Irish dancers take region by storm
JENNIFER PELLEY , Advertiser

Shawn Silver's energy and enthusiasm for Irish dance is almost tangible, traits which he easily conveyed to the people of the Exploits region when demonstrated and taught his art form to groups of eager beginners last week.

Mr. Silver was in Grand Falls-Windsor last week to give people in the region a taste of Irish dancing and to put out a calling card for people who may be interested in learning the dances. The positive response to the dancing was overwhelming and Mr. Silver will be back later this month to begin teaching the art form to a group of new students as a result.

"This sounds really deep and profound, but I can't tell you how it really changed my life in many ways because I know that we're entering into a new phase with our dance community in that we're bringing it past the overpass and we're going to set up shop in Grand Falls-Windsor," said Mr. Silver.

A professional Irish dancer and teacher operating out of St. John's, Mr. Silver received master dance training in Dublin, Ireland from world champion dancers Ronan McCormack, Roisin Cahalane and Gemma Carney with the Riverdance troupe, and Margaret Kelly, who instructed Mr. Silver in the ceili (group) dances. After a period of time living in Montreal and Toronto, Mr. Silver moved to St. John's in 1998 where he set up his iDance studio.

In the true spirit of Irish dance masters dating back hundreds of years ago, Mr. Silver has been expanding his dance school to include communities outside of the capital city. Dance masters of the past would travel from county to county in Ireland, spending several weeks in each community instructing people in Irish dancing. These dance masters were considered celebrities who brought an important part of Irish culture to the communities.

"So I'm really just trying to resurrect that dance master component where I can go into a place and set up shop, teach the culture, walk away from it for a little bit, have someone there to train, come back and critique and perfect and promote and regrow," said Mr. Silver.

As well, in the Irish dance world today, there are very few teachers - only about 2,000 in the world. So it is common for teachers to travel in order to bring dancing to a larger group of people.

For Mr. Silver, there are challenges to promoting dancing, even for someone as talented as he is.

"One of the things I find we're oftentimes up against is the stereotype of, 'Oh, he's a dancer. What does he have to offer,'" he said. "I think that comes from the fact that we haven't really perfected all of our dance here in Newfoundland yet. But I think now with this, people see there's an element of art and physicality to it that they appreciate."

And that was definitely the case in Grand Falls-Windsor last week. Mr. Silver was impressed with the interest and support he received in the community last week. He danced seven hours a day from Tuesday to Friday with over 1,000 people between demonstrations in schools, workshops and private lessons. His dance partner, Colleen Picard, travelled to Grand Falls-Windsor with him to help with the workshops.

"I found it to be a metropolis kind of mentality in a small town," he said. "I think you guys were really ready for some good culture and art."

Mr. Silver and Ms. Picard also performed at Kelly's Irish Pub on Saturday night, an event Mr. Silver describes as a riot.

"We danced and then the place just erupted into dance," he said. "I think everyone was feeling the spirit of excitement and dance and movement. We played some great music and danced our guts out."

Mr. Silver will be returning to Grand Falls-Windsor to offer Irish dance classes the end of April. Once dates are firmed up, they will be posted on his website www.idance.ca or interested people can contact Sara Sheehan by telephone at 489-3359 or by e-mail at dsh.sheehan@nf.sympatico.ca for more information.