Hi Colleen,
Sorry about confusing you LOL. I'll try to explain. Cape Breton
stepdancing (that's what I'm trying to learn) is always done in hard
shoes and the steps are "close to the floor," meaning no high kicks.
Irish dancing, IIRC, includes hard shoe dancing but also soft shoe
dancing and some steps have high kicks. I believe that would be the
main difference.

So far I've learned strathspey and reel steps, plus a couple of jig
steps. I'm guessing strathspey steps are unique to CB stepdancing
b/c strathspeys come out of the Scottish tradition rather than the
Irish one. (I could be wrong there tho, b/c dance steps and musical
styles migrate).

There's a pretty detailed article about the history and evolution of
Cape Breton/Scottish stepdancing here
http://www.tullochgorm.com/scottish.html if you want to know more.

Anyway, in the end good dance music is good dance music from the
sounds of it all kinds of dance steps can be fun!

--- In slaintemhathlist@yahoogroups.com, Colleen/Tap
<oneireland@y...> wrote:
>
> so wait... *confused* haha. we called Irish dancing step dancing
and vice versa... lol.
>
> it's become pretty popular around here although my school is the
only one in the area. it's a lot of fun!
>
> what are you learning from the video?? what kind of steps i mean?
>
>
> "Rise up! Dance to a different beat! Rise up! HEY! Shakedown!" -
The Start "Shakedown!"
>
>
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