Irish Stepdance with Siobhan Butler & Nuala Kennedy
Saturday September 19, 2020 11:30am BST Performance by Irish Stepdancer Siobhan Butler, with flute player and singer Nuala Kennedy. Followed by an interview with Siobhan.
Siobhan Butler has been honing her craft as a percussive dancer since childhood. In her 20+ years as a dancer, she has had the privilege of performing and teaching around the world, often collaborating with some of the luminaries of traditional music from the North Atlantic. Her specialty in Irish dance traditions can be seen through her in demand workshops, performances and lectures. Since moving to Ireland from the US in 2016, Siobhan’s primary influences as a percussive dancer are some of County Clare’s greatest Set dancers and their unique “battering” style. Growing up as a competitive Irish step dancer in the United States, Siobhan’s scope of “Irish dance” was initially quite limited. She credits her professional teaching experience, beginning in 2005, as the pivot point to learning not just the practical components of dance, but also its cultural contexts and histories. She went on to study Anthropology and Ethnochoreology where she was awarded a BA from Goddard College in 2015 and an MA from the University of Limerick in 2018. Oral history, folklore, and heritage continue to serve as huge inspirations for all of Siobhan’s creative work.
Siobhan lives in Ennistymon, County Clare with her husband, stonemason and musician, Dominic Keogh. www.siobhanbutler.com
Nuala Kennedy is known for her creative reworking and reimagining of traditional songs and for her unique Irish flute style, formed in Dundalk, County Louth and honed in her long-time adopted home of Edinburgh, Scotland. Now living in Ennis, County Clare and with four solo albums to her credit, Nuala is a musical adventurer who is known world-wide as a superlative performer of traditional music. She has graced the cover of Irish Music Magazine, Sing Out! and regularly appears on the main stage at festivals and venues around the world.
Her roots are, first and foremost, in Irish music, but she ‘something of a genre bender’ according to Living Tradition magazine and has performed and recorded with artists such as Will Oldham, and on hit TV shows such as American Gods. In 2019 she released a critically acclaimed live album with two Norwegian musicians under the name Snowflake Trio.