A very nice weekend workshop for Irish set dancers with some experience, led by Didier Matherat and Christine Droillard, and organised by Folk Wattrelos in, surprise, surprise: Wattrelos. Didier and Christine (first top couple on the picture) are French, but live in Ireland where they work as tourist guides. Set dancing became one of their passions and they acquired skills at the level of genuine set dancing masters.
You might also recognise on the picture Pascale and Régis (first side couple), both teachers in traditional continental dancing.
Here is the material that figured on the programme. Didier and Christine selected a few old sets that became popular again recently. Don't be surprised to find here also the Haymakers' jig, which, obviously, isn't a set dance, but a ceili dance. It was danced during the Irish night on Saturday, with live music. It is because my bolleke did a marvelous job in getting a nice picture for each phase of this dance, that I describe it here too. By the way, there weren't any bollekes to drink, nor Guinness, but the Orval did its job too.
Fermanagh Set
The set, named after
Co. Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, is published in the Brooks Academy's book
The walking polka. It consists of two polka figures, one reel figure, and one hornpipe figure. Here are some on-line descriptions:
Music for this set can be found on Shaskeen's
Irish music for set dancing vol 4, Matt Cunningham's
Dance music of Ireland vol 9. Also the Davey Ceili Band's latest CD covers this set. We 've seen playing them live during the
set dancing ceili in Leuven, Februari 14, 2004.
Here is the third figure called
Steal the Ladies (streaming wmv) on video.
Kilfenora Plain Set
The Kilfenora Plain Set is an old set that has been re-engineered out of few available descriptions and testimonies. For a complete description, see
The Kilfenora Set by Jim Keenan.
Here you can see the
first part of the 6th Figure (wmv; 2.3 Mb): hornpipes. The clip stops where the gents changed partners and are ready to do the body "as in the Caledonian".
Labasheeda (Reel) Set
Labasheeda is a village in Co. Clare, 22 miles west of Ennis, on the banks of the Shannon Estuary. In the set named after it, the gents dance more with somebody else's partner than with the own partner.
The figures of the set are explained in the book
Set left - Set right by Eileen O'Doherty from Brooks Academy. Despite the name, there are not only reels in this dance.
Some on-line descriptions (with differences!):
Music can be found on
Michael Sexton Céilí Band Volume 2, and
Matt Cunningham's Vol 4.
We have also 2 video fragments for you: the
alternative 5th figure - The Jig (wmv; 7,1Mb), and the
6th or 7th figure - The Hornpipe (wmv; 8,2Mb), the numbering being dependent on whether or not the alternative 5th figure is danced.
Haymaker's jig
This dance can be danced to any double jig, but there is a tune with same name as the dance. Here it is on sheet music in a
first and
second variation.
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Advance and Retire
All gents take hands; all ladies take hands; everyone advances and retires twice with promenade step (8 bars), finishing with the rising step (Rise and Grind) on right foot then left foot (4 bars); all advance and retire again (4 bars). (16 bars total)
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Right and Left Hand Turn
Top gent and last lady (on opposite corners) advance to the center, take right hands and turn in place, then dance back to “home” (4 bars); gent of last couple and top lady then do the same (4 bars). This movement is repeated with these same couples, each now giving left hands when they meet (8 bars). (16 bars total)
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Swing (setting off)
Gent of top couple and last lady again advance to center...
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Swing
... and swing (céilí swing or “buzz” in place) in center for six bars, retiring to place on final two measures; this is repeated by gent of last couple and top lady. (16 bars).
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Lace the shoe / Strip the willow
Lady and gent of the first couple meet in the center, link right arms and turn once in place, then dance on to second couple, with the lady linking left arms with the second gent and gent linking left arms with the second lady; they turn once in place and then meet each other in the center again, turning with linked right arms, then on to the third couple, and so on until the top couple has turned with each other couple down the line. The top couple then takes hands (as for céilí swing) and swings back up the center of the lines to “home”.
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The arches
When they return home, the gent and lady turn outward away from the top of the set, followed by the other dancers in their lines, and dance down the outside of their respective lines (“cast off”) to the bottom of the set, where they fall in at the end of their respective lines and take hands, uncrossed, above, to form an arch. The other dancers, following them, pass under the arch, each couple taking hands as they do so, and dance back up along the line of the dance, so that the couple who began as the second couple becomes the top couple, and so on. The original leading couple fall into line as the last couple, and the dance is repeated from the beginning.
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A big hand for the musicians
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Other available descriptions:
The Haymakers's jig, and many other Ceili dances, is shown on the videos
Dancing at the crossroads, and
Céilí Dancing Step by Step Volume 1.
