We used to be the dance world's wallflowers. Then Michael Flatley and Jean Butler made us proud. Now we're ready to move our hips, writes Fiona McCann
'Are you dancing?" he asks, having shuffled across the empty 1950s dance floor to the gaggle of girls at its far edge. "Are you asking?" she responds cheekily before leading him to the centre of the hall as the chaperones look on. In the 1980s version, as Take My Breath Away starts the slow set - not so much a dance as a mating ritual - he sidles up and asks: "Will you dance with my friend?" More recently, women throw finger-clicking shapes on a club's beer-sticky dance floor while men crowd around the edges, clutching their pints grimly.
We have certainly evolved from the straight-armed jiggery of traditional Irish dancing and the somewhat more participatory set dancing and showbands. We've also had Riverdance, when Ireland suddenly became synonymous with dance and we basked in a shared pride (even though we knew that most of us would require medical attention were we ever to try kicking our legs as high as Jean Butler and Michael Flatley). But have we changed enough, particularly given our exposure to new cultures, to stop being the wallflowers of the dance world?
If Friday night at the Mint Bar, at the Westin Hotel in Dublin, is anything to go by, the Irish dancing scene has changed for good. It's salsa night, and the basement dance floor is a throng of bodies. Latin rhythms are pumping through the speakers, and the young crowd is spinning and grooving with a distinctly un-Irish abandon. Snake-hipped men are twirling wiggly women around the floor with a skill and command that were never on show at GAA hall discos.
Many, admittedly, are of Latin origin - Brazilian, Cuban, Ecuadorian - but many others are Irish. "Having been away for years, I'm interested in things from all over, and thought I'd check out Cuban salsa," says Nora, who is from Dublin. It's partly the cultural mix that draws her to nights like this. "They attract a very multicultural crowd, and I've seen as many Latinos in the Mint Bar as I've seen in Dublin in six months."
According to Owen Cosgrave of Just Dance, Irish interest in Latin dances has rocketed in the nine years the company has been in business. "There's been a massive increase. We've noticed Irish guys are becoming much more Europeanised, so they're seeing the ability to dance as a tool for socialising." And Ireland's growing immigrant population is also taking part, he says. "We get people from everywhere: Poland, Nigeria, China."
The quick, sweaty pace of salsa could not be more different from the slow-moving rhythms of the Argentinian tango, which polishes a hotel-room floor just across the Liffey every Wednesday evening. Upstairs in Wynns Hotel, couples are shuffling soft-footedly around the dance floor to old-style tango tunes.
The music stops and a strongly-accented voice commands: "Change partners!"
Monina Paz emerges, all sparkles, heels and irrepressible glamour, and begins to work her way around the floor, giving personalised instruction to her students. They're of all shapes, sizes, nationalities and ages.
Eddie is 62. He has been dancing tango for a year and a half. "I started because I wasn't going out at night, and I wanted to improve my social life, meet people," he says, having bowed out to sit for a set. "I took to it immediately," he adds proudly. Now he tangoes three times a week, and he can't get enough of it.
He's not the only one to become hooked. Urve, from Estonia, has been dancing tango for two and a half years, having discovered it in Dublin. "I am addicted to tango. I can't live without it any more," she says. "Every dance is unique," she tells me, her eyes lighting up as she describes how this sensual, seductive dance, born in the brothels of Buenos Aires, makes her feel. "The guys can make you feel beautiful on the floor." Then she rises elegantly, to dance with a German who regularly twirls her across the dance floors of Dublin. He takes her in his arms, she leans towards him and they get lost in the throng of couples who have entered to practise now that classes have ended and the event has turned into a milonga, or tango club.
Few people come with partners, yet everyone gets a dance. And despite the common perception about Irish men and dancing, there seems to be no shortage in this room; the women, who traditionally wait until they are asked to dance in tango, are almost constantly on their feet.
Keith, a 31-year-old Dubliner, has been dancing for only three months, but already he sashays across the floor with the grace of a natural Latino. "I went to Buenos Aires for three months, to learn Spanish, and took up tango while I was there," he says. Now he dances almost every night. It's such a languorously intimate dance that it's hard to imagine how those with other halves get away with swapping partners for such sensual moves. So far it hasn't been an issue for Keith. "I don't have a girlfriend, but if I did she'd have to dance tango, as I'm out dancing every night."
Watching the couples move in the half-light, he leading, she caressing his leg with the toe of her shoe as she waits for his next command, it's clear this dance has a traditional view of gender roles. "But," Keith says, "nobody's looking at him. Everybody's looking at the girl."
Another dance craze that has hit Ireland is just for women. "We've had a few requests from men, but we don't teach them," says Tonia Rau, who teaches six-week pole-dancing courses. To the sound of Britney Spears's I'm a Slave 4 U, Rau runs through some of the moves - with names such as the Sunbather and Wonderwoman - for a dozen twentysomething women who then spin around practice poles in the tiny Harcourt Street venue. It's as much about keeping fit as it is about dancing.
Nashid, who is from Derry, decided to try pole-dancing after reading that it was becoming popular among celebrities trying to stay in shape. "I hate exercise usually, but I said I'd give it a go. I get a workout from the pole - and from laughing as well," she says as Rau yells instructions.
Nashid's friend Terryann has already resolved to sign up for the intermediate course. She says her boyfriend is delighted at her new pastime, despite never having seen her moves. "I don't have a pole, but he says he's going to bring me on the Luas some night to have a dance," she says, laughing.
Rau is teaching the Wonder Woman, one slender leg wrapped around the pole. It's far from The Walls of Limerick as she flips herself upside down. But pole-dancing, salsa and tango are just the start. The new Irish are a twinkle-toed nation, and they are also taking up belly-dancing, African dancing, the cha-cha . . . The list is as endless as our newfound energy.
And, as we take to the floor in droves once again, it may initially seem that not all that much has changed. "Are you dancing?" he may still ask. "Are you asking?" she may still reply. But as he leads her on to the floor, the moves to follow are anyone's guess.
GET UP ON THE DANCE FLOOR
Cuban Salsa Ireland runs a club in the Mint Bar at the Westin Hotel, Dublin, on Friday nights, as well as classes on Tuesday nights at K3, on Lower Liffey Street, Dublin 1. See www.cubansalsaireland.com or call Alex on 087-7472633.
Salsa Ireland runs classes all over the country. See www.salsaireland.com or call Kathleen on 086-2547319.
... Just Dance teaches a variety of styles. See www.justdance.ie or call Owen on 01-8273040.
For more about salsa nights at the Garda Club on Thursdays and Sundays, see www.danzon.ie or call Hilary on 087-9172939.
For more on Monina's tango classes and milongas, see www.tangoireland.com or call 086-3166410.
Cork Argentinian Tango Society runs classes and milongas on Wednesday nights. Call Aileen on 087-2627887.
For pole-dancing classes around the country, see www.polestars.ie or call 1890-882324.