page_title: Irish stepdance
section_title: Solo dance
hierarchical_section_title: Irish stepdance / Dances / Solo dance
caption_attribution_description: English: Members of the Davis Academy of Irish Dance leap before the Picatinny crowd
context_page_description: Irish stepdance is an style of performance dance with its roots in traditional Irish dance. It is generally characterized by a stiff upper body and fast and precise movements of the feet. It can be performed solo or in groups. Aside from public dance performances, there are also stepdance competitions all over the world. These competitions are often called Feiseanna. In Irish dance culture, a Feis is a traditional Gaelic arts and culture festival. Costumes are considered important for stage presence in competition and performance Irish stepdance. In many cases, costumes are sold at high prices and can even be custom made. Males and females can both perform Irish stepdance but for the most part in today's society, the dance remains predominantly female. This means that the costumes are mainly dresses. Each dress is different, with varying colors and patterns, designed to attract the judge's eye in competitions and the audience's eye in performance. General appearance besides the costume is also equally important. Dancers would typically curl their hair before each competition. Many dancers invest in curled wigs that match their hair color.
context_section_description: Reel, slip jig, hornpipe, and jig are all types of Irish stepdances and are also types of Irish traditional music. These fall into two broad categories based on the shoes worn: 'hard shoe' and 'soft shoe' dances. Reels, which are in  or  time, and slip jigs, which are in  time and considered to be the lightest and most graceful of the dances, are soft shoe dances. Hornpipes, which can be in  or  time, are danced in hard shoes. Three jigs are danced in competition; the light jig, the single jig, which is also called the Hop jig, and the treble jig, which is also called double jig. Light and single jigs are in  time, and are soft shoes dances, while the treble jig is hard shoe, danced in a slow . The last type of jig is the slip jig, which is danced in  time. There are many dances, which steps vary between schools. The traditional set dances (danced in hardshoe) like St. Patrick's Day and the Blackbird, among others, are the only dances that all schools have the same steps.
  The actual steps in Irish stepdance are usually unique to each school or dance teacher. Steps are developed by Irish dance teachers for students of their school. Each dance is built out of the same basic elements, or steps, but the dance itself is unique, and new dances are being choreographed continuously. For this reason, videotaping of competitions is forbidden under the rules of An Coimisiun.
  Each step is a sequence of foot movements, leg movements and leaps, which lasts for 8 bars of music. It is traditional for each step to be performed first on the right foot and then on the left foot. This practice leads to a large proportion of dancers exhibiting a preference for their right leg over their left in dance movements. Hard shoe dancing includes clicking (striking the heels of the shoes against each other), trebles (the toe of the shoe striking the floor), stamps (the entire foot striking the floor), and an increasing number of complicated combinations of taps from the toes and heels.
  There are two types of hard shoe dance, the solo dances, which are the hornpipe and treble jig, and the traditional set dances, also called set dances, which are also solo dances, despite having the same name as the social dances. Traditional set dances use the same choreography regardless of the school whereas contemporary sets are choreographed by the teachers. The music and steps for each traditional set was set down by past dance masters and passed down under An Coimisiún auspices as part of the rich history of stepdancing, hence the "traditional."
  There are about 30 traditional sets used in modern stepdance, but the traditional sets performed in most levels of competition are St. Patrick's Day, the Blackbird, Job of Journeywork, Garden of Daisies, King of the Fairies, and Jockey to the Fair. The remaining traditional set dances are primarily danced at championship levels. These tunes vary in tempo to allow for more difficult steps for higher level dancers. An unusual feature of the set dance tune is that many are "crooked", with some of the parts, or sections, of the tunes departing from the common 8 bar formula. The crooked tune may have a part consisting of 7½ bars, fourteen bars, etc. For example, the "St. Patrick's Day" traditional set music consists of an eight-bar "step," followed by a fourteen-bar "set."
caption: Irish stepdancers performing in school costumes and hard shoes
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