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Stranded in Nashville

Nashville flood

The flooded road that stranded 51 tourists from Philadelphia.

When the Irish emigrated to America, they brought with them their love of music and song. Much of this heritage was instilled in future generations in the form of country and bluegrass music. The songs of love, hardship, and tragedy, the reels and other tunes battered out on barn floors and stages, live on in Nashville, Tennessee.

On April 27, a group of 51 travelers left from Philadelphia to visit this mecca of traditional, old-time country music. The group was a cross-section of folks who had heard about through the Irish Center on or on the Sunday Irish Radio Shows when it was announced by Vince Gallagher and myself. Out of the 51 folks, well more than half were Irish-born and had grown up listening to Brenda Lee, Patsy Cline, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, among others. This was their first time to see the halls and honky-tonks where the music had been played for years.

Little did any of us know that we were going to be caught up in the extreme weather story of week—the torrential rains and flooding that left much of Nashville and its environs under water and as many as 19 people dead.

But when we arrived in Nashville a week ago, we started out as enthusiastic tourists. Our first stop: the Country Music Hall of Fame. One of the current exhibits was “The Williams Family Legacy” charting the tragic, short life of one of country music’s biggest stars, Hank Williams. Providing on-board entertainment were three of Philadelphia’s finest musicians (and comedians): Luke Jardel, Fintan Malone and Pat Kildea. The three of them have played in a dozen or more local Irish groups, duos or bands, experience that served them well when they were called on to lift the spirits of some stranded travelers and beleagured locals.

Although we were in the home of country music, we managed to end our first evening in Mulligan’s Pub singing along to Irish music. Our second day, bright and sunny, was spent wealthy musicians’ homesteads and the haunts of Nashville. We spent some time at the Ryman Auditorium and then the Grand Ole Opry.

It started to rain on Saturday, and we made our soggy way to the Hermitage, the home of President Andrew Jackson, then to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel Complex, luxury hotels are set completely under glass with beautiful indoor gardens, restaurants, a small river flowing through, shops and even a boat ride. Most of the group went to the historic St. Mary’s Cathedral in Nashville, dating back to the Civil War, to go to Mass where we discovered the visiting priest was from Dublin, Ireland. Our prayers were to serve us well over the next few days.

We started a special evening at the Cock of the Walk Restaurant—where dinner is served on tin plates—then on to the legendary music bar, John A’s where one of the regular performers is an amazing singer named Brenda Mullin, whose grandaunt, Rosemarie Timoney, was on the tour with us. Originally from Canada, where she won on the T show “Canada’s Most Talented”, she was recruited by a Nashville record company to record and perform in Nashville.

During the overnight hours, the steady rain started to pelt down. The wind started howling, the tornado sirens started blasting. We weren’t sure we were going to be able to make it to Memphis that day on our tour coach, but the driver decided to go after checking weather reports and conferring with other drivers. But this weather hadn’t be predicted. We weren’t far out of Nashville when we realized we were not only not going to make it to Memphis, we might not make it back to Nashville. The highway became a shallow stream, then a roaring creek, then a raging river.

So what did our travelers do? They started to party on the bus. Musician Luke Jardel kept the group laughing with his jokes and stories, and even managed to squeeze into one of the overhead luggage compartments to take a short nap.

After several hours of vehicle jockeying, Ronnie, the amazing man behind the wheel of our bus, was able to back the bus over a mile down the thruway, maneuver a K-turn and drive off the on-ramp. But once back on the main road, he discovered that all roads leading back to Nashville were closed. This left just one option, find a gas station and confer with other drivers about possible detours.

In the small town of Kingston Springs, sits a BP station, two or three small motels, a Mexican restaurant, an Arby’s, a Mapco and a Quizno’s. This turned out to be the tours’ home-away-from-home-away-from hotel for the next several hours. Several folks went off to the Mexican restaurant for two-for-one beers and margaritas. Other folks chose to buy food and watch the movie on the bus for a while. A few more walked up to Quizno’s. When they told the manager about the bus stranded in the BP parking lot, we were surprised and thrilled to see the employees coming down to the lot with trays of subs and cases of cold water for us.

