Nollaig Shona Dhuit!

And a very happy New Year to all my fellow TCRG candidates - especially the ones who are actually sitting the exam in 2011!

Step Up

I've never been a hip hop dancer. In fact I've never tried any vaguely modern type of dance. So why then, when I channel-flick and come across Step Up on TV, do I immediately want to get up and Irish dance? It's like a button gets pressed in my brain any time I see somebody perform, or even practice, any type of dance. I don't dance in my seat, but I subconciously move in unison with them, even if it's just leaning in the direction of their arm extension or lifting my ribcage when they jump. Despite the predictable wrong-side-of-the-tracks/love story thing it's brought out the dancer in me again, so out came the poodle socks and the jig shoes.

I've spent the last hour or so drilling clicks and trebles, all to a hip hop soundtrack. It means I missed half the storyline but it's only the dancing I'm interested in anyway, and I relate. I might not be able to pop and lock, I can't pas de chat and I definitely can't fouette. But it's the same for all of us, really. Trying and trying. In films everyone succeeds. Maybe I'll fail. I might not be able to learn their dance form but I can learn from their determination.

Back to click drills.

Testing Times

Despite it being nearly Christmas, I'm doing my best to plod along and fit in some TCRGing between the ubiquitous "do", shopping and general festive panic. Predictably it's not dancing or teaching (yet), just practice exams and music.

A few months ago I was pulling out high passes on the music exam but it's amazing how quickly I can forget! So I typed up the list in full, printed it out, and have scribbled all over my sheet in pretty coloured pens with silly ways to remember the set tunes. And I do mean silly, for example...Fairy cakes, fairy cakes, fai-ry-cakes at the start of the set in Miss Brown's Fancy (reminds me of fondant fancies), or hurdy-gurdy, hurdy-gurdy in the set of Madame Bonaparte. At times I think this music could drive me insane! But it's obviously helped. I'm quizzing myself by opening iTunes and putting the album on random, then checking my work after 19 tracks. I scored 61% on my first exam (fail), 74% after the first lot of scribbles, and then just now 88% after really trying hard to find identifying features in each of the sets!

The Fiddler Round the Fairy Tree muddles me every single time; on the last two exams I've even written it in twice because it makes me second-guess myself. I think the only way to remedy this would be to dance it, and it's short enough at 8/12/28!

I can rarely get the following sets right either - Three Sea Captains, Rub the Bag, Lodge Road, Kilkenny Races (usually mix up the last two unless I'm counting), Bonaparte's Retreat, Roving Peddler and Piper Thro' the Meadow Straying. I muddle Youghal Harbour with the White Blankets almost every time and again, second-guess myself. Then again, I only allow myself one listen in my quiz, whereas in the exam you hear each tune in full twice.

Happily I have a list of 18 set dances that I can get every single time including the musical information so if they play all of those I'm well sorted. I assume they'll always play both Blackthorn Stick and Drunken Gauger because there's only a tiny difference between them, but I doubt they'll play the more distinctive ones on my list.

I've also done three practice ceili papers and just about scraped a pass each time - 78%, 88% and 86% thus far. Sides Under Arms is a big source of confusion as I just cannot make myself remember which way you go first in The Sweets of May, and which way in The Three Tunes.

But, progress. I think I've managed to negotiate hiring a hall for a ceili class, so fingers crossed I can start that in the New Year. I've lofty intentions of staying behind after class or getting there early to host a one-woman solo class, but we'll see how it goes. I'm brimming with solo ideas after visiting a couple of Oireachtais this year - next feis, Dublin!