Archive: Arts & Entertainment

(Trumansburg, NY)  Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, third graders at Trumansburg Elementary School will learn Irish dances and culture this March with the help of dance educator Nancy Kane.  The students will practice solo and group ceili dances while learning about Irish dance music and conversational Irish (a branch of the Gaelic language tree). Trumansburg art teacher Kate Sinko will guide the students’ creation of 2-D designs for Irish dance costumes, and those designs will be displayed in the Trumansburg Conservatory of Fine Arts in April through National Dance Week, April 23-May 2.


Starting March 1 and continuing through March 15, students in the classrooms of Andrew Burton, Whitney Dennis, Ellie Zimet, and Cathy Bair will take off their shoes and practice jigs and reels in their comparative cultures social studies classes.  One of the party, or ceili, dances they will learn is The Bridge of Athlone, which relates an incident in Irish history through movement.  From the very first class, they will be able to greet each other in Irish, recognize different Irish musical rhythms and instruments, and dance an easy reel step.

“I hope this is just the first of many Irish dance residencies in the schools,” says Kane.  “It’s a fun, challenging aerobic workout that also gives students a glimpse of the charm and energy of Irish culture.”

Kane worked with Andrew Burton to develop the residency.  She has studied Irish dance, language, and music in New York City and at the University of Limerick, where she took classes with Riverdance star Colin Dunne and other internationally known Irish artists.  She has published articles on Irish dance, presented lecture/demonstrations on the relationship of step dancing to American clogging and tap dance, and wrote the Irish dance section of the book, Dance and Culture:  An Introductory Reader.  Currently serving as a leader in the National Dance Association, she holds a Ph.D. in Dance Education and teaches at SUNY Cortland’s Performing Arts Department, Cortland’s Performing Arts Institute, and the Trumansburg Conservatory of Fine Arts.

The Arts-In-Education residency is funded by a Community Arts Partnership 'Local Capacity Building' grant and the Trumansburg Elementary School PTO.  Under this arrangement, the teaching artist works with teachers to develop a unit that supports the academic and arts curriculum while providing a special opportunity for students to experience the arts in innovative ways that help them achieve state learning standards.

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