmic footwork, and aerial patterns in soft shoes, with CLRG (An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha) as a key governing body.

What Is Irish Dance?

Distinctive features include verticality, posture, precise hard-shoe footwork, and dynamic soft-shoe spatial patterns.
An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG) is the dominant organization; others exist (Molyneaux, sean-nós, festival dancing, An Chomhdháil, céilí/set dancing), but CLRG is the oldest and most visible.
CLRG facts (as described):
- Over 1950 registered teachers and 538 adjudicators participate globally.
- Competition structure emphasizes solo dancing, with group forms (céilí, set-dancing) present but not the main focus.
Dances and time signatures (in soft and hard shoes):
- Reels and hornpipes: 4/4
- Jigs and double jigs: 6/8
- Slip jig (soft-shoe for women): 9/8
Technical and stylistic hallmarks:
- Feet turned out; legs crossed; hips kept straight; knees straight (no plié); strict adherence to musical timing; natural rolling rhythm; emphasis on precise execution and tempo alignment with the music.
Historical context: Irish dance occupies a peripheral place in the wider dance ecosystem; it has shifted in visibility across decades but remains deeply rooted in competitive and tradition-based frameworks.

History of An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG)

Origins tied to the Gaelic League (founded in 1893) during the Celtic Revival, aimed at preserving Irish culture (language, sports, music, dance) under British rule.
Gaelic League’s mission: anglicize Ireland through cultural activities to project an authentic Irishness against stereotypes.
Dance governance evolved in the early 20th century, with formal codification occurring after the establishment of the Irish Free State (the national government) in 1922 and the formal creation of An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha in 1927.
Goals of An Coimisiún: regulate competitive dancing, teachers, adjudicators, and define what Irish dancing is and how it should be performed.
National symbolism: Irish dance became a symbol of embodied nationalism, with the distinctive vertical posture used as a sign of elegance, decorum, and control (a contrast to colonial stereotypes of Irish remoteness or unruliness).
Feis culture: local competitions (feisanna) became widespread; first recorded feis took place in Macroom, County Cork, in 1898.
Lineage and mobility: historically, dancers trained within lineages; moving schools could incur penalties (e.g., six-month competition ban in some eras), reinforcing regional styles and teacher loyalty.
Regional styles in Ireland were identifiable (Northern vs Dublin styles, etc.), and audience recognition of origins was common on stage.
Transition to a global circuit: by the late 20th century, a more homogenized and gender-neutral form emerged in the competitive field, influenced by global participation (the Majors circuit).
World Championship (beginnings in 1970) opened competition to dancers from outside Ireland and the UK and catalyzed cross-border and international participation; those from outside Ireland (overseas dancers) were initially seen as guests or outsiders.

My First Feis (Anecdotal Ethos)

Butler recounts her first feis at Gaelic Park in the Bronx, in 1978, a venue with a raised wooden platform and a makeshift, improvised staging known for its crowds and energy.
Experience details: a crowded, sun-drenched day; a long queue entering the hall; a heat-hazed, uncomfortable stage; and the thrill of competition—the moment when the scoreboard reveals that someone else won, followed by third place.
The emotional memory of achieving Third Place, the excitement, the tumble, and the resilience that followed are presented as foundational experiences in shaping her competitive mindset and sense of possibility.
The lineage and pride of Irish-dance schools were strong at the time; the performance environment was a mix of sport, culture, and personal identity.

Lineage, Style, and Competition (An Oral-Culture Snapshot)

Dancers in earlier eras followed teacher lines; loyalty to schools and communities was central; changing schools carried social and competitive penalties.
Regional stylistic differences persisted: Northern style was described as more “up” and energetic, Dublin style more grounded with intricate footwork; American and Australian dancers brought varying influences.
The World Championship era (beginning in the 1970s) shifted the balance of power: overseas dancers gained visibility, but the Irish/British dancers often retained a perceived edge rooted in provenance.
Our Steps oral histories (e.g., Vivienne Pentony Bergin; Donny Golden) document the regional distinctions and the way judges’ preferences could reflect geographic bias in scoring.
The Majors circuit today fosters more frequent travel and exchange, leading to more homogenized styles across schools, with a trend toward gender-neutral presentation.
The top-down value structure persists: champions from Ireland and Britain historically set the standards for style and technique; overseas dancers faced an evolving landscape as international training and exposure increased.
Key quotes and voices capture tensions around national ownership of the form and the ongoing negotiation between tradition and innovation.

