The Shoes
The most curious thing when performing an irish dance is the shoes . The dances can be performed with two different types of shoes- soft and hard. Depending on the dance you must dance with different shoes . with the hard shoes are danced Hornpipe,Treble jig ,Treble reel and the Traditional Sets . With the soft shoes are danced Reel , Slip jig and Light jig.
When performing a hard shoe dance the dancer uses his shoes as a musical instrument and resembles the music on which he dances with his feet . The most important in these dances is the precision of the tapps , following the rhythm of the music and keeping the position of the feet ( “cross & turnout”) during the whole dance . For that is needed total control of the dancer on his feet . The shoes have two parts – tip and heel . With the tip are made most of the tapps of the dance (like normal tapp or toe ) and with the heels the most common sound is called click and it’s a hit of the two heels of the dancer . The tip and the toe are made of fiberglass for better sound and durability . For the boys and the girls the shoes are the same .
For the boys and the girls the soft shoes are different because of the difference in the steps of the boys and the girls . The most important when a girl is performing is the smoothness of the performance and the gracefulness of the movements . Just like with the hard shoe dances again is needed
total control over the dancer’s body and precision of the steps . With the movements of the boys again is needed lightness all the time . In their dances the specifically is that the boy’s soft shoe has a heel and because of the fact that the most common step in the boys dances is the click which has to be made with precision and height.