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Portmagee's 12th Annual Traditional Irish Set Dance Workshop Weekend in South KerryMay 2nd - May 4th, 2003Tutor: Betty McCoyEvery year, Portmagee hosts a weekend of Set Dancing and Music for visitors from far and wide. Now in our 12th year, the weekend is hugely popular and getting better all the time. Friday May 2nd Saturday May 4th Sunday May 5th Contact Weekend Package3 B&B, 2 Dinners, Entertainment, Workshops and Céilí - €160 Meals are available throughout the whole weekend in the bar and the Moorings Restaurant. For accommodation, contact us directly. Images and Movies from the May 2000 Workshop.Have a browse of some of the sights and sounds of the 2000 workshop. Review of the 1998 WeekendBy Beryl Stracey
These are seasoned old campaigners who have travelled the round of workshops throughout the year, but there will be many who are absolute beginners. Everybody is welcomed and made to feel at home. This year there is a group of our own local children who have learned two of the local sets and are anxious to try their hands (or feet!) at a set from Clare or Galway. At the other end of the age range, grandmothers and grandfathers will be there in plenty. Portmagee is a good venue for a workshop because sets have always been danced here and have never died out. The South Kerry Polka Set has been danced at house dances, weddings, crossroads and dinner dances without a break over the years. My friend Mary Kennedy of Ahanboy remembers two locations where there were concrete platforms at crossroads where the local people danced. At the present time, sets are danced two or three times a week throughout the year and there has been a revival in house dances and kitchen dances. The set is very strong in the South Kerry area and keen dancers can dance five nights a week without travelling very far. The weekend is more than just a formal teaching workshop. There are sessions in the Bridge Bar, where singers and musicians as well as dancers can get together and enjoy the music. Here you will have a chance to see some of our older dancers who dance the local set in the lovely old graceful style of South Kerry. I have a friend, Tom Kennedy, who will dance a full set in collar, tie, geansai, jacket and capwithout raising a sweat or breathing heavy! They have kept the tradition going and it's a rare gift they have handed down to us and our children. Where would the sets be without them? it is through some of these dancers that the Portmagee workshop had been able to revive three sets that would otherwise have been lost forever. In 1992, Muiris O' Brien, after doing thorough and painstaking research and probing the memories of several old people, revived teh Valentia Right and Left set, an elegant siz figure set with lots of variety. Joe Lynch from Valentia Island was able to give Muiris all the details of the set he danced in his youth. I have often danced the Right and Left with Joe, and a fine dancer he is. Muiris also revived the Portmagee Myserk, a lovely jig set, and he was telling me one night in the bar how he persevered with the research to save this set, calling back several times to Joseph Falvey and working out the figures - at one stage using a walking cane as a partner! According to an old poem about a house dance, the set must have been danced in the 1920s but had been lost. Patrick Joy in Killorglin was the only man who remembered the Caragh Lake Jig Set. A group of us went to Killorglin where Pat gave us all his experience and knowledge so Muiris was able to revive the set in 1993 at the Portmagee workshop. It is a great set danced to jigs, slide, reel and hornpipe.
Thanks to our friend, Beryl Stracey, who wrote this page. |
Contact Information Moorings Guesthouse Tel: +353 66 9477108 Map of Portmagee The Site Like what we're doing? You can also Related Web Links |
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