BSS News 18. 4. 2012
BSS 2012 update
Firstly, we try to improve the step dancing teaching for the largest beginners / primary group by adding another teacher. This will significantly decrease the number of dancers in one group and the teacher will have more time to devote to individual members of the group. Besides Tereza Loužecká Bachová and Tereza Bernardová we will have Andrej Mikulka, a graduate of the Irish World Music and Dance Academy in Limerick, dancer of several shows and dance projects. Complete beginners will be taken care of by Markéta Utišilová and conversely the most advanced dancers who are no newcomers to the BSS will be tutored by Ronan McCormack.
We consider a huge success the presence of a demanded Irish set dancing teacher, Pat Murphy. From my experience I can say (and colleagues who had the opportunity to attend a seminar with Pat will confirm this) that he is an extraordinarily gifted teacher, who is very easy to understand and under whose very sensitive direction one can penetrate into the secrets of the most complex sets. Pat is the author of three collections of set dances and is always able to convince everyone that he remembers almost all of them.
Music teachers include those who are already known from their past involvement in BSS. The first exception is Ruadh Duggan (IRL), who will teach the fiddle. Her horizont is a little wider – flute, dance and this it is perhaps not surprising that she is also a graduate of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in Limerick. A brand new addition offers lessons to play the harp, an instrument that features as the national emblem of Ireland. Václava van der Meijs (CZ), an excellent player on this instrument accepted our offer to teach. We hope that a sufficient number of musicians will prove their interest to participate so that we may not have to cancel any courses of these excellent teachers.
Another novelty in test operation is an offer of ceilí dance lessons. Founders of two Moravian dance groups Katka Báňová and Anna Novosadová aim to extend people’s knowledge of these dances in order to maximize their use for common entertainment. This will definitely not be a competition drill, but rather dancing for people’s own enjoyment. Lessons are included in the daily schedule and supported by a very affordable tuition price.
Sean nós singing and Irish language lessons have long been settled in the summer school schedule as representatives of the most authentic and most traditional aspects of Irish identity. High-quality teaching (Máire Bríd Ní Mhaoilchiaráin and Radvan Markus) is a guarantee of quality contact with this part of Irish culture.
Also, some well-tried and some new elements will be included in the accompanying programme to ensure that participants will not be bored in the time between lessons. We will again focus on current development on the global dance scene in a seminar lead by Ronan McCormack. For those interested, we will be repeating a seminar expressively titled “How not to kill a dance group”. It will be more of a discussion on how to lead or manage a dance team. Judging from the situation in the Czech Republic, it is a more than necessary topic. There will certainly be sessions and a ceilí evening with live music in KC Novodvorská, film screenings with interesting documentaries from the world of dance, etc. I think the participants have certainly something to look forward to and we are looking forward for them in advance.
VB
Václav Bernard
