Are the arm movements new to the Irish dancing?
It’s very new to the Irish dancing because usually arms are straight down. For example in competition, if you move your arms, you’re finished. When we were younger, in order to keep our hands in, our mums used to give us coins to hold, so we wouldn’t drop them. But there are a few cheats in Irish dancing costumes now! So we didn’t start out knowing how to use our arms in dancing and we had the Russian dancers teach us ballet moves (port de bras) and how to move them properly, this was fantastic because we didn’t really know what to do with them. So you have borrowed and developed your own style in arm movements. Yes, it’s good because to have the Russian dancers watching you each night as well means they can correct you, because they have studied ballet for years, while we wouldn’t have. So it’s great to have this included in the Riverdance experience. What is your favourite dance style or what are you proud of? Personally I like the light dancing, which is the soft shoe, just because
