Irish Dance Research Articles

Injury Patterns in Female Irish Dancers

To determine the type of Irish dance injuries requiring evaluation and treatment by a sports medicine physician. Cross-sectional retrospective chart review. Academic sports medicine center in the Midwest. Female Irish dancers who presented at an academic sports medicine center from June 2002 to September 2009. This was a retrospective chart review identifying injuries sustained to female Irish dancers in a single Irish dance company in a major metropolitan area. Dancers were evaluated and injuries were diagnosed by one sports medicine physician at an academic sports medicine center. Sixty-nine female Irish dancers, ages 8 to 23 years, sustained 217 recorded injuries. The top injuries included stress fractures (29.9%), patellofemoral pain syndrome (11.1%), Sever condition (6.0%), ankle sprains (5.1%), posterior tibialis tendonitis (4.6%), and plantar fasciitis (4.6%). The most common site for stress fractures were the sesamoids, comprising 27.7% of all stress fractures and 8.3% of total injuries. The majority of injuries were in the lower extremities (94.9%), remaining injuries involved the lumbosacral spine and pelvis (5.1%). Most dancers (79.7%) had multiple injuries. The number of injuries per dancer increased as the dancer's level increased. There was a trend for the average age of the dancers to decrease as the level of skill increased. Lower extremity injuries comprised the majority of Irish dance injuries. Stress fractures (29.9%), patellofemoral pain syndrome (11.1%), and Sever condition (6.0%) were the most common injuries.

Calculation of Muscle Loading and Joint Contact Forces during the Rock Step in Irish Dance

A biomechanical model for the analysis of dancers and their movements is described. The model consisted of 31 segments, 35 joints, and 539 muscles, and was animated using movement data obtained from a three-dimensional optical tracking system that recorded the motion of dancers. The model was used to calculate forces within the muscles and contact forces at the joints of the dancers in this study. Ground reaction forces were measured using force plates mounted in a sprung floor. The analysis procedure is generic and can be applied to any dance form. As an exemplar of the application process an Irish dance step, the rock, was analyzed. The maximum ground reaction force found was 4.5 times the dancer's body weight. The muscles connected to the Achilles tendon experienced a maximum force comparable to their maximal isometric strength. The contact force at the ankle joint was 14 times body weight, of which the majority of the force was due to muscle contraction. It is suggested that as the rock step produces high forces, and therefore the potential to cause injury, its use should be carefully monitored.

Competitive Irish Dance: Art, Sport, Duty (review)