The World Championship and Overseas Presence (1970s–1990s)

The 1970 World Championship became a pivotal moment by inviting overseas dancers to contend alongside Irish and British dancers, signaling a global turn.
Overseas dancers (Americans, Canadians, Australians) initially lagged behind in style and speed but began to close the gap with training and exposure.
Notable overseas dancers who challenged the status quo included Donny Golden (USA), Colleen Griffith (USA), Stephen Gallagher (USA), Michael Flatley (USA), and Ruth Garrett (Canada).
Anecdotes from oral histories describe American dancers’ perception of Irish dancers as more technically proficient but less polished in competitive contexts, highlighting early contrasts between “American” and “Irish” dancing styles.
A sense of national pride persisted: many believed Irish dancers would set the standard on the world stage, while overseas dancers worked to prove their own authority within the form.
The overseas presence eventually contributed to a broader, more international standard, complicating questions of national authorship and authenticity.

Another Beginning: Riverdance, Eurovision, and Self-Definition (Mid-1990s)

November 1994 marked a turning point: Riverdance debuted as part of the Eurovision Song Contest, creating a global spotlight on Irish dance.
Butler recounts performing in London at the Royal Variety Show and meeting other legends (e.g., Darcey Bussell), confronting imposter syndrome, and realizing that Riverdance could be a catalyst for a broader artistic life beyond traditional Irish dance.
Riverdance catalyzed a “gift” era, giving Butler a platform to push herself to dance more and to think of Irish dance as a living art form rather than a fixed identity.
The experience also exposed the tension between commercial spectacle and artistic ambition, and the ongoing negotiation of ethics, economics, and artistic risk within the field.

Risk Management: Dancing on Dangerous Ground (1999–2000)

Butler and Colin Dunne co-created Dancing on Dangerous Ground as a deliberate critique and expansion of traditional Irish-dance storytelling, aiming to move beyond Riverdance-like spectacle toward narrative clarity and emotional resonance.
They developed a unique movement language that stretched the technique: de-emphasizing uniformity, embracing individual bodies, and using unconventional company formations (diagonals, crowding, and postural decentering).
Key choreographic choices included opening with a non-traditional sequence: not introducing the stars in the first number, but having the company meet the main characters (e.g., Diarmuid and Gráinne) through staged drama and actor-led narrative elements.
Set and production design: Tim Hatley’s balcony set expanded the playing space and overlapped scenes to create continuity rather than discrete, applause-driven numbers.
Financial and logistical challenges: the show started with a limited budget, a lean cast, and a demanding rehearsal schedule; producers pulled out, casting changes occurred, and the project faced significant risk.
Reception: the show opened prematurely in the West End (Theatre Royal Drury Lane, 1999) and received mixed to negative press in London (e.g., The Guardian’s critique), but it later gained acclaim in New York (Radio City Music Hall, March 2000) with seven sold-out performances.
Critical reflections: New York Times critic Anna Kisselgoff acknowledged that the show channeled Irish step dancing into genuine artistic expression, distinguishing it from Riverdance, despite initial external scepticism.
Legacy: although financially exhausting and logistically tumultuous, Dancing on Dangerous Ground is celebrated in hindsight as ahead of its time and a crucial step in Butler’s development toward a more expansive, individual artistic voice.

