Irish dance workshop in Lexington

We’re honored to announce that Bluegrass Ceili Academy is once again one of the sponsors of an exciting Irish dance workshop in Lexington coming this January 18-20.

Whether you tap, clog, Irish dance or just enjoy a good toe-tapping tune, we invite you to spend your weekend with us making music with your feet.  Join us as we bring acclaimed dancer and instructor Mary Beth Taylor to Lexington from Dublin, Ireland, for three days of traditional old style Irish séan nos and set dancing classes.

Visit our Workshop info page for the schedule, registration fees and class descriptions. 

What are you going to learn over the three-day workshop?  The older styles of Irish dancing we’ll study are perhaps less athletic and demanding on the dancer’s body than its modern competitive counterpart, but it is absolutely compelling to watch and listen to.

When you watch a sean nós dancer, you can also see the roots of a number of other percussive dance styles, such as tap, Appalachian clogging and flatfooting, and start to understand the bigger picture of the development of percussive dance.

Our Irish dance workshop in Lexington will also explore adding sound to group, or set, dances. Set dancing is traditional form of social dancing that is still very popular in Ireland today. Like céilí dances, sets are comprised of a series of figures. When doing sets, you can dance in a simple style or take it up a notch with ‘battering,’ which is putting sean-nós-style shuffling rhythms into the different figures.

Get signed up for our Irish dance workshop in Lexington

Take one class or take them all!  We have a special rate for those interested in taking the full Irish dance workshop in Lexington — $100 for both days. And new this year we have a special class for children and a quick-start class for beginner adults.

And then take what you’ve learned and share it. At the end of the workshop, dancers and their friends and families are invited to join us for a dance about at McCarthy’s Irish Pub in downtown Lexington.

All classes will be held at Artworks at the Carver School, 522 Patterson Street, in downtown Lexington.

Visit our Workshop info page for the schedule, registration fees and class descriptions.

Ready to sign up?

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER ONLINE FOR THE WORKSHOP