It is said that the Irish can always make their own fun, as long as they can sing or dance. How true this proved to be! As the sky grew dark and the rain started to lift, an amazing thing happened. Luke, Fintan and Pat set up their instruments outside the BP station. A cooler full of beer appeared for all to share. The music started and before you could say “Gas Pump Ceili” the parking lot was full of Irish folks dancing the Gay Gordon, the Highland, and the Two Hand Reel. Locals joined in not just for the dancing, but also got up to sing. After two or more hours of total craic, Ronnie met a local gas company worker who told him there was a way to get back to Nashville! With a final singing of the Irish National Anthem, led by Rosemarie Timoney and the American National Anthem, led by Luke Jardel, we said goodbye to our new friends, filed back onto the bus and made our way back to our beds at one of the few hotels in Nashville that hadn’t been flooded.

When we got up the next morning for the bus trip to the airport, we were shocked to see how much damage the storm, which dumped as much as 12 inches of rain over 24 hours on the Tennessee Valley, had caused. Homes were under water. Bridges had collapsed. Schools were destroyed. Even the Grand Old Opry sustained damage as three inches of water seeped into this icon of country music, forcing shows to other, undamaged venues Nashville for the week.

Hearing the news reports—$1 billion in damage, 10 people dead in Nashville alone, two people missing—we realize just how lucky we had been.

To help repay the kindness of the people we met in Kingston Springs, TN, we are now planning a benefit concert to raise money to help those who have lost their homes and businesses. If you’d like to volunteer your band or just a hand, please contact me at rinceseit@msn.com.

Editor: Some Texas tourists were so delighted to have stumbled onto the impromptu ceili dance at the BP station, they filmed it and posted it on YouTube. You can see it here. 

Check out Marianne’s photos here.

May 6, 2010 by
Dance, Music

A Look Back at the 2009 Philadelphia Ceili Group Festival

Haley Richardson wowed the ballroom audience on Saturday night.

Haley Richardson wowed the ballroom audience on Saturday night.

It was 1:30 on Sunday morning, but the Philadelphia Irish Center was still jumping. Inside the Fireside Room, a clutch of musicians circled up and started banging out reels and jigs.

They were joined by members of the Midwestern traditional band Bua, which had performed to an enthusiastic crowd in the ballroom earlier in the night.

Somehow, no one was willing to let the party end.

And what a party it was. Those who love traditional Irish singing experienced quite a treat on Friday night as the Ceili Group hosted many of the area’s best singers, plus guests like County Armagh’s Len Graham and Bua’s Brian O’hAirt.

All day Saturday, superb musicians led classes in everything from bodhran to fiddle to DADGAD guitar. All Saturday night, the ballroom was filled with the strains of traditional music, including the local band Cruinn.

We have all the highlights in photos and video. Check it out.

Videos:

September 17, 2009 by
Dance

So, You Think You Can’t Dance

The dancers wait for instructions. That's teacher Geraldine Trainor in the green capris.

The dancers wait for instructions. That's teacher Geraldine Trainor in the green capris.

A lot of things happen in Geraldine Trainor’s kitchen.

It’s where she learned to jive back in Country Tyrone to the sound of Ireland’s Queen of Country, Philomena Begley, using the door jamb as her partner.

And it was her kitchen in Norristown where she planned to teach her kids and their friends how to jive, but then they got wrapped up in the Gaelic football season.

But dancing lessons seemed like too good an idea to just toss, especially since her son is dating a dance instructor.

So, for the last three weeks (with three more to come, she and her son’s girlfriend, Laura Gittings of Take the Lead dance studio on Pine Street in Philadelphia, are teaching adults how to swing, jive, and foxtrot at the Philadelphia Irish Center in Mt. Airy on Thursday nights.
 
