Irish Set Dancing
Ceili (KAY-lee) noun: The name for the event that you attend in order to participate in Irish set dancing. example: I really love set dancing. I can't wait to get to the ceili tonight.
Ceilis take place on the 2nd & 4th Friday of every month, 8-11pm at The Folk School at 3155 Sutton Blvd, Maplewood, MO.
The only cost will be a voluntary donation that will simply be used to support the ceili.
Judi Holroyd is teaching set dancing in New Town, St Charles.
1st & 3rd Wednesdays 7-9pm @ The New Town Town Hall, 3300 Rue Royale St, St Charles, MO
I have set up a facebook group as a way for those interested in joining to communicate with each other. St Louis Irish Set Dancers
What is Set Dancing?
What it is not:
Step dancing. In no way whatsoever does this look anything like Riverdance.
Why you might want to do it:
It’s a lot of fun. It is truly a social dance. It definitely counts as exercise. Set dancers tend to be nice people who like having fun, and you probably want more people like this in your life.
Below is a video showing what set dancing looks like. These are the people that I first learned to dance with when I lived in New Orleans.
I am also looking for musicians who are interested in playing for these ceilis. All that's really required is that you know how to play a few jigs and reels and keep up at a reasonable tempo. The video below is from the same group of people dancing at one of their regular ceilis. The band is just the local session players that anyone can sit in with and is a good example of what I would like this ceili to look like one day, and what is expected of musicians interested in playing.
The links below are PDFs of written instructions for the sets I have taught so far.
I've also been writing out some suggested music to play for these sets. This tunebook is a work in progress, but whenever I make changes you can always get the newest version by going to this same link
