Watch the Feet: Understanding Irish Dance Traditions as an Embodied Archive

Irish traditional step dance is an embodied cultural expression that has reached a global audience as a commodified artform. It also continues to be performed in community settings, sometimes with local distinctiveness that reflects processes of transmission and performance that are deeply connected with a sense and expression of place. In this essay, I examine performances of the set dance ‘The Blackbird’, focusing on steps from the Munnix tradition of North Kerry, and highlighting differences in performance aesthetics that incorporate different levels of cultural understanding or a kinaesthetic sense of place referring to how the movement of the dancing body reflects the milieu and cultural experiences of the dancer. I identify ‘The Blackbird’ set dance as a cultural container, and I critically consider how performances of these steps reflect changes in culture and aesthetics in a context in which dancers and audiences have sought to revisit regional traditions, even and especially when located in disparate places across the world. Drawing on theories from ethnochoreology that recognise the role of dance and the body as both a form of expression and an archive of cultural values, and adopting an autoethnographic approach, I critically reflect on the dissemination of the Munnix tradition and steps internationally, and how they have been reinterpreted by various dancers, drawing in particular on my own experience as a dancer and through dancing with others. I am challenged to go beyond the text by engaging with dance as an expressive form and incorporate video recordings into my documentation and analysis.