“I thought it would be good for people who want to get ready for the Mayo and Donegal balls this year,” said Trainor, whom I caught up with recently after a grueling hour of box-stepping and foxtrotting. And she has some other good ideas. “I’m thinking about having a couple of competitions this year, our own ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ I don’t know who the stars will be—it might be ourselves!” She laughs.

It was the popular celebrity dance show on ABC-TV that prompted her children to ask her about learning to dance. “The kids are all talking about it, and I thought it was important for them to learn. I think everyone in the world should dance,” she says. “The boys are embarrassed to learn, but I said, ‘Now, don’t fight with me because you know it’s no use.’”

Trainor plans to repeat the classes in the fall when the kids have promised to trade football gear for dancing shoes. But the classes are open to all, even her husband, Sean, who, while he can dance, “can’t jive,” she laughs.

August 7, 2009 by
Dance

They Could Have Danced All Night

Round the House

Round the House members, from left, Mark Roberston-Tessi, Sharon Goldwasser, Dave Firestine, and Claire Zucker.

“If you can walk and count to eight, you can contra dance,” Sharon Goldwasser assured me at this week’s Thursday Night Contra Dance at the Glenside Memorial Hall.

The fiddler from Tucson’s celebrated Celtic band, Round the House, wasn’t exaggerating. As someone who considers shoelaces a mortal enemy and for whom the Black-Eyed Peas’ lyrics, “you got me trippin’, stumblin’, flippin’, fumblin’” resonate deeply, I thought I might be able to do it, even if there is math involved.

Contra dancing is a real aerobic workout—there were lots of flushed faces and sweat–but it’s really just walking to music. Reminiscent of square dancing and Irish ceili or set dancing with a little ‘60s line dancing thrown in, it involves a set of moves or figures dictated by the caller executed by a couple and a second couple and so on down the line.

“The figures of contra dancing are about 250 to 300 years old,” explained Glenside regular Bill Buckenhorst, who asked me to dance. “It’s two lines and four people. How the figures are combined is different for every dance. There’s no fancy steps, no one-two-three. You walk.”

And twirl, and do-si-do, and, as far as I could see, there’s some allamande  lefting going on too. And lots of whirling,  which necessitates a flippy or flowy skirt. Alas, I was wearing capris, so I had to turn Bill down. I won’t dance, don’t ask me. Fortunately, Louise showed up. “Louise!” said Bill. “I’d love to!” said Louise.

But I did get a chance to catch up with Round the House which, when they aren’t playing contra dances, play Irish traditional music in concerts and at festivals (you can catch them at this weekend’s Pen-Mar Festival in Glen Rock, PA, a fundraiser for Pen-Mar Human Services). Sharon Goldwasser, who has studied with Randall Bays, and string player Dave Firestine, an instructor at Colorado Roots Camp,  host sessions in the Tucson area. Guitarist and mandolin player Mark Robertson-Tessi has won the Four Corners States Mandolin Championships twice. And bodhran player, singer, and contra dance caller Claire Zucker won the Mary Yolanda Dowling Vocal Competition at the Feis in the Desert two years in a row.

I guess you’re noticing that there aren’t really any Irish names among the group. “Our first names are Irish,” quips Claire, who is half Irish, half Jewish, but occasionally sings in Irish. “We like to say we’re 33 1/3 Jewish.  But we started doing this because we all loved the music. We find that all over the country as we travel. Ethnicity doesn’t matter.”

Though they’re not, Sharon Goldwasser says, “pure drop,” you couldn’t tell by me. I’ve been listening to their 2007 CD, “Safe Home,” for a couple of years now, and it satisfies my Irish music yen. Their version of “Rory Og McRory” is almost enough to make me get up and contra dance. Almost.

June 14, 2009 by
Dance

Welcome to Philadelphia!

The U.S. flag led the way as dancers processed onto the Kimmel Center stage with flags from every nation representated in the championships.

The U.S. flag led the way as dancers processed onto the Kimmel Center stage with flags from every nation representated in the championships.

In the beginning, the opening ceremony of the World Irish Dancing Championships was a dignified affair, with dancers from around the world parading onto the Kimmel Center stage with the flags of their countries, the Olympic theme playing in the background.

