Woodbury Irish Dancers

Photo: Emily J. Davis

Woodbury Irish dancers from St. Paul's Rince na Chroi.

If, one morning, you see a young girl on school patrol at St. Ambrose of Woodbury, hopping, stomping and pointing her toes, it’s probably MaryKate Schoonover. She’s practicing her Irish dance steps while attempting to stay warm.

“Riverdance changed everything,” says Emily Wolff, assistant director of St. Paul’s Rince na Chroi (pronounced Rink-a na Cree) School of Irish Dance, and one of MaryKate’s instructors. The theatrical show that continues to draw rave reviews since it began in the early 1990s exposed the world to the adroit footwork of a form of dance usually seen only at obscure Irish festivals. But the strong Irish heritage of the St. Paul area has always kept it in full view.

MaryKate and her sister, Emily, first saw Irish dancers during St. Paul’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. They were eight and four years old respectively, and have faithfully taken one to two classes a week ever since. They practice often to get their reels and jigs just right.

In Irish dance, you want to start out on the right foot, literally. Movement combinations begin on the right foot and are then mirrored, starting on the left. The action seems to happen entirely below the belt while the upper body, with straight arms and soft fists that hug the sides, and the face, with its pleasant but unchanging expression, give little hint of what’s happening below.

Traditional Irish dances have precise steps, taken in a specific type of shoe. The soft shoes, called ghilies, resemble a black ballet shoe with ribbons for laces. “When I am doing soft shoe, I feel like I’m flying,” says Woodbury resident Megan Bratland. She started hard shoe this year and her mother, Katie Bratland, says that Megan “loves the sound and loves the stomping.”

Hard shoe dances like the hornpipe and the treble reel show off the percussive quickness of Irish dancing feet. The shoes were originally fashioned with nails in wood or leather blocks at the toes and heels. Fiberglass has since lightened the shoes weight while increasing its footwork sound.

Traditional music accompanies all dancing at Rince na Chroi as they seek to stay true to the original dance styles. The sounds of the tin whistle, pipes, harp, bodhran drum and the fiddle mix with the swishing of soft shoe and the pounding of hard shoe, lifting the energy of the dance studio to such fervor that leaps and scissor jumps seem the only appropriate response.

The intricate footwork is what caught the attention of Sean Boyles, a Woodbury sixth grader. “It’s fun learning all the steps and tricks and it’s a good workout,” he adds. His mother, Denise Boyles, says he dances an hour each day, then studies tapes of the older dancers and memorizes their steps. Sean is proud of his Irish heritage and says he’ll continue dancing as he grows up.

Young and old dance, whether they have Irish ancestors or not, and families often dance together. Sean’s younger sister Kaitlin dances each week as well along with their cousin, Meghan Boyles, who “begged and begged to take classes after seeing her cousins on stage,” says her mother, Jennifer Boyles. “Now her brother (2 years old) tries to copy her as she practices at home.”

“It's fun to have our little group of Woodbury kids all know each other even though they are, for the most part, different ages," says Katie Bratland. Being a part of Rince na Chroi is more than just learning Irish dance, it means becoming part of a community.

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See Irish dancers this shamrock month:

March 8 Wellstead of Rogers, Rogers, 7:30 p.m.

March 13 Adult dancers performance at the Day of Irish Dance, Landmark Center, St. Paul, 2:50 p.m.

March 13 Irish Music and Dance Association’s Day of Irish Dance, Landmark Center, St. Paul, 1:05 p.m. on main stage accompanied by the Two Tap Trio

March 14 Freedom Pointe, Minnetonka, 6:45 p.m.

March 17 St. Pat’s Celebration, Landmark Center, St. Paul, 2:35 p.m. in the Weyerhauser Auditorium accompanied by the Two Tap Trio

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