The difference between set dances and setdancing

Here are a couple of examples of setdancing:  Los Angeles Set Dancers   and  Kildownet Half-Set.

"Setdancing" is the name of a (quite large) number of group dances from all Irish regions, and, as far as we know, they are never danced in competitions (please, if you're knowledgeable about setdancing, let us know if we're wrong). You can find a lot more information about setdancing on the website of  setdancing news.

In this danceform, the word "set" means "group": a "set" of eight people dance this dance.

On the other hand, "Set Dances" (or setdances, it is often written in one word as well - but in these pages, we'll stick to "set dances" to try to minimize the confusion) are solo step (heavy) dances that are danced to a set piece of music. In this case, the word "set" means "fixed": the dances are danced to "set music": "music fixed by tradition".

The Set Dances - "the Sets" for short - are an extremely interesting part of Irish solo dancing, because of their history, their tradition, their musical structure, which is often totally different from the "normal" heavy dances, and also because of their classification, which which takes a bit of time and effort to get used to.

Here's an example of a Set Dance: "King of the Fairies" (unfortunately, the image quality is not great, to say the least - but the dancer is lovely and the rhythm is great, so it's an example deserving of a place here ). Better image quality - and for those of you unfamiliar with Irish dancing competitions and presentations by competition dancers: this is a real "competition dancer look": "The Drunken Gauger".

The difference between Set Dances and the other solodances

• Set Dances are always heavy dances. If you play by the rules, a Set danced as a light dance is non-existant.
• In a "normal" heavy dance the choreography, and the choreography only, is important: the dancer should be able to dance the choreography to any piece of music - jig or hornpipe, as the case may be. That's one of the things that make solo dancing difficult: you may practice a dance for months, to any music that is available to you, but if you dance that dance in competiton, it may well be that you have to dance it to a piece of music you've never heard before. It will of course be in the time signature and at the tempo that you are used to, but the melody may be totally unknown to you. Still, you have to be able to execute that particular choreography correctly.
  A Set Dance on the other hand, is always, always danced to a specific piece of music - the choreography has been created to fit that particular melody.
• The structure of the Set - both music and choreography - is totally different.
  The structure of the Set music differs from the music structure that is regarded as "normal" in the Western music tradition (with the possible exception of jazz): a normal, simple melody is usually constructed of musical phrases, eight bars long, with question and answer phrases. A melody therefore consists of any (usually even) number of eight bar phrases.
  This is not the case with the Set Dances: they consist of a - usually shorter - first part (the Step), played twice (or three times, if you take the introductory bars into account), and a second - usually longer - part (the Set), played only once.
  Furthermore, in many of the Set Dances, the length of both Step and Set do not follow the "eight bars per phrase rule", which make them very strange to ears not used to hearing them. However, some of the Set Dances do have an eight bar Step, and a sixteen bar Set.

  As for the choreography: the Step is danced on the right foot, then repeated on the left foot. Nowadays, the Set is usually only danced on the right foot. It has to be said though, that the old, traditional Set Dances originally consisted of an introductory Step, followed by the Set, which could be several steps long (to add to the confusion) - the original, old traditional version of "Saint Patrick's Day", for example, has a Set that consists of five steps.
  Because of the Irish Dancing competition aspect, the Set Dances were over the years "cut down" to the shorter version: dancing the long, older versions of the dances in competition would make the feiseanna impossibly long - it was just a question of saving time. This short version, with just a Step on both feet, and a Set on the right foot only, is called the "Munster style", because it originated in the Irish Munster region, and it is the version that is generally danced everywhere at competitions these days.

 

The music and the danceform of the setdances

One of the dances lives a life of its own, as it were: "Is the Big Man within?" astarts as a slipjig (in 9/8), and changes into heavy jig (6/8) about halfway through. It is usually groupes with the heavy jig sets, but is - sadly - hardly ever danced.

The old, traditional setdances, and the modern, competition-setdances

Traditional set dances

The traditional set dances (also lovingly called "The Traditionals" ) are pretty unique: not only are they danced to fixed music (and tempo), the steps that are danced to these pieces of music, are also the old, traditional choreographies, wich should be identical, whereever in the world they are being danced. It is on purpose that we use the words "should be" here, because, as all these dances were danced in the different Irish regions in times gone by, there were (small) regional differences. These differences have stayed on, so small variations of each dance are possible. Even so, they are so small that it can be stated that the dances are more or less identical, on the whole. This of course means that dancers anywhere in the world - even though they have never met, and may dance very different styles - will be able to dance these old, traditional dances together.

Until recently, four dances only were officially regarded as being traditional setdances: "Saint Patrick's Day", "The Blackbird", "Garden of Daisies", and "Job of Journeywork". In the meantime, An Coimisiún le Rincí Gaelacha has added "King of the Fairies", "Three Sea Captains", and "Jockey to the Fair" to the list. These three dances - which, by the way, can still be danced as contemporary sets as well - are now allowed in traditional setdance competitions (with the traditional steps, of course!), but are not part of the official exams syllabi yet. Yet.
The level of the traditional setdances is would roughly be primary (tus ghrad).
Have a look at the list with full info on The Traditionals here.

Contemporary or modern set dances

Contemporary set dances are danced to traditional music on a list set down by CLRG (also with a fixed minimum speed), but the choreography is unique to each school/choreographer, and the level is advanced (ard ghrad). These dances are regarded as being of the highest level of difficulty , and they are one of the main attractions at small and large feiseanna (dance competitions) alike.

You can have a look at a list of allowed modern setdances, with time signatures and official minimum speeds here .