Formal Irish step-dancing is being challenged by the wilder, looser, more individual steps of sean-nós, writes Catherine Foley

Forget the pointed toes and the ramrod-straight backs, the ringlets and the embroidered costumes. Formal Irish step dancing is being challenged by something wilder, looser and sexier. Make way for sean-nós.

A craze for this kind of dancing - a loose-legged, individual form of traditional dance - is currently sweeping the country. Later this week, 50 youngsters in the under-12 category will be travelling to Westport, Co Mayo to compete on Friday as sean-nós dancers in the annual Oireachtas na Gaeilge arts festival. Last year there were just three dancers taking part in the same category.

Sean-nós dance numbers have almost trebled since last year across a range of age categories, with a total of 145 entrants to the competition this year. Last year, there were 64 competitors.

IT'S A FAIRLY recent phenomenon. "Only eight years ago we were forced to cancel the sean-nós dancing competition due to lack of participants," says Liam Ó Maolaodha, the festival's director. "This year the huge number of entrants means we'll be running qualifying heats before the main event.".

Steip, a live broadcast of the final of the competition on Saturday, is expected to be watched by half a million viewers.

The reason for this surge of interest is because "it got very sexy", says Breandán de Gallaí, dance director with Riverdance and one of this year's judges at the competition.

"People found traditional Irish step-dancing to be extremely formal, with the arms down by the sides and with a very strict format. Whereas in sean-nós dancing there really are no rules, you can inject your own personality into it. And it's very, very loose," he says.

"Sean-nós dancing is a version of Irish step-dancing that is less formal - there is no rigidity, whether in the body or even in what you do," he explains. In sean-nós, "it's up to you what you want to do. Some people have a very individual style. They might start off dancing but what they do afterwards, it just goes with the flow, whereas if I was to do a hornpipe I'd have a very specific idea, I'd have it well rehearsed."

De Gallaí says sean-nós dancing "is more lusty. It hits the ground and it's more earthy." And, unlike step dances such as jigs, reels and hornpipes, in sean-nós "your legs aren't crossed, they are much more relaxed and spread. And [in the past] maybe that was seen as ungainly, unchristian or whatever. I think there's a young generation of very cool, very sexy people who do it now. And you see them in the Oireachtas and it's just become very attractive."

"Irish step dancing with the crossed feet and the real proper modest way of dancing might have been influenced by the clergy," he adds.

IT'S DIFFICULT TO know how old this form of dance is, says Dr Catherine Foley (no relation), a former judge of the Oireachtas competition and course director of two MA programmes at the University of Limerick's Irish World Academy of Music and Dance.

"It wasn't really documented very much," she says. "Dance happens and people do it and it's ephemeral. And then it's gone, and people may remember it, but until fairly recently it hasn't been documented. There isn't an awful lot of study done on it."

Some people say there are influences of flamenco there, she says. "But is it or isn't it? We don't know, but that's what some of the people think in Connemara," she explains. "Other people think it came from maybe the step dances that they had, that out of that you'd have had individual dancers and individuals impressing people, or individuals expressing themselves - that it developed out of that and that's why today it's an extremely individual style." But, she adds, "it developed about 150 years ago. You can't go back beyond that."

She also believes the surge in interest in sean-nós is because we are "more confident culturally in our own traditions in Ireland" and "more comfortable" in expressing ourselves.

De Gallaí says sean-nós "is something that is from the fields or from the houses - it is indigenous to a certain area and it lacks formality".

"We as Irish people have this submissive subservience, we look down our noses at what defines us, and I suppose Riverdance the Celtic Tiger changed that. There is that confidence in being Irish and that is part of the revival of sean-nós".

As well as timing and rhythm, de Gallaí says sean-nós dance "is about creativity, about what the person does with their feet that is unique. And their own personality comes through. And it's about a quirkiness and a sexiness where they feel very very confident and very comfortable in their own skin."

The Oireachtas na Gaeilge festival runs from tomorrow until Sunday at venues in Westport, Co Mayo

The final of the Sean-nós Dancing competition will be broadcast live on Steip on TG4 on Sat at 3.30pm