Reviewed by: Competitive Irish Dance: Art, Sport, Duty Jill Franks Competitive Irish Dance: Art, Sport, Duty, by Frank Hall, pp. 150. Madison: Macater Press, 2008. Distributed by University of Wisconsin Press. $29.95. Frank Hall's book will appeal to a wide audience, including those interested in dance, anthropology, Cultural Studies, and Irish politics. Its style and content are not too technical for the reader unfamiliar with dance, though parts of chapters four and five contain meticulously detailed descriptions of dance steps that nonspecialists may wish to skip. The theoretical analyses of Irish dance as national symbol are also accessible to all readers, and free of the jargon saturation that characterizes many books in Cultural Studies. Over the course of a year of study and attendance at Irish dance classes, performances, and competitions, the anthropologist Hall (who is also a dancer and musician) researched two questions: what happens to an expressive form when it is put into competition, and what happens to an expressive form when it is linked to national identity? His answers, and his means of finding them, are clear, well-researched, and well-theorized. Hall's style is readable and personable, although readers would probably appreciate more discussion of his personal interactions with teachers and students of Irish dance; his quotations of teachers, adjudicators, and parents are so amusing and forthright that they spark the desire for more. Irish dance's link to national identity formation begins with the founding of the Gaelic League in 1893. Douglas Hyde's diagnosis of Ireland's dire need to form its own cultural identity gave rise to various promotions of Irish language, sports, and arts forms. Early feisanna were not just dances, but parliamentary meetings accompanied by sports and entertainment. Under the auspices of the Gaelic League, however, the dance portion of the feis became competitive. Partly out of embarrassment for the violence that occasionally erupted over adjudication standards for dance competition, a governing body, An Coimisiún, was established in 1929 with the mission to control all aspects of Irish step dancing. This move institutionalized the genre and raised questions [End Page 144] of authenticity and national identity. One of the most interesting parts of the book is Hall's analysis of three foreign importations to Irish step dancing: the heel click, the butterfly, and the toe stand. Paradoxically, these least Irish steps seem to receive highest marks from adjudicators in dance competition; a dancer's conformity to the original dance—if one can even speak of such a thing—is thus not the key requirement for excellence in this "Irish sport." Closely related to the issue of authenticity in dance steps is the question of posture. The chief characteristic of Irish step dancing, as opposed to other forms of folk dance, is stiffness of the upper body, combined with extreme flexibility and speed of movement of the legs and feet. This posture provokes much discussion of its origins and meanings. Hall's investigation of historical accounts reveals amusing hypotheses. One implausible explanation is that during the time of the Penal Laws, dancers held their upper bodies rigid so that passing British authorities looking into windows would not know they were dancing. Another fanciful interpretation is that the dancers were interested in demonstrating the kind of control of their bodies that the Catholic church imposed on their minds. Hall's discussion of the whimsical figure of the dance master is also entertaining. Often speaking and behaving as if he were above his own social class, the dance master inspired in his peasant students the desire to look and seem as if they belonged to the middle or upper classes. Here, controlled dance movements were one form of politesse or claim to social status. Dancers' concern for how Irishness is perceived, both inside and outside of the country, persists in today's competitions. Although adjudicators are aware that ornate costumes are costly—and thus accessible only to students of higher social classes—they admit to awarding points for fancy dress. Typical costumes feature several Irish symbols embroidered onto the shiny fabric of bodice and skirt, while the girl's tightly curled coiffure is topped by a glittering tiara. To be...

Dance-work: Images of Organization in Irish Dance

The Irish economic boom, commonly known as the Celtic Tiger, provides an interesting and unique opportunity to explore the relationship between the profound shifts in the organization of working life and in the production and consumption of culture. In this paper, we confine our inquiry into the relationship with one aspect of popular culture, namely dance, focusing on the phenomenon of Riverdance which emerged contemporaneously with the Celtic Tiger. We argue that both are deeply immersed in larger organizing discourses, historical narratives about national identity and civilizing attempts to control the body. We identify three distinct `moments' in the development of Irish dance, which we label as pre-national, `Traditional' Ireland; national, `Modern', Parochial Ireland and global, `Post-modern' Ireland. This provides a narrative through which we explore the transformation of working relations in Ireland during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Ornamentation in Irish Fiddling: Eileen Ivers as a Case Study

AbstractThis article is a study of ornamentation in the fiddling of Eileen Ivers. Ivers grew up in the Bronx, studied with Limerick-born fiddler Martin Mulvihill, and has since become one of the most well-known of contemporary Irish fiddlers. Although Ivers is known primarily for her Irish fusion playing style, her more traditional core style is reflected in this article, which is based on a series of interview-lessons. The types of ornaments and their placement, combination, function, and effect in Ivers's performance of Irish dance music are discussed.

The Injuries of Competitive Irish Dancers

Objectives The purpose of this study was to determine the rate and types of injury in competitive dancers of Irish Dance, establish the injury prevention measures used by dancers, and investigate any relationships between prevention measures and incidence of injury. There are no in depth published studies on injury rates or injury prevention strategies for Irish dance. Methods One hundred and fifty nine Irish dancers who were participants at the North American Irish Dance Championships (July 2-7, 2004) took part in this descriptive epidemiology study. Each participant completed a self administered questionnaire. The subjects were aged from 15 to 24 years (mean: 17.8; SD: 2.9). The number of years dancing ranged from 1 to 20 years (mean: 10.8; SD: 3.8). Results The results showed 79% (n = 125) of dancers had one or more injuries. The ankle (31%, n = 60) and foot (25%, n = 48) were the most frequently injured. Sixty-three percent (n = 121) of the dancers took over 21 days to recover from their injuries. Use of shock absorbent dance shoes significantly reduced the incidence of ankle injury (p < 0.0001). In addition warm up and cool down were associated with a decreased incidence of ankle injury (p < 0.0001 and p < 0.0001 respectively). Conclusions A variety of lower limb and in particular ankle injuries was reported by the competitive Irish dancers in this study. Injury prevention methods for ankle injury such as warm up, cool down, and use of shock absorbing dance shoes were associated with a decreased incidence of injury and warrant further investigation.