After that, assorted dignitaries, including Mayor Michael Nutter, took the stage to make welcoming speeches.

And it seemed that the Sunday evening ceremony would end in pomp and circumstance.

But whoever might have thought so probably had not reckoned on the Greater Kensington String Band.

The Kensington Band took the joint (can we call Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center a “joint?”) by storm. Some 6,000 dancers and thousands more family members, dance teachers, judges, officials and fans from around the world are attending this first-ever championship in North America, and it was pretty clear most of them had never seen a genuine Philadelphia Mummer before.

It didn’t take them long to get into the spirit of things, though. Much to the amazement of the Kensington band—and possibly the horror of Kimmel Center ushers—dozens of dancers converged on the stage, some of them clambering up over the edge in their clunky hard shoes, dignity forgotten.

In a matter of minutes, it felt more like New Year’s Day on Broad Street.

Like everybody else in the place, a photographer from Maryland was swept up in the spirit of things. “This is a great day for Philadelphia,” he said.

Ain’t it the truth.  We have photos, above.

Check out our Mummers videos:

April 6, 2009 by
Dance

A Not-So-Typical Little Dancer

In many ways, Aine McGill is a typical 10-year-old. She has a favorite subject in school (geography), sings in the church choir, and is a recent devotee of singer Taylor Swift.

But the fourth grader from Ardara, County Donegal, is also a musical multiple threat: She plays piano, accordian, banjo, and tin whistle, and is one of only nine dancers from Ulster Province who qualified to compete in the World Irish Dance Championships which start on Sunday, April 5, in Philadelphia.

And, like most accomplished typical 10-year-olds, Aine has a proud mom, Bernie, who is quick to point out that her achievement is all the more remarkable because “Ulster has the best dancers,” regularly placing in the top three in the All-Irelands.

Aine and her family—Bernie, dad Padraig, and sister, Maired, 19, a Trinity College student—flew to the United States last week and are staying in Chestnut Hill with Padraig’s brother, Jim McGill, and his family. She’s been practicing for an hour and a half every day at the Irish Center (where the New Zealand competitors also went through their routines this week).

Even at 10, Aine is the consummate professional. When we asked her if we could film her doing some steps, she was happy to do it, but reluctant to simply demonstrate the generic jigs and reels, rather than the flashier choreography created by her teachers, three former dancers from the show, “Riverdance.”

“No world class dancer would just do those steps,” she whispered to her sister, Mairead, a former dancer who jokes that she’s Aine’s “personal trainer.”

But her routine, like that of her fellow competitors, is a closely guarded secret. Videoing a dancer’s proprietary steps carries stiff penalties, as anyone who has been set upon by angry feis judges or parents threatening to snatch the camera out of their hands knows well. “I had someone threaten to take mine even though I was just focusing on Aine,” says Mairead.

Aine, who started dancing at age 5, has had a swift rise to the top, propelling through four levels in two years of competition to achieve championship status. But, going into the World’s, she’s anything but overconfident. Wish her luck, but don’t tell her she’s sure to win. If you do, her eyes widen and she shakes her head. “Oh, noooo,” she says.

She’s definitely a typical 10-year-old. What does she like most about dancing? It’s all about the friendships. “I like the competitions,” she answers. “Because I like to make friends with the other competitors.”

UPDATE: 04/06.09

Aine placed ninth in the world in her age group during competition on Sunday, April 5.

Aine demonstrated a few steps for us. Check out the video.

April 2, 2009 by
Dance

McDade School Sends Seven to the World Irish Dance Championships

One dancer-a-leaping: Bridget Egan.

One dancer-a-leaping: Bridget Egan.

For a few of them it was “Riverdance.” For others, an older sibling who was taking lessons. But for all seven dancers from the McDade School of Dance in Broomall competing as soloists next week at the World Irish Dance Championships in Philadelphia, Irish dance was love at first leap. In fact, the leaps—which make Michael Jordan look earthbound—is one of the things about Irish dance they love the most.