Still Here: Stillness, Publicness, and the Archive (Post-Dangerous Ground)

The encounter with Trisha Brown’s Water Motor (via Babette Mangolte’s film) became a touchstone for Butler: a model of technique, clarity, rhythm, and human expressiveness that resonated with Butler’s own sense of movement and freedom.
Butler launched Our Steps, Our Story: An Irish Dance Legacy Archive (not-for-profit) to document and share Irish dance histories outside mainstream competitive narratives.
Our Steps collaborated with the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library, reflecting a commitment to accessibility, public scholarship, and intergenerational exchange.
2018 marked the formal start of Our Steps, building a national and international archive spanning seven decades and incorporating interviews, stage footage, music, and documents.
What We Hold (premiered October 2022 at Dublin Theatre Festival; North American premiere February 2024 at the Irish Arts Center) gathered age-diverse traditional dancers (ages 13–70) to perform and to speak, combining archival material with live performance.
Ryan Seaton’s score (sound design) included selections from Our Steps’ oral histories, revealing a layered sonic landscape that ties living dancers to their past voices.
The project emphasized the liveliness and “live-ness” of Irish dance—focusing on human presence and the social life of movement rather than merely its virtuosity.
Butler’s audience engagement during matinees and residencies showed ongoing hunger to understand what Irish dance means across generations and how past voices can illuminate present practice.
The What We Hold ethos aims to democratize Irish dance history by allowing older dancers to pass on knowledge to younger dancers, challenging the notion that history is static or only resides in formal competition.
Butler emphasizes the desire to reveal the private life of Irish dancers—an intimacy that is often hidden behind competitive triumphs.

Still Searching: Movement, Memory, and the Private in Public

Butler quotes Merce Cunningham on the love of dance and the persistence required to keep dancing; she frames her life as a continuous search for the “fleeting moment when you feel alive,” which appears in performances (Radio City, Danspace, What We Hold).
Her late-30s encounter with Trisha Brown’s work deepened her sense of dance as a space where rules dissolve and movement becomes a life force.
Butler contrasts today’s Irish-dance landscape (highly visible, digitally mediated, technique-forward) with earlier generations’ less media-saturated practices, noting both the athletic marvel and the potential loss of musicality and intimate connection to the music.
Archival residencies at the Jerome Robbins Dance Division sought to slow down time, create space for cross-generational dialogue, and enable dancers to try steps of the past in a living format.
The aim was to reveal the inner workings of Irish dance—how dancers learn, teach, listen, understand rhythm, and respond to space—not merely to recreate historic steps.
The private Irish dancer—embodied in community and family practice—could become public through performance and archiving, suggesting a broader social purpose for Irish-dance artistry.

Archival Practice and the Ethics of Memory

Our Steps and What We Hold foreground an archival ethic: to preserve and transmit both steps and context, including cultural, political, and social dimensions of Irish dance.
The archive’s curation emphasizes voices and lived experience, rather than only technique or competition outcomes.
Butler’s project invites a re-reading of Irish dance history, challenging the canonical narratives centered on Riverdance and other spectacle shows.
Ethical and practical implications include questions of ownership (nation vs diaspora), representation (who gets to tell the story of Irish dance), and the balance between historical fidelity and artistic innovation.
The work advocates for a more pluralistic, dialogic understanding of Irish dance that honors lineage while embracing contemporary explorations.

Reflections on Meaning, Practice, and Future Pathways

Butler ends with a call to consider what Irish dance has meant to readers and how it might be understood today, emphasizing memory, lineage, and the living body in space and time.
The interwoven themes of resistance, continuity, and experimentation frame a future where Irish dance remains vital through openness to history and adaptation to new artists and contexts.
The essay positions Riverdance not as the ultimate exemplar of Irish dance but as a historical moment within a larger, ongoing global conversation about form, identity, and expression.
Butler’s closing reflections insist that the work of Irish dance continues to be an act of resistance, reinvention, and rediscovery, with history as both teacher and partner in the journey.