See You at the Hall: Boston's Golden Era of Irish Music and Dance (review)

Reviewed by: See You at the Hall: Boston’s Golden Era of Irish Music and Dance Sally K. Sommers Smith See You at the Hall: Boston’s Golden Era of Irish Music and Dance, by Susan Gedutis , pp. 252. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004. $27 (cloth). Although Irish music has been played and enjoyed in Boston since the first immigrant communities were established in the city, the era just after World War II produced the most memorable music venues in a small section of Boston's Roxbury neighborhood called Dudley Square, where Irish dance [End Page 149] bands performed the traditional music of Ireland—as well as popular American and Irish-American tunes—to the delight of thousands. Dances, held several times a week, afforded the Irish communities of the Boston area an opportunity to meet, talk, dance, and in some way recreate the feeling of home. Susan Gedutis, a Boston-area Irish musician and editor, has written a definitive guide to the era of the Dudley Square dance halls in See You at the Hall: Boston's Golden Era of Irish Music and Dance. Gedutis devotes most of her attention to the heyday of the dance hall era in Boston, which lasted from the 1940s until its slow decline in the 1960s. Thursday ("maid's night out") and Saturday night dances in the Dudley Square halls would sometimes last into the wee hours. Musicians became famous on Dudley Street, and several of them at least attempted to make a living making music at the dance halls, at weddings and other private gatherings, and sometimes, in the market for Irish recordings. This heady era lasted for more than two decades, but eventually succumbed to the combined forces of musical change and an aging clientele. As Irish families began to be established, young parents found no time for the dance hall. The new Irish immigrants were enamored of more recent musical styles, and the crowds for the dance bands shrunk. Out of the decline of the dance halls on Dudley Street came a different realization of the place and performance of Irish music in Boston. Dance bands gave way to show bands, whose demise, in turn, provided fertile ground for the establishment of the Boston chapter of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, which now boasts the largest membership of any CCÉ chapter in the world. Three familiar names seem to be at the center of each new permutation or setting of the Boston music world: Joe Derrane, Larry Reynolds, and Joe Joyce. These master musicians—now in their seventies—still thrive at the heart of Boston's Irish music community, and act as living repositories of the history of the music and its power to create and maintain continuity with the "sounds of home." Gedutis draws extensively on the oral histories of musicians in the dance bands that performed at the Dudley Square halls; she uses their reminiscences often, and well. Her book is episodic, rather than linear, and the story jumps back and forth between Boston and Ireland, between one era and the next. But this makes for a lively read, one that after a while takes on the distinctive swing and lift of a jig set. And sometimes Gedutis will throw her narrative to the winds in order to include a good story, such as the tale of Joe Joyce's stowaway trip by cruise ship to Cobh—a story that does nothing to advance her historical survey, but which is such a great improbable tale that the reader not only pardons, but welcomes, its inclusion. A limited study such as this must omit some parts of the mix. Gedutis mentions, but does not examine, the interplay between the Irish musicians and [End Page 150] immigrants who populated Dudley Street and the musicians and dance hall crowds in the same area who hailed from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Cape Breton music and dance have their own rich history in "The Boston States," and Gedutis's short section on the outstanding fiddler Bill Lamey and his organization of dances at the Rose Croix Hall in Dudley Square only whets the appetite for a more thorough treatment of the role of the...

Memories in Motion: The Irish Dancing Body

The aim of this article is to explore the Irish dancing body by combining the growing social science interest in mobility with the established area of the body as a site of culture. On the basis of ethnographic observations and interviews about dance and culture in Ireland, I will discuss the Irish dancing body in relation to the construction of social memory, the embodiment of values linked to Irish national identity, mobility, dance competitions and global touring. First, I will detail three distinct movement sequences from different dance forms in Ireland: competitive Irish dancing, dance theatre and Riverdance(the commercial Irish dance show). Second, I will look at how dance can be said to travel around Ireland, north and south, as well as back and forth to Ireland. The idea of the Irish dancing body offers an example of the unity of body and mind in dance, revealing also that abstract dance and movement communicate stories about their societies. In Irish dance, these stories feature displacement, longing and resistance, often steeped in the history. I conclude that this social memory connects a distinct Irish tradition with European modernity.