“It feels like you’re flying,” says Fiona Egan, 16, of Malvern. “It feels like you’re in the right place.”

Fiona’s sisters, Sinead, 13, and Bridget, 11, are also world qualifiers. They’ll be joined on the competition stages at the Kimmel Center and the Downtown Marriott by fellow McDade dancers Alex Reichl, 16; Fiona Fey, 10; Siobhan Doughtery, 14, and Ali Doughty, 15. I met with them a couple of weeks ago just before one of their practice sessions.

For some, it’s not their first Worlds, as the international competition is usually called. It’s Alex’s third, in fact. And while it’s a great honor to have the dance championships in Philadelphia—the first time they’re in the US—for the local dancers, it’s the only disappointment: No trip to Ireland this year. “I liked it when it was further away,” says Sinead. “Last time I got to go to Belfast.”

Fiona Fey, who’ll be attending her first Worlds, the experience is “a little nerve-wracking.” But she says it’s always that way before any competition “until you get up on the stage.”

“It is when you’re waiting in line,” offers Ali, “and the night before.”

But the dancers don’t have much time to think about let alone have nerves. They practice several hours a day, after school and on the weekends. For many, it’s all part of a very full schedule that includes school and community sports (and for 10-year-old Fiona, the paper route she inherited from her brother).

And the truth is, they don’t really see the competition as particularly competitive. “It’s not cut-throat,” says Fiona Egan.

“I’ve met such nice people and made some really good friends,” adds Ali. “It’s one of the things I like best about it.”

You can see these and about 6,000 other Irish dancers at the World Irish Dance Championships at The Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. Opening ceremonies are scheduled for Sunday, April 5, at 5 p.m. for what is the largest ever Worlds, now in its 39th year. Mayor Michael Nutter and a Mummers group are scheduled to appear. See the details at the official website.

One of the highlights of the event will be an appearance by famed Irish dancer and choreographer Michael Flatley of Riverdance fame, who may have launched many of these kids on their dance careers.

Check out some practice steps from the McDade Dancers:

April 2, 2009 by
Dance

Regional Competition Draws Nearly 200 Dancers from Around the Country

Kevin Kennedy and his daughter, Kaelah, of Southampton's Rince Ri school.

Kevin Kennedy and his daughter, Kaelah, of Southampton's Rince Ri school.

Kevin Kennedy is an especially empathetic “Irish dance dad.” His two daughters, Molly, 17, and Kaelah, 11, perform with Rince Ri Dance School in Southampton, where they live. Last weekend, they were at the Irish Center in Mt. Airy, competing for a chance to go to Ireland in May for the world championships of the Cumann Rince Naisiunta (CRN), an Irish dance association founded in 1982 that has only recently made its way across the ocean.

“I have nine brothers and we all danced,” says Kennedy, a biologist and businessman who was taking tickets at the door. “My Dad and his buddies at the Irish Club needed something to entertain them. We would do it after Irish football, or as we called it, ‘kill me with a ball.’ What we did wasn’t nearly as elaborate as what the kids do today. We were taught by someone who had about six Jamesons.”

His studiously deadpan face gave way to a laugh.

Olivia Hilpl, who founded Rince Ri five years ago, is a far more disciplined teacher than Kennedy’s was. The Sligo-born Hilpl began taking step-dancing lessons at 4 ½, before the Riverdance Effect high-kicked in. “We did a lot more steps on the floor than we did any high flying,” she says. That’s what drew her to CRN, which focuses on teaching students basic steps, then moving them up gradually at their own pace until they’re physically ready for more aerial work. The aim is to prevent injuries, so CRN-style dancers don’t do toe stands either.

While the nearly 200 dancers, from as far away as Santa Fe, NM, and Portland, OR, were competing this weekend to go to the championships, they were also, in effect, taking their final exams. Winners in each age group move up one level. “When they achieve that, they know they’re getting better,” explains Hilpl, who organized the competition.

They certainly had a good time, as their smiles will prove.

February 12, 2009 by