"Ceud Mile Failte"
Signs wishing "100,000 Welcomes" in Gaelic greeted the 200 attendees at the third annual Irish & Scottish Celtic Dance Ceiliah (pronounced kay-lee.) Held at the Grand Traverse Academy gym Saturday night, the event featured the music of Tanglemere and the calling of Scottish dances by Lee Gwyn and Irish dances by Karen McCarthy.
Five members of the Celtic Fire Highland Dancers and three guest dancers demonstrated a number of traditional Scottish pieces, including the Highland Fling, Sword Dance and Sailor's Hornpipe. Members of McCarthy's Irish dancing class at Dance Arts Academy demonstrated a number of Irish jigs, a hard shoe number and country dances.
"I like to dance and I like the food, too," said Rachel Courville, 10, a member of the Celtic Fire troupe. "I think the Irish [dancing] is harder because I don't know it."
Peggy Russell of Flint, who dances with the White Thistle Highland Dancers, saw it differently.
"People are more familiar with Irish dance because of Riverdance but the Scottish is less familiar," she said.
Noted bagpiper Ron Wilson again traveled from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, to accompany dancers demonstrating Scottish moves. The ceiliah also welcomed storyteller Jill Bert, who wove a tale for young and old at the evening's midpoint.
The combined ceiliah has its roots in the Irish events sponsored by Ancient Order of the Hiberians, the Irish-American Club of Traverse City and the Bayside Travelers. Starting in 1998 and for the next five years, McCarthy put together an Irish Ceili before passing on it in 2004.
"It just got to be too much for me to organize," she recalled.
That year, Gwyn decided to have a Scottish dance for the public in February and invited McCarthy to teach at it. The idea to combine forces of the Celtic cultural cousins was a natural next step.
Last year's event - moved to March to coincide with St. Patrick's Day -- was deemed a great success by organizers and dancers alike. The ceiliah, which should be an annual tradition for years to come, has bolstered ties between the Irish community and the Scottish community in the area.
"It's really fun because the Scottish and the Irish are cousins, there's never been fighting between them," said McCarthy. "There's a little bit of a goofy rivalry but it's like the rivalry between cousins or siblings. It's a good-natured rivalry."
While similar, each dance tradition has a distinctive history: Scottish stems more from storytelling and martial roots while the Irish roots are murkier. The Irish country dancing that McCarthy teaches, both in her formal classes or at the ceiliah, is lively, noisy and dancers jump around a lot. She terms it the kind of dancing that families would do together in a pub or at gatherings in Ireland.
The differences in music and movements between dance styles of the two countries are subtle but clear to the experienced eye.
"Scottish movements are stiff in front with movements out to the side," McCarthy added. "Irish dancers cross their feet and they keep their arms very stiff; if they do movements with them they are very stylized."
Bottom line for both cultures is the camaraderie and fun of a ceiliah, the joy of dancing to uplifting music together.
"I think the most important thing to me is to see people out there having a good time and smiling and laughing and enjoying it with their children," said Gwyn, who taught the Blue Bell Waltz and the Highland Schottische, among others.
"It doesn't matter if you don't understand the steps or the dance, it's just moving the body and having fun with your friends," she said.