Creative Entrepreneurship in the Arts

The emergence of an unparalleled national economic performance, labelled the Celtic Tiger, has given Irish business educators the challenging task of analysing and recording their country's burgeoning growth over the past decade. As part of this development, Riverdance –an upbeat combination of Irish music and dance – hit the world stage, demonstrating that entrepreneurship and innovation are as much part of the success process within the creative industries as is the case in any other sector of the economy. By researching the advent and ongoing development of Riverdance and the follow-on show, Lord of the Dance, it is believed that invaluable insights can be gained into the creative entrepreneurial process, including the shows' particular characteristics, their development needs, how innovative entrepreneurs work, and the particular barriers they face. This paper shows how, through publishing a series of studies on Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, it has been possible to demonstrate that the evolution of ‘New Age’ Irish dance, with its unprecedented success abroad, can provide an important role model for both the arts/culture sector and the Irish business community in general. Additionally, these entertainment industry cases, among others, provide an opportunity for considering the confluence within Irish music in terms of its traditional, classical and contemporary forms, within the rapidly changing educational, social and cultural landscape of a burgeoning economy that has earned the title, the Celtic Tiger.

Performing identities: music and dance in the Irishcommunities of Coventry and Liverpool

This article will examine how British-born second- and third-generation Irish people use Irish music and dance in the production of an Irish cultural identity. The article draws on research undertaken with members of the Irish communities in the English cities of Coventry and Liverpool. The research was conducted with music and dance practitioners in Liverpool who strongly identify as Irish and also with schoolchildren in Coventry whose parents or grandparents were born in Ireland. The paper first explores the comments of the Liverpool respondents and points to how music and dance can offer a space in which different generations can mark out their affiliation or embody their Irishness. Secondly, the paper considers interview work with schoolchildren in Coventry, concentrating on their responses as listeners to Irish traditional music. Their comments point to the capacity of this music to resonate with multiple, even conflicting, productions of Irishness. The comments of all the respondents raise key debates about authenticity and the construction of identity.

See you at the hall: Boston's golden era of Irish music and dance

See you at the hall: Boston's golden era of Irish music and dance

Becoming Irish or Becoming Irish Music? Boundary Construction in Irish Music Communities

In recent years, Irish music has become the most prominent symbol of Irish national identity around the globe. Among the various activities that can be attributed to its rise to prominence is the recent Riverdance spectacle in which Irish dance and music become a pastiche reflecting a simulated version of Irish culture. This version is widely accepted as traditional Irish music and dance, although it bears little resemblance to what one might find in the town lands and villages scattered around Ireland, far from the tourist haunts. There is no doubt that Riverdance has helped to spawn the recent wave of Irish revivalist activities around the world. Today Irish music festivals, competitions and sessions are not only held everywhere in Ireland, but they can be found almost anywhere in the world. Just as frequently, descendants of Irish immigrants are fervently searching for a connection to their Irish ancestral roots. To further illustrate the growing interest in Irish culture, in the past year alone, there has been an amazing increase in the number of websites connected to everything imaginable that might be construed as having to do with Irish culture. Tourists the world over flock to Ireland to experience authentic Irish culture, especially real Irish music, most of them traveling from the United States. Furthermore, musicians (and aspiring musicians) all across the planet, regardless of their nation of birth, are picking up Irish instruments to play Irish music. One could say that Irishness is the haute couture of ethnic fashion today. It is trendy to be connected to the Irish. Although Riverdance, and all of its blossoming offshoots, have contributed to the increased attention to Irish music, it is a recent phenomenon. Probably the more salient and enduring reason for this unexpected turn of events has been the growing number of Irish music sessions, which have helped to spread Irish cultural music around the globe. Today Irish music sessions not only take place on a regular basis in Ireland, but they can be found virtually everywhere. How they have become such important vehicles for the promotion and continuity of Irish ethnic identity in an age where one's identity can be anything one desires, is the focus of this paper. The ethnography that inspired this paper examines three local Irish music sessions to obtain an understanding of the processes by which session musicians become members of session communities.1 This study focuses on three Irish music sessions held in two different cities located in a Midwestern region of the United States. Participant observations over the course of two years were supplemented with informant interviews and informal conversations. In addition, numerous sessions were observed on three separate visits to the Republic of Ireland beginning in February 2000 and ending in November the same year. Through observations of sessions and interviews with session musicians, we come to understand how the discourse surrounding the tradition and the musician's participation within the Irish music community serves to instill in the participants their beliefs about Irishness, the Irish music tradition, and their place within the tradition. More importantly, as we trace how musicians construct their identities within and around Irish music communities, we come to understand how individuals have developed a sense of identity and boundaries different from those constructed between nations, races, and cultures during the modern age. In addition to recent media-hype, there have been a plethora of books and articles written about various aspects of Irish music over the past several years (e.g., Breathnach 1971; Carolan 1997; Carson 1986, 1996; Coleman 1996; Curtis 1994; Foy 1999; Gillen and White 1990; Mac Aoidh 2000; McCarthy 1999; Mc Manus 1994; McNamara and Woods 1997; O Connor 1991; O Canainn 1978; O Giollain 2000; O hAllmhurain 1998; O Laoire 1999; O'Neill 1973; Shields 1993; Smith and Osdilleabhain 1997: Tunney 1991; Vallely 1999; Vallely and Piggot 1998; and Williams 1996). …

