Celebrating with a little Ceili Dancing

You can check out Rumgumption at rumgumption.com.  These are serious award-winning musicians.  Serious awards, I mean, and seriously good musicians, but also quite capable with perfectly placed comedic remarks.  I'll be sure to catch them next time they play around the Twin Cities.

The spring issue of 365 Being finally went to the printer today. I don't have to start on the summer issue until tomorrow (which officially starts an hour from now), so I enjoyed my few minutes off to go hang out at the library, and learn a few dance steps. I don't know about all libraries, but here in Scott County, we get some cool stuff! The Prior Lake Branch, about 35 minutes from here, is in a building that houses dance space, and they have had a monthly program featuring different kinds of dance. Tonight was the last of the season, and it was sooo much fun.

Now, this isn't just dance to watch, this is two hours of instruction, with live music. It draws a big crowd, many of them are of retirement age, and most of them get out on the floor. Some are accomplished dancers, some not at all, but it really doesn't matter. It's meant to be fun, and as our instructor, Danielle Enblom, pointed out, as long as you are where you're supposed to be on the floor, nobody cares what your feet are doing.

I wondered about the straight arm step dancing made popular by Riverdance, and now a craze around the world.  I was sure I remembered seeing something a whole lot looser when I was a kid.  Sure enough, there are regions where old style dancing is done, and as you can see by this photo, everything moves.

Good thing, because although my soul was kicking high and stepping fast, my feet, and very soon my lungs, were trailing somewhat behind.  I hung in there, largely thanks to my partner.  Yes, dearhearts, I was out once again for a rousing night of hanging out with...

My instructor, Danielle, and my partner, Annika.  Thanks ladies, I had the best night!

...someone else's kid.

We were learning partner steps, and anyone who didn't come with a date, had to pair up with the other singles. Lucky for me, a champion Irish step dancer was the only other single on my side of the room. Her grands didn't want to dance, and her mom is the guitar player in the band, so she really kindly agreed to partner with me. I did not step on her toes once, and I don't think I ran her into anyone else. Beyond that, if I looked remotely competent, I'm sure it was her doing.

Annika (shown here with her mom, Dee Brust, is everything I wanted to be at her age:  Dancer, violin player, flute player, and pretty and kind and fun.  If you are lucky, you just may catch her performing at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival next summer.  Dee performs there, as well.

Tonight, not only did we learn some dance steps and listen to some fine live music, we got some snippets of Irish dance history from Danielle.  She's on a two year scholarship, currently in Cork, researching for her master's thesis, so she had lots of historical and social knowledge to go with the dancing.  I always said I would have loved history in school, if they had taught it from the perspective of the dance and food of the various cultures throughout time, instead of the endless list of wars.  I surely loved the lesson tonight!  



When a teacher loves her subject, it shows.

 This is what you get from dance classes at the library.  Dance steps, music, words, and a whole roomful of like-minded people you've probably never met, but you already know you have at least three things in common with.   In my case, my inner three-year-old, who's been screaming to be let out to play these past few weeks of intense editing and designing, was just glad to have an older kid to play with!  Woo-hoo!

Now, back to grown-up responsibility; splashing happy on walls, making up new recipes to test on my friends, dreaming up new things to make out of salvaged bits and bobs...you know, serious business!  Don't forget about open studio at Maureen Carlson's this Friday night (see my last blog post if you don't know about that).  Have a great weekend, and I hope you dance!