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Mairead Morris

Step We Gaily?

New columnist MAIREAD MORRISON says the current feis-fixing scandal is making a reel of hardworking Derry feis mothers.


It might have all  started with Riverdance.  Once folk realised that you could make a living from the jigs and the reels things got serious.  Politics and lobbyists came into the picture.  Prices of solo costumes, curly - wurly wigs  and leg tan escalated…training camps were set up for Serious Contenders…fellas paid more attention to their step-dancing ways.  

It hadn’t always been this way.  Many years ago Anita Robinson wrote about Feis Mammies (see article below) – that formidable breed of Mothers  who made damned sure their offspring would look better,  kick higher, rock faster, stand straighter and treble louder than any other candidate in any given  competition.  ’Tis a pity the Feis Mammies aren’t in total charge these days as the world of Irish Dancing is reeling (sorry) with reports of corruption in the judging and teaching of this once trouble-free and wholesome sphere.

Rules have evolved about make-up, curliness of hair or wig (females only, why?) about the suitability of costume/kilt/ tights/underwear/height of sock and other arcana known only to insiders.  Irish Dancing is now Big Business.  It hasn’t exactly issued its own cryptocurrency but perhaps this is only a matter of time…Alas, all is not well in the great world of the Scotland Open or the Western Canada Oireachtas.  There is talk of insider-trading, favours being done, threats being issued, competition fixing (God forbid).  We hear of sexual favours being offered to judges – who, (allegedly) are being treated like some kind of deity…there is a cute-hoor attitude at large (allegedly)…some teachers are  (allegedly) too friendly with judges, some parents are (allegedly) too friendly with teachers.  The Irish Dancing world is far from gruntled.  

What is being done?  Nobody will come right out and speak truth to power.  CLRG is aware of the situation and doing its best and trying to deal with what is, in simple terms, cheating on a national scale.  Cheating.   There is fear, righteous anger and frustration.  Arbitration would appear to be necessary but the world of Irish Dancing doesn’t have  a Teamsters Union and anyway, local committees are fraught with personal concerns.  Speak out   and you’ll never eat lunch in this rehearsal hall again, nor will your children or your grandchildren. 

 Who are the losers in all of this carry-on? The once wholesome and hair-spray-fraught world of Irish Dancing, that’s who…and, most importantly , the dancers themselves.  These youngsters work their hard shoes down to the fibreglass and get up at Christ o’clock of a morning to make it to competitions in the other side of the country.  They are too young (and well-trained) to strike, throw a wobbly or refuse to go on stage.  It’s a shame to see adults acting the maggot, fixing competitions, cheating – to call it what it is – and the  real stars, the dancers, are the  victims. 

 It might be possible to set up a counter-revolution but the great god Apathy rules here, and who would take it upon themselves to go agin the world of sock-glue and corruption that exists at the moment.  Does nobody care about these young people – genuine champion dancers – left weeping and heart-broken in the wings because some judge was (allegedly)  small-minded and crooked enough to either take a bribe or a trip to someone’s hotel room and afterwards award the prize to a lesser dancing mortal. 

It’s a pity Don Corleone, or Marlon Brando didn’t have a god-daughter in the Irish Dancing World.  I’m not saying a horse’s head in the judges’ beds would be the way to go, but it might be a start. 


FLASHBACK 

Anita Robinson’s great friend ANNE CLARKE has recovered the Irish News writer’s controversial ‘Feis column’ from April 2012...


There's only one word to describe them - grotesque. With their ungainly flat-footed walk, pumpkin-sized heads and lurid plumage, they're a strange sight, settling like a flock of flightless birds at the Waterfront Hall last week and migrating to Derry's Millennium Forum this. It's Easter week, peak performance season for the native Irish dancer. A curious mutation has overtaken the breed in the past 20 years. Once simply clad in modest knee-length garb devoid of ornament, they're now the Big Fat Gypsy Weddings of dance. Any pretence to Celtic design is long since abandoned in favour of riotous embroidery, appliqué, frogging and lace in shades of eye-watering fluorescence, with skirts so abbreviated the adjudicators' view of competitors must be mostly of big pants. One can appreciate the kaleidoscopic impact of colourful costuming in team dresses but most would justify a caution from the Taste Police.


Ditto, one might stomach the brash vulgarity of the dresses, were it not for the travesty of the wigs. Pretty girls with nice hair are compelled to conceal it under enormous confections of synthetic curls, giving the unfortunate impression they're supporting a gabled roof constructed entirely of cigarette butts, which bob distractingly with every step. Almost as weighty are their false lashes and triple layers of foundation. Mere toddlers are transformed into immature prom queens, coated in fake tan and bedizened with make-up, peering through a mass of false hair so top heavy it's a miracle they don't keel over. Their dwarf 'Liz-Taylor-as-Cleopatra' image is somewhat marred by the melodeon folds of their thick white ankle-socks. Season by season, the fiendish feis frock designers stealthily introduce a ghastly new fashion element and the feis mammies another accessory for their already overladen daughter, till there are some who resemble the gaudily-apparelled religious statues carried round continental streets at carnival time.


The phenomenon of Riverdance fairly shook the Irish dance establishment to its foundations. For a start, it threw out the buckram-stiffened costumes in favour of understated practice clothes, (but still too short); freed up the joints and, oh sacrilege, permitted the use of arms. From a sterile set of geometric moves, Irish team dance exploded into life. There was suddenly something powerfully visceral and celebratory about the concreted beat of steel-shod feet advancing like a tidal wave and audiences responded with an urgent primal enthusiasm. Naturally, traditionalists lament and purists deplore how Riverdance and all its athletic and aerobatic spin-offs corrupted the integrity of Irish terpsichory but at least the dancers performed with some show of emotion on their faces. Did you ever notice that most feis competitors dance wearing an expression of grim determination? And, if nothing else, Riverdance achieved the impossible in making the male Irish dancer macho and saved the nation from the sight of any more milk-white male knees peeking coyly out under mustard kilts.


Traditional versus modernist factions within the dancing fraternity might be better employed focusing their energies upon curbing the sartorial excesses of its practitioners before we become an international laughing-stock. Recent television footage portrayed our premier dancers as a row of garish prizes on a fairground stall, kewpie dolls, arms bonded to their sides, pogo-ing up and down like Masai warriors, their Medusa heads turning viewers to stone.


A propos of nothing, Joe Mahon, presenter of Lesser Spotted Ulster, once tongue-in-cheek suggested the theory that Irish dancing originated in famine times, when starving supplicants competed for food-aid before charity boards by rattling their bones. It certainly explains the rigid upper-body stance and the spasmodic high kick.


All forms of art, including dance, evolve and alter, interpreted anew by succeeding generations. Each era develops its own choreography. Attempting to put strictures on art forms is both useless and counter-productive. Human nature will always subvert them. Ninety years ago the first president of the Irish Free State posited a lyrical vision of "strong youths and comely maidens dancing at the crossroads".


DeValera, thou shouldst be living at this hour. 

(Courtesy Anita Robinson Archive/Irish News)

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