“Dance and Song of the Gael”: Pat Roche and Irish Dance in Chicago, 1933–1953

“Dance and Song of the Gael”: Pat Roche and Irish Dance in Chicago, 1933–1953

Treasures from the Attic: Viva Voce Records

During the second decade of this century, a dance craze swept North America and led to the development of an urban dance culture which was to last until the Depression, and to continue in a smaller sense until the beginning of the second world war. In New York City alone during the 1920s, some 28 Irish dance halls were in operation — often named for specific counties in Ireland — which featured Irish and American dance music. The emergence of radio and the birth of the ‘ethnic’ or ‘race’ recording industry at this time also contributed to the unique set of circumstances which was to lead to an explosion of Irish music recording during the 1920s. Many of the original Irish-American recordings of this era have recently been re-issued by former RTE producer Harry Bradshaw on his label Viva Voce Records in Dublin. The era, musicians and recordings are profiled here.

The Story of Irish Dance

The Story of Irish Dance

Irish Dance Bands in America

Irish Dance Bands in America

Stepping Out: Reading Rita Duffy’s Dancer

COVER The cover illustration is a reproduction of Dancer from Rita Duffy’s Palimpsest series . The editors of ÉIRE-IRELAND wish to thank Rita Duffy for permission to reproduce the cover painting, Dancing (figure 1), and paintings 1 and 2 from her Doyen series (figure 2). STEPPING OUT: READING RITA DUFFY’S DANCER ADELE DALSIMER AND VERA KREILKAMP Icham of Irlande Aut of the holy londe of Irlande Gode sir, pray ich ye, For of saynte charite, Come and daunce wyt me In Irlande anonymous, 14th century There are two main kinds of Irish dancing: (1) Riverdance, which is now simultaneously running in every major city in the world except Ulan Bator and which some economists believe is responsible for the Irish economic boom; and (2) real Irish dancing, in which men do not wear frilly blouses and you still may not express yourself, except in a written note to the adjudicators. the Irish Times, St Patrick’s Festival Programme, 1998 the fourteen works that make up Rita Duffy’s Palimpsest series of paintings provide a dreamlike epic of the artist’s childhood. The narrative content of Dancer, the image on the cover of this issue, draws the viewer into troubled sites of religious and state pressures on a Catholic child growing up in Northern Ireland. STEPPING OUT: READING RITA DUFFY’S DANCER 208 Dancer depicts a young Irish dancer frozen with apprehension as she begins her steps. She is encased in a restrictive apparatus with the shape of a flat table top. The figure’s immobilized head and upper body appear to be displayed—like the dome of a serving salver—on a lace doily or collar . The girl’s androgynous face is old for her asexual, prepubescent body. Partially surrounded by an orange aura, her medusa-like hair, each strand culminating in a snake’s head, stands on end. Her immobilized arms, tartan -skirted lower body, and bobby-socked legs appear beneath the restricting surface—as do two ball-and-claw feet of a Victorian table. Her rigid feet and body, obscuring the pillar and third foot of the table, form the front edge of a shadow circle created by the table top—a circle suggesting the controlled boundaries of a step dancer’s performance surface. Overhead , at least five toy-sized madonnas or nuns float through the air, propelled by helicopter-like rotors. The carpet at the girl’s feet is decorated with spirals—perhaps alluding to ancient Irish decorative motifs, but more obviously to designs Duffy typically uses to indicate the Axminster carpets of her childhood home. Palimpsest, the title of Rita Duffy’s series of autobiographical paintings, denotes a manuscript in which the original writing has been effaced to make room for new words; the title suggests the artist’s fragmented layering of personal and collective memories of a Catholic girlhood in the North. But “palimpsest” also refers to the technique of drawing, rubbing out, and redrawing that Duffy employed on the wax impregnated paper she used as the canvas for Dancer. Questioned about the ephemeral nature of some imagery in the painting—for example, about figures that are barely visible in the carpet—Duffy explained how she moved elements of the painting from foreground to background as she worked (Interview, 1998). The dreamlike layering of consciousness is thus illuminated and reproduced by a palimpsest technique. The girl in the painting is not dancing for pleasure; her erect hair, stony countenance, and rigid posture all signal a terror she cannot disguise. Dancer as well as the related painting, Dancing (figure 1, page 210), encodes the pressures a young Northern child felt as she participated in rituals enforced by family bonds to the Catholic Church and the Irish state.1 Competitive solo step dancing, promoted as the purest form of Ireland’s dance STEPPING OUT: READING RITA DUFFY’S DANCER 209 1 Duffy explains that her childhood step-dancing classes, held in a Catholic church on the ourtskirts of Belfast, were a consequence of her mother’s desire to affirm an Irish background while raising children in a Protestant area in Northern Ireland (Interview, 1998). STEPPING OUT: READING RITA DUFFY’S DANCER 210 Figure 1. “Dancing...

