Thursday, March 28, 2024

Uh Oh, It’s A Black Thing Now! Diversity Within Irish Dance is Steadily Increasing | WATCH

Irish dancers
Neustadt in Holstein, Germany – August 4, 2019, European Folklore Festival. Folk Dance Group. traditional dance, Set-Dancing, Irish folk dance in contemporary Irish black shoes / iStock

*Imani Johnson has made mainstream news headlines and achieved Internet stardom due to her love for Irish dancing. 

The Black Atlanta teenager “is one of the best Irish dancers in the country” as reported by Essence, and her impressive skills have earned her a slew of awards and accolades, including placing “second in her age group at the U.S. nationals in 2021 [and] w[inning] her group in the Southern regionals in 2018 and 2019.” 

Johnson was one of the few Black competitors in Irish dance when she first started out and said “it was a bit challenging at first. ‘I would want to see someone like me, so I could have someone to relate to.” 

According to the report, diversity within Irish dance has been steadily increasing. There are Irish dance schools from Long Island to China to Mexico. As noted by Dearbhla Lennon, public relations officer and sanctioned competition adjudicator for CLRG, “once they start dancing, you immediately look to their feet. Feet are feet. It has absolutely zero to do with [the] color of those feet,” she said, NPR reports. 

OTHER NEWS: Jody Watley and VP Kamala Harris Showed Support at 2022 Capital Pride Event in Washington, D.C.

@yourangleyuordevil #irishdance #fyp #keepingactive #spacethings #foryou ♬ Savage Remix – Megan Thee Stallion

Black Irish dancer Morgan Bullock from Virginia was accused of cultural appropriation in 2020 with her video choreography to Megan Thee Stallion and Beyonce’s hit single Savage” — check out the clip above. She clapped back by reminding the haters about her years of dedication and practice. Hear more about her love of the dance via the YouTube clip below.

 

Though many Irish dance students are white, “I would say probably over 70 percent of our dancers have no Irish connection whatsoever,” said Emma Burke of Atlanta Irish Dance by Burke Connolly, the dance school Johnson trains in. “I think that’s true for a significant portion of Irish dance schools around the world. A vast majority of it is people who’ve just fallen in love with the dance form.” 

“I’ve had people come up to me and be like … ‘You motivate me to keep dancing because it reminds me that there are people who look like me,’” said Johnson. 

Here’s more from the report: 

Over the years, Irish dancers of color have been “making a name for themselves in the sport – Julia O’Rourke, who is half-Filipino and half-Irish, has won four Irish dance world championships.” Joel Hanna, also of Filipino descent, “started Irish dancing in the mid-1980s…excell[ing] as a competitor in the world’s largest the world’s largest Irish dance organization An Coimisiún le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG),” and half Japanese, Tokiko Masuda, also competed at the World Irish Dancing Championships alongside Hanna.

Mark Howard, founder of Trinity Irish Dance Company, said “Irish dance belongs to everyone.”

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