Hup!
Learning the Rules of the Road for Irish Music and Dance by LISA MALONEY Wherever you may live, I'll bet good money that there's a traditional Irish music session somewhere near you — either a place where the Irish have settled, or where love has spontaneously kindled for their music's charisma, energy and many-faceted nuances. And where there's music, you may find dance: twin pastimes that wander hand in hand, waltzing sweetly through a kitchen or exploding to life in the corner of a pub. I know this because ten years ago I stumbled across an Irish music and dance session at home in Alaska. It wasn't long after that I found myself on a plane to Ireland, searching for the pulse of a tradition that had wrapped its tendrils around my heart from thousands of miles away. What I found in Ireland was a gymnasium floor that heaved in time as the people of an entire town danced on it, raising a cloud of mist up into the rafters. And a friend in the west of the country who introduced me to the joy of a few people leaping up to dance a half-set at a session, or watching someone beating out the rhythm of the dance with her feet on a wood floor, sean-nós style.
ENSEMBLE VACATIONS WINTER 2020 49
