Arts & Entertainment

Step Dancing is for the Cool Kids: The 17 Days of St. Patrick

Long before Riverdance, Will County was a hotbed of Irish step dancing.

To hear my husband, Muggsy, tell it, the whole thing started when his old man dragged him to the first class. He was about 10.

Every Tuesday night they drove to the old St. Mary's in downtown Joliet. At first, he didn't want to go. Dancing? That was for sissies, he thought.

Then once he got there, he realized he was one of maybe only four or five boys in a church basement filled with dozens of girls.

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Then when the next Tuesday rolled around, he was handing his dad the keys.

"Come on, Dad, we're gonna be late," he said.

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This is the part of the story when his dad, Ricky Gallager, would add that the old man wasn't so dumb after all. I'm required to say that.

Irish step dancing lessons. That's where I met my husband, circa 1982.

We also met a lot of other friends. Will County Auditor Duffy Blackburn was among our troupe. The night he was elected, the State's Attorney, James Glasgow, said Duffy is gonna bring sexy back to the auditor's office. He had no idea how true that was, I laughed to myself.

Duffy's dancing career didn't last long because he was really too young. His older brother, Ryan, though, had impressive tootsies at a young age, though.

Our group had a lot of bragging rights. For instance, I can say I danced with Michael Flatley, Mr. Lord of the Dance, himself. OK, OK, I'll dial back the blarney a bit and just say I danced on the same stage as Micheal Flatley. We opened for him at Irish Heritage Days in downtown Joliet, probably 1983.

Step dancing today

Today, many Shorewood families are keeping up the tradition of the dance. Although the music and the steps are largely the same, many things have changed. Now, costumes are lavish and expensive. Girls wear bushy Shirley Temple wigs.

Back in the day, I remember my mom staying up all night to sew and embroider my sister's and mine in time for the state fair. I think we had pony tails.

I reminisced with Holly McNichols, co-owner of Keigher Academy in Joliet. (In Irish, the gh is silent, pronouncing it keer.) She and her sister, Susan Keenan, danced as children and eventually opened their own school, which they named after their mom.

We chatted about what it was like being a dancer, in my case nearly 30 years ago. She remembers their moms making their costumes, too. McNichols said that their beginner's costume costs about $150.

However the students who compete can spend in the neighborhood of $600 for an embroidered dress. Solo dresses can even top $1,000.

That is definitely different from our time. Our moms hyperventilated when they learned our special shoes would cost $30. We were all growing kids. The sport wasn't popular enough to find used pairs.

The soft shoes are similar to black ballet slippers that lace up the front and tiearound the ankle. Today they cost $40-45. 

Another difference is the hard shoe. They traditionally had black leather uppers that we likened to an old man's shoe. They had nails driven into the soles to make the tapping sound. Today, fancy-pants dancers have a fiberglass sole.

Many American dances derive from Irish step dancing. Tap dancing comes from the hornpipe. As does clogging. Square dancing is based on what the Irish call set dances or ceili dances (pronounced kay-lee).

On the other side of the ocean, the dances are rich in history, too. During the British occupation of Ireland, which has been pretty much since forever, the Irish were not allowed to dance. The cottages had split doors. With the top half open and the bottom closed, the Irish did not want to get caught dancing.

That is why the posture requires a completely straight, stiff upper body with feet moving a hundred miles an hour. That way, from a distance, their oppressors could not tell they were dancing.

Also, hands are planted firmly at the side with closed fists, thumbs always pointed down. When I first learned how to hold a golf club, my instructor smiled when I compared the grip to my Irish dancing.

Step dancing is most certainly a sport. We learned solo dances, like the jig, slip jig, treble jig, reel and hornpipe. And there were team dances, like the two-, three- and four-hand reels. We competed individually, and in groups, just like any other sport.

When it comes to advancing in the sport, McNichols explained that students at their school are able to invest as much time or money as they want to. Students don't have to buy the ridiculously expensive dresses. And they don't have to travel all over the world to compete. So the costs, though alarming, aren't required.

"We have a lot of kids that take but don't really do the competition," she explained. "And then we have some people who do the competitions here and there."

Some families plan vacations around competitions or vice versa. If a family wanted to go to Disney, they could enter a competition in Florida or California, for example.

"We like to leave it up to the families," she said.

Lessons cost $40 a month for a weekly 45-minute class at Keigher. The academy has a sliding scale for families with multiple children, or students who want to stake multiple classes each week.  

As with many other students, Irish step dancing was a great experience for me. Because of it, I met formidable talents like the musicians Tommy Makem and the Wolfe Tones. I learned a lot about the history and the music. I met great life-long friends. Not to mention, my calves are still rock hard from all those years on my tip toes.

Before Riverdance, before Lord of the Dance, Will County had Irish step dancers. Our class was a virtual who's who of Will County's Irish community. We had McNamaras and O'Conners. We had Albrittons and Plunks. Blackburns and Loughrans. Wrights and O'Reillys.

OK, so maybe we were not good enough to be on a coffee commercial.  

I take that back. While local attorney Ed Loughran was still studying for the bar, I saw his daughter, Meg, perform a hornpipe that was second to none.

As Barbara Mandrell would say, we were step dancers, before step dancing was cool. How's that for bringing sexy back?


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