Notable References and Contexts (Illustrative)

Quote from Lincoln Kirstein on the enduring power of dance: “Like other arts, dancing has survived every disaster the world has known…” (DANCE INDEX, VOLUME 1, NO. 1, 1942).
Brian Seibert’s critical observations of Butler’s work: recognition that Butler’s vocabulary threads through traditional Irish step dancing while revealing a contemporary, freer expression in works like hurry (The New York Times, 2013).
2013 NYT Siebert review of hurry; 2024 NYT review extending the conversation about Butler’s evolution post-Riverdance.
The Gaelic League and the formation of An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha reflect the historical transformation of Irish dance into a codified, national, and global competitive practice.
The Our Steps archive and Our Steps, Our Story project (in partnership with the Jerome Robbins Dance Division) demonstrate a commitment to preserving and sharing a living tradition.

Key Figures and Institutions Mentioned

Jean Butler (dancer, choreographer, author)
Neil Martin (cellist/composer; collaborator on this is an Irish dance)
Colin Dunne (dancer; colleague in Dancing on Dangerous Ground)
Mary Nunan (mentor at University of Limerick)
Paddy Moloney (The Chieftains; collaboration context)
Riverdance and Dancing on Dangerous Ground (Works central to Butler’s career arc)
The Chieftains (band with whom Butler toured and performed earlier in her career)
The Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA)
Jerome Robbins Dance Division, NY Public Library (archival partner)
Our Steps (nonprofit dance organization)
What We Hold (2022 Dublin Theatre Festival; 2024 Irish Arts Center)

Numeric and Temporal References (LaTeX-formatted)

Gaelic League founded: 1893
Irish Free State established: 1922
An Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha formed: 1927
First feis on record: 1898
CLRG scale: more than 1950 registered teachers; 538 adjudicators
Time-signatures in dances: reels/hornpipes 4/4, jigs/double jigs 6/8, slip jig 9/8
First World Championship: 1970 (turning point for overseas participation)
Overseas dance presence builds through the 1970s–1980s; late 1990s rise in cross-border exchanges (Majors circuit)
Riverdance Eurovision debut: 1994
Dancing on Dangerous Ground opening (West End): 1999; NY premiere/run: 2000 (Radio City Music Hall)
What We Hold premiere: October 2022; NY premiere: February 2024; sold-out run: 30 shows
Our Steps archival residency began: 2018; seven decades of materials referenced
Awards/recognition: 2024 Gradam Ceoil TG4 lifetime achievement award (Butler)

Connections to Practice and Real-World Relevance

The piece foregrounds how history informs practice: understanding where dances came from shapes why and how they are performed today.
It emphasizes interdisciplinarity: performance, archiving, storytelling, and music composition intersect to create a richer living tradition.
It highlights ethical considerations in cultural ownership, representation, and the politics of judging within a globalized dance world.
It argues for accessibility of history: archives like Our Steps and What We Hold enable intergenerational learning and public engagement with Irish dance beyond competitions.
The text asserts that innovation and respect for the lineage are not mutually exclusive; the field benefits from artists who challenge the status quo while acknowledging tradition.

Practical Takeaways for Exam Preparation

Understand the central tension in Irish dance between tradition (teacher-lineage, CLRG codification, feis culture) and innovation (contemporary practice, archival reconstruction, cross-genre collaboration).
Recall key dates and figures: Gaelic League (1893), CLRG formation (1927), first feis (1898), World Championship (1970), Riverdance (1994), Dancing on Dangerous Ground (1999–2000), Our Steps (began 2018), What We Hold (premiered 2022–2024).
Distinguish the major dance categories and their time signatures: Reels/Hornpipes (4/4), Jigs/Double Jigs (6/8), Slip Jig (9/8).
Recognize the role of archiving as a living practice that can influence current and future generation of dancers.
Be able to discuss how critics have framed Butler’s work in relation to Riverdance and the broader trajectory of Irish-dance performance.

Closing Thought

Butler’s narrative argues that Irish dance is not a fixed form but an evolving practice shaped by history, memory, and imaginative risk. The ongoing archival project and contemporary works demonstrate a living discipline that honors its roots while continually reimagining its future.