TEAM DANCING

Team dancing also known as figure dancing is very popular in Irish dance. Figure dances can be simple and easy to perform but require a lot of practise if you are competing in worlds but if not and it is only for fun and only an elementary knowledge of the most basic steps is required. They lend themselves well to recreational and social events and also to big competitions like the leinsters and world championships for those schools who are more competitive. The figures and steps should be executed with accuracy and precision, but easily, without any effort. Irish figure or group dancing can be performed in a square, circle or line formation, enjoying only a few simple steps. These dances are essentially the dances of Ireland.

Fortunately my Irish dance school won there figure dance called ‘The Invention’ which was under 16’s in the World Irish Dancing Championships in 2016 which were held in Killarney. The dance was made up of 12 dancers. This was a great achievement for the school and so much practise and hours upon hours went into perfecting it for the world stage. A new over 16’s team has being created this year which I am included in and we are preforming the same dance in the Leinsters and Worlds in 2017 and we hope to retain the title. Figure dancing can be fun but very competitive and pressurising as nothing can go wrong or your letting the team down. I have included a YouTube video below which demonstrates a a figure dance from a different dance school in the worlds which I will be preforming with 7 other people. It is called Trip To The Cottage.

When people start irish dancing they always learn the basic dance which is the reel and many dance schools then introduce people to easy figure dances like the walls of limerick. Here is another video clip of the walls of limerick for beginners.

To finish off on figure dancing here are names of different figure dances which can be found on youtube if anybody has interest in putting a group together and picking which dance they like most: