In my first post a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned an unexpected realization I had a few years ago: no one was going to “take Irish dance away” from me. This wasn’t even a fear I knew I had, but when I rid myself of it—or when I realized that ownership didn’t look the way I thought it did—it felt like a huge weight off.
The issue of ownership and control is very real in Irish dance, and I understand why. First, Irish culture has been threatened by centuries of systematic, colonial oppression, so the need to define, preserve, and promote it has been crucial. I can see how some decisions made about a century ago have set Irish dance on a particular trajectory, for better or worse, but I like to think that people build agendas with the best of intentions, given the information at hand. Furthermore, defining a culture is especially important in the diasporic context, as here in the US. We are constantly interacting with a variety of global cultures, and we need to concern ourselves with authenticity, tradition, and representation to define our national or ethnic identity vis-à-vis so many others. The culture is displaced from the home country, and someone needs to determine its boundaries.
In my work, I am very concerned with not misrepresenting Irish dance, and I feel a responsibility to pass on what I’ve learned with as much context and history as possible. But I also know that my lived experience as an American with Irish and Greek heritage is very different from that of an Irish person, and even distinct from other Irish Americans, for that matter. At this point, I consider myself to be more a part of the Irish dance diaspora specifically than the Irish diaspora more generally, and I try to position myself as such.
Lately I have been thinking more about ownership and competition in the cultural arts sphere here in the US, and specifically here in the DC area. If you know me, you know that I spend half my life immersed in Irish dance and the other half in Brazilian music and dance through EducArte, the Brazilian arts non-profit I co-founded with my partner, Pablo, about ten years ago. I have a deep relationship with Irish dance and culture, but Brazilian culture is relatively new to me—I somewhat randomly started training capoeira almost twenty years ago, while I was studying Irish dance in Ireland, ironically. From there, my love of Brazilian dance, music, and rhythms grew, and I often reflect on my relationship to Irish vs. Brazilian culture along this trajectory.
In both roles, my work centers around tradition and representation, and I have a pretty clear understanding of where I stand in each. In Irish dance, I am an insider—I know the rules, I have a sense of confidence about what I’m doing, and I feel at home. I feel guided in my decisions by an intuition built from years of engagement with this community. I grapple with difficult questions, but I also don’t doubt my instincts. With Brazilian culture, however, I am an obvious outsider—although I now speak the language and have spent many years studying various Brazilian dance and music styles, I have no delusions about being Brazilian. I have so many questions, all the time. The distinction is clear-cut.
The most interesting thing I have noticed is that, because my relationship to Brazilian culture is that of an outsider, I get very defensive when I see what I would consider to be misrepresentation or cultural appropriation. I think, how dare they! This culture is sacred! But when I see similar disrespect toward Irish traditional dance or music, I usually just laugh and shake it off. I think the difference has to do with how secure I feel in relation to the culture in question. My connection to Brazil is tenuous; I get defensive because a threat to Brazilian culture threatens my own relationship to it, because I still don’t fully understand it myself. But my connection to Irish dance is stronger; I can let a minor disrespect roll off because it doesn’t change my relationship to the culture. I’ve created my own meaning throughout my life, and so an interpretation that I disagree with doesn’t really affect me. For something newer and less familiar, my relationship is defined more externally, dependent on what others do with it.
On the flip side, Pablo just shrugs when he sees someone doing something questionable with samba music. His relationship to this culture is deep-seated and rooted in his family experiences growing up, so he sees no real threat. I try to calm myself by seeing his confidence, but I sometimes can’t help but get incensed. And that is because my relationship to Brazilian culture is still maturing.
Understanding the insider vs. outsider sense of ownership is important when considering competition in the broader cultural arts sphere. In an ideal world, more Irish or Brazilian cultural groups would only breed more such groups, increasing awareness and community demand for these beautiful traditions. There is room for more than one Irish dance school or Brazilian arts organization in the DC area, and our mission as cultural organizers is to carve out such spaces. If everyone feels confident, secure, and well-resourced, this works well. What we prioritize may be different from what others prioritize, and that’s how we can have diverse offerings within the community. But what I see over and over again is that competition is fierce because resources are limited, so there is a lot of finger-pointing and, in some cases, sabotage. At the root of this is a need for ownership and gatekeeping in a perceived scarcity model that arises, I believe, from insecurities developed over years of chronic undervaluing and misperceptions about the culture. And this undervaluing comes not only from outsiders, but also, sometimes, from insiders!
I would argue that insiders who think too much about outsider perceptions are at risk of perpetuating this issue. Ownership and control are great mechanisms for protecting cultural traditions that have been threatened and/or transposed to new (especially diasporic) spaces, but at what point do we allow ourselves to break from so-called “tradition” and let a new community develop it further? If it doesn’t pose a real threat, isn’t it okay? And even if it does pose a threat, how much can we resist the inevitability of cultural change across time and space? I believe in putting some parameters in place, but I also believe in fostering creativity and seeing what people will do when they feel safe and secure in a welcoming cultural community.
As I mentioned above, the Irish dance diaspora is now distinct from the Irish diaspora, having completely globalized over the past 30 years, post-Riverdance. Everyone is doing it, Irish heritage or no Irish heritage. And that globalization has brought some notable changes to the dance. Irish dance has also been borrowed and adapted in the percussive dance space, which has become an amalgam of various step dance styles, pulling different rhythms and techniques from various cultures in innovative ways. Is this appropriation? Maybe. Does it bother me? Not particularly. I might not like someone’s interpretation, but it doesn’t change my own relationship with Irish dance if others choose to do something else with it.
I distinctly remember watching Jean Butler’s Irish Dance Master Class DVD when it came out in 2005. In the interview section, she stated that she felt she no longer had to prove anything after her time with Riverdance. At the time, I felt like she was dismissing the Irish dance community by distancing herself from its “cruder” aspects (competition and commercial shows, in particular), but her words started to resonate with me more recently. In the world of Irish dance—competitive or non-competitive—I have long felt pressure to prove myself not only to others, but also to myself. This could be proving myself physically (I can do that move! I can still dance a full!) or academically (I have read all these books! I have written all these papers!), but it always stemmed from insecurity. Being able to do more moves or perform more styles or recite more history is great and strengthens my relationship with Irish dance, but it shouldn’t be about proving myself to others. This is a performance tradition, yes, but the best performances are usually the ones that come from our own deep, honest engagement, not from what we think others expect. Easier said than done, but this philosophy guides my current teaching and community building.
I encourage all of us to deepen our own meaning in Irish dance. Training and research are essential to a lifelong practice, but let’s not use our knowledge to control others. Rather, let’s use what we know to uplift our community and welcome more to join us.