A Killing in New Town by Kate Horsley

176 Western American Literature A Killing in New Town. By Kate Horsley. (Albuquerque, New Mexico: La Alameda Press, 1996. 270pages, $14.95.) Winner of the 1996 Western States Arts Federation Book Award for fiction, A Killing inNewTownisthe secondnovel inKate Horsley’strilogy about latenineteenthcentury NewMexico. The first novel, Crazy Woman, currently inpaperback, is a varia­ tion of the nineteenth-century Indian captivity narrative with a heroine called crazy because she insists onher selfhood. The last volume ofthe trilogy, “Careless Love,”an accountofayoungman’sodysseyfromBostontoNewMexicoinsearchofhisheritage, is nowin afinal draft. Itgoes without sayingthatlandscape isasintegral apartofwesternfictionasisthe heath in aThomas Hardy or the moor in a Emily Bronte novel. In addition to its land­ scape, however, A Killing inNewTown is populated by figures who, intheir complexi­ ty, aremore than amatch foritsrailroad settingin 1880’sNewMexico. The leadcharacter, ElizaPelham, wife ofarailroadforeman, has hadhertwo chil­ drenabductedandabusedby amalevolent salesmanwhohas cometoNewTownonthe train withhis catalogofmerchandise andhis orderbook, Babbitt’sevil twinofagener­ ationbefore SinclairLewis’s, whotirelesslyboosts theconsumergoodsthattherailroad has brought west. Soiled dove or prairie madonna—Eliza is neither and both. She has hadanadulterous affairwithamerchantintown; sheisanalcoholic; but shegoesonthe trail afterher missingchildren withan intensitythat canonly be satisfied withblood. Eliza’s unlikely allies are Bridie, a consumptive Irish dance hall girl with just enough of abrogue to make her tragedy authentic, andtheApache Robert, the product of an eastern Indian school whohas come home to search for his Indianness under the layeringsofMelvilleandMozarthehas acquiredduringhis sojourninPennsylvania. He willinglypaysforself-discoverywithhislifewhenheisunjustlylynchedforhorsetheft. His dying words, “I am your enemy,” doom him in the eyes of whites but are his epiphany, intendedas an affirmationofwhohe is. While theplot involvingthe rescue ofthechildren is linear, bipolar structural ele­ ments reminiscent of Hawthorne’s short stories and Melville’s Billy Budd add texture and tension: the mountains and the plains, Eros and Thanatos, the Civil War past and the 1880’s present. NewTown, a village on the plains, is filled with the noise of car­ penters’hammers. One has to travel a distance to the mountains before the sound of hammers is superseded by bird calls. Adulterous lust, mother love, married love, love offriends areallpartofEliza’sexperience. But she isalsosurroundedbydeathoffam­ ily, friends, andenemies. Twentyyears aftertheCivilWar, Elizastill cannot forget itor herfirst lovekilled at thebattle ofFranklin, Tennessee. TheCivilWar, however, looms larger than her memories as atransplanted Southerner. The Salas family ofNewTown lost a sonat the battle ofGlorietaPass, NewMexico, sometimes