#stepwithannette #dance #irishdance #tradition #traditional #onlineclass #irishdance #percussivedance #wellbeing

​If you lived in Dhahran (the eastern province of Saudi Arabia) in the early 2000s, you may have encountered the musical group 'Get Reel' performing a blend of Irish, country and bluegrass music at various venues around Dhahran and neighbouring island of Bahrain. Annette Collins, one of the group's founding members and a native of Ireland now returned to the Emerald Isle, has continued to pursue her love of music and Irish dance. She is currently offering a unique opportunity to learn Irish dance online. If you have an interest in Irish dance and culture, Annette invites you to join her next class beginning February 8th. We asked Annette to share more about her time in Saudi Arabia and with Get Reel.
 
I lived in Dahran from 1998 to 2005 and worked as a secretary, during that time I worked for a year as a PA to the assistant to the CEO and was promoted into a position in succession planning for the last year. I have a degree in music and also studied a post-graduate diploma in Secretarial Studies and Administration - with an aim to pursuing a career in the Arts.
 
While in Dhahran, I played folk music with a mixed bag of musicians and was one of the founding members of a group called 'Get Reel'. We performed regularly on camp, in a few other places around Dhahran, and also in Bahrain from time to time. We even self-produced 2 CDs during that time. I am still in contact with many of the members of the band, and also the people I worked with. Many are retiring back to Ireland at the moment, and we had a little reunion about a month ago, which got me thinking about the Aramco Expat community. The photos are from our recent reunion in Co Clare, Ireland. Two of the group had played with Get Reel, and a few of them danced with Pat Caulfield's Irish Dance troupe, Desert Dance, who used to perform in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The picture at the door would be Pat and me, who both played with Get Reel.

                                                    Annette & Pat

Aramco reunion 2021 - Co Clare, Ireland
"smiley happy people"

Description, Listing of Repertoire, Short Film and further information on Dan:
 
The Dan Furey group, led by Michael Tubridy and Noel Devery, is a group of like-minded souls who meet to preserve the dances of Dan Furey (1910-1994), a keen dancer and teacher – I have included the full listing of dances below.  Dan and his close friend James Keane brought the dances to the Willie Clancy Summer School, which takes place in Miltown Malby, Co Clare each year in July.  Michael Tubridy notated all the dances and has published them. The dances are taught regularly at workshops and festivals in Ireland and abroad; there are many people around the world now dancing this repertoire, not just in Europe but also Kieran Jordan’s dancers in Boston, dancers on the West Coast, Canada and as far as Comhaltas Japan.  
 
The Irish group normally meets in different locations around Ireland 5 or 6 times a year, we meet to catch up, dance, drink tea and eat cake!  We dance this repertoire in a circle, and towards the end of the session we might dance a couple of figures of a set, the emphasis of these events is to meet and share.  Since Covid, the group has been meeting online, once a month on the 3rd Saturday, a free event and open to all.  Drop me a line if you would like an invitation to join. 
 
Kieran Jordan also created a short film about the group and is available to view below.  
 
Dan Furey Repertoire
Book 1 (no longer in print)
Priest and His Boots                            
4 x Hornpipe Steps                             
Single Time                                         
Easy Reel                                             
Slip Jig                                                 
Job of Journeywork                            
Double Jig I                                         
St Patrick’s Day                                   
Blackbird                                             
 
Book 2 (this book also includes the Book 1 repertoire)
Easy Jig                                                
Gabairín Buí (Little Yellow Goat)            
Little Dutch Dance (Mazurka)             
Mont Phoebus’ Hunt                          
Jockey to the Fair                                
Celine’s Hornpipe - 5 Donegal Steps  
Double Jig II                                        
Paddy Bawn / Paidí Bán 

Book 2 is now available on the ITMA website (Irish Traditional Music Archives)
Click here for access.     

Further background on Dan
​
Dancer and Musician, Dan Furey was born in England in September 1909. His father was from Lackyle, Labasheeda and his mother was English, of Scottish origin. While Dan was still a child the family moved back to the family home in Lackyle, County Clare. Some years later three of Dan’s siblings emigrated to America and the remaining two left for England. Dan remained on the family farm, some two miles from Labasheeda.

Dancing was a very popular social pastime in many parts of rural Ireland at that time, especially at times of emigration or for those returning home on holidays. Both of his parents loved dancing and his mother also played the piano. Dances regularly took place in the Furey household where various types of sets were danced, The Plain Set, The Reel Set and sometimes The Paris Set. Step-dancing, Four-hand Reels and Two-hand dances were also enjoyed. Dan learned to play the fiddle and had his own distinctive style of playing. He also played the melodeon and the concertina.

Dan’s interest in dancing started from about the age of six or seven. His brother George taught him his first steps and he picked up many others in his own locality, and, of course, he learned a lot from his parents. He gradually built up a selection of Sets, Step-dances and Ceili dances. While visiting his brother in England he attended dance classes in Kilburn under the direction of Maurice O’Connor, a dancing master who was originally from Cork. 

When he was in his twenties he was asked to give private step-dancing lessons to the daughter of Garda Vesey and thus began his teaching career. Soon he was teaching in several schools in the vicinity, making the journey by bicycle in all kinds of weather and carrying his fiddle as he went. Eventually, as requests for classes from further afield were made, he bought a car and travelled to Doonbeg, Kilkee, Carrigaholt etc. In some areas he taught for over thirty years.

In the 1980s Dan travelled outside of Clare to teach and he became a regular visitor to Belfast, Galway and London. He also travelled to Chicago several times. Since the death of his father in 1958 Dan lived alone in Lackyle but a steady stream of people from various countries visited him there. Dan, together with his life-long friend, James Keane, contributed to the book Set Dances of Ireland, written by Larry Lynch. In 1990 Dan and James conducted very successful classes at the Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy.

Dan Furey died in August, 1993. He is buried with his parents in Killofin cemetery, approximately one mile from his house. In September 1994 the first “Dan Furey weekend” took place. It was organised by local people as a tribute to Dan, to music, and to dancing.

The Festival has been going strong since then in Labasheeda, Co Clare. 

I hope you enjoy this presentation created for my anniversary party on 29 May 2021, with all my students from all four levels, 6 blocks of online classes, coming together to celebrate - united across the globe - in dance.

I am thrilled to announce that my recent application for