Summer 2024 Classes
2023-24 Calendar
Jan 7 guest artist: Kate Spanos Festival Style
Jan 8 - May 21 Winter/Spring Semester
Jan 15 no class
Jan 16 guest workshop: Kayla Pinzur
Jan 23 guest artist: Cara Wildman
Feb 13 no class
Feb 19-20 no class
Feb 27 guest workshop: Kayla Pinzur
Mar 9 St Pat’s Student Tour
Mar 18-19 no class
Apr 15-16 no class
May 20-21 Last Spring Classes
June 4 - 25 Summer session
Summer 2024
We’ve got a very special summer session this year, welcoming guest dancer and ethnomusicologist Samantha Jones, who has been working with a manuscript of steps from Cork dance master James O’Mahony. She’ll teach steps she has reconstructed from the notebook, talk about the historical and cultural context, and share about her research process.
Traditional Sets Intensive
Tuesdays in June
6:00 - 7:00 pm
First Church Cambridge
June 4: Priest and His Boots (Dan Furey) - continuing dancers
June 11: St Patrick’s Day (Cork) - continuing/intermediate
June 18: Job of Journeywork (Cork/Cormac O’Keefe) - intermediate/adv
June 25: King of the Fairies (Cormac O’Keefe) - int/adv
Learn or brush up some favorite dance classics! Come for one or more weeks. We’ll try to cover a full step and set each night - a whirlwind intensive!
The Priest and His Boots is a lovely jig set from the repertoire of Dan Furey in Clare. The Dan Furey group and Michael Tubridy have been teaching this dance, and it’s now danced all over the world. This night is geared towards continuing dancers who might have just begun hard shoe dancing recently. All welcome.
St Patrick’s Day is possibly the dance most step dancers could dance at the drop of a hat. We’ll learn the classic Cork version commonly danced by commission dancers. If you’re already familiar with it, come to work on the lesser known steps 2 & 3, and the second set! For continuing dancers and beyond.
The Job of Journeywork is a hornpipe set and again we’ll go through a Cork version from Cormac O’Keefe which is a commission classic. It has a nice flow and lots of characteristic toes, heels, and a box.
The King of the Fairies is one of my favorite dances and we’ll learn the version from Cormac O’Keefe. This hornpipe set has a great, moody tune and is a real challenge with beautiful rhythms and unusual movements.
O’Mahony Steps with Samantha Jones
Tuesdays in June
7:00 - 8:00 pm (optional additional portion until 8:30 pm)
First Church Cambridge
This four-week workshop will explore steps from Cork dance master James O’Mahony (c.1889–1973). O’Mahony was born in Cork City where he established the St. Dominic’s Dancing Club with his brother John, before relocating to East Cork in the 1930s. From circa 1910 to 1950, O’Mahony put down his entire repertoire of steps in a single notebook, totaling 250 dances, either composed by himself or attributed to dance masters active in Cork during his lifetime. Samantha will teach hornpipes and jigs that she has reconstructed from O’Mahony’s notebook of dance steps, accompanied by historical and cultural context.
The workshop will be suitable for dancers at all levels who have some previous experience with hornpipes. Following each workshop, interested students are invited to stay for an additional 30 minutes to experiment with interpretation and explore questions and possibilities for the steps we’ve learned by playing with our own embodied knowledge.
Samantha Jones is an ethnomusicologist, musician, and dancer. Though Samantha danced competitively as a teenager in Connecticut, her love of Irish traditional music and dance blossomed when she moved to Boston in 2010. There she began studying old style traditional step dancing and sean-nós dance with Kieran Jordan. Her subsequent research has focused on transmission, memory, improvisation, and participation in the transnational Irish traditional music and dance community. She holds a PhD in ethnomusicology from Harvard University.
Samantha has performed in collaboration with others at festivals and events in New England and upstate New York including the Catskills Irish Arts Week and the Boston Celtic Music Fest. She is an experienced dance instructor and currently teaches beginner and continuing Irish dance at O’Riley Irish Dance. She is in demand as a workshop instructor for adults, teaching at Tufts University, MIT, UMASS Boston, and Salem State University.
Register
Summer 2024 tuition
Traditional Sets: $25 per night
O’Mahoney Steps with Samantha Jones: $100
Tuition is non-refundable. Please make sure you are able to attend before registering.
I offer variable tuition rates if you cannot pay the regular cost, including for multiple classes. Professional artist rate available. Please write to mcgowanirishdance@gmail.com.
Private Lessons
Are you interested in learning a specific dance? Practicing your technique? Getting supportive feedback to bring your dancing to the next level? I offer private and small group lessons.
Focus on technique, steps, improvisation — step dancing, old style steps, sean-nós dance. Approaches I love most include:
- working through tricky spots in steps by creating ease and efficiency in movement
- making improv accessible and less scary, and making the movements feel like your own
- honing musicality
Please email mcgowanirishdance@gmail.com with your interest. Lessons are $40/30 min or $65/50 min, plus studio rental, and are currently offered online and in person.
Locations
St John’s Arlington
74 Pleasant St., Arlington, MA
free street parking
near 67, 77, 350 bus
Alton Street Dance Arlington
348 Mass Ave, Arlington, MA
free street parking
near 67, 77, 350 bus
First Church Cambridge
11 Garden St., Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA
meter street parking
Harvard Square red line & buses
School of
Irish Dance
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