Festival Irish dance
"Festival dance" is a specialised form of Irish dancing, which can be traced back to the 1950s, when celebrated dance teacher and choreographer, Patricia Mulholland, broke away from the Irish feis movement to offer Irish dance to performers on both sides of the community.
Moving away from the pageantry sometimes associated with the feis style, the form focuses on the individuality of each dancer’s style of movement and appearance; festival Irish dancing is unique to Northern Ireland.
Costume: female dancers wear school dresses; which are simply embroided dresses and normally made of velvet and have a flowing cape. Younger dancers wear white socks and the older dancers wear black tights. Male dancers normally wear a black trouser and shirt which matches the school colours, sometimes with a tie, waistcoat, cummerbund or cape.
Hair: unlike the feis style, festival dancers do not wear wigs, the female's hair is worn naturally, accompanied by a simple crystal or silver coloured headband.
Shoes: heavy or hardshoes (the same as feis dancers, leather shoe, with tip and heel, and leather buckle). The light shoe, or pump, is different from the feis style. Festival dancers both male and female wear a canvas shoe, similar to a ballet shoe, secured by black broad elastic in a figure of eight around the shoe.
Style: festival Irish dancing is a graceful style; the dance focuses on each dancer's individual style rather than what they look like. Dancers seem to flow around the floor and there is a lot less leaping and kicking. Festival dancers are known for their slow slip jigs and slow original set dances. Slip jig (9/8 time) speeds are around 80 bpm whereas feis dancers' slip jig is a speed of 113 bpm. The original set dances start around speed 50 bmp.
Festival dancers can be quite dramatic; some dancers keep their head to the front when dancing and some dancers spot (whipping the head); this is something not seen with feis-style dancers. Festival dancers do not normally smile when dancing.
Associations and schools: the association for Northern Ireland is the FDTA (Festival Dance Teachers Association) The association for England is the FIDTA (Festival Irish Dance Teachers Association).[1]
Currently there is only one festival Irish dance school in England, and they hold the European championships, this is the only competition that combines both festival and feis dancers.
Competitions: festival competitions are normally called "competitions" or "festivals" rather than "feis" or "feisanna". The most prestigious competitions for festival dancers are the Ulster Championships, the Northern Ireland Championships and the European Championships. All of which are very coveted titles.