called theGettysburg oftheWest.Thepastandpresentcometogetherwhen,uponlearningofRobert’slynch­ ing, a deeply distraught Eliza asks plaintively who will tell his mother, the echo of a line from the poignant Confederate wartime song, “Somebody’s Darling,” mentioned earlier in the text. KateHorsley’sgreat affectionforthetricultural Southwestanditspeople isevident everywhere in this novel in which Hispanics, Native Americans, and Anglos are all majorplayers. HerAnglos areconfusedbyalandinwhichthey arethe newcomers; her Reviews 111 Hispanicspossessthedignityandwalkthemoralhighgroundofapeoplewhohavebeen rooted inthe land for generations; herNativeAmericans are burdenedbythe contradic­ tions forceduponthemby asocietythat wantstomakethemoverinits ownimage. Out ofthese three cultural strands, Kate Horsley has created anextraordinary set ofcharac­ ters interactinginanarrativewelldeservingofthe awardit hasearnedfromtheWestern StatesArts Federation. IVANMELADA UniversityofNewMexico Walking the Twilight II: Women Writers of the Southwest. Edited by Kathryn Wilder. (Flagstaff, Arizona; NorthlandPublishing, 1996. 245 pages, $14.95.) Although Walking the TwilightII was conceived as a collection of short fiction by women in the Southwest, fewer than half of the twenty-five pieces create a satisfying, fictional cosmos in which characters are revealed and developed through their actions. Instead, editor Kathryn Wilder has compiled numerous personal essays, prose poems, andanecdotes—allperfectlylegitimate forms,but ifWilderconsciouslydecidedagainst acollectionof short fiction, herediting shouldreflect andexplain the present collection ofdisparateforms. Unfortunately, Wilder’sheadnotes atthebeginningofeach selection areprimarilybiographical, offeringless insight tothereaderthan ifshehad simply stat­ ed whethereachpiece shouldbe read as fictionornonfiction. While the forms represented here are diverse, the voices seem strangely homoge­ neous. Never have I read so many thin rationalizations for women pursuing the wrong men, wistfuldescriptionsofthewaylightplays ondesertlandscapes, sadlittleritualsfor freeingoneselfofex-lovers, andstemsermonsaboutthevalueoftheenvironment. Some oftheobviouslynonfictionalpiecesleandangerouslytowardatoneofNew-Agedreami­ ness. InMerionMorriganSharp’sFull Circle, forexample, awomanexclaims, (without ashredofirony), ‘“OhGoddess, I hurt somuch!’” The few examples of fiction that do appear are quite remarkable, however. Ellen Winter’s “The PriceYouPay,” about a woman who escapes a bad marriage, is the kind of story that slides along so easily you hardly notice theneat structure, uncanny phras­ ing, andvividimagery, until youturnthelast page over, wishingthere were more. Each sentence reveals as it conceals: MyhusbandisaChristianman,Isay.Hedoesn’tbelieveinbirthcontrol. He choppedmydiaphragmintwoonourhoneymoon. I still rememberthewaythepiecesfell intothe snow. Anotherjewel is Phyllis...

Irish Dance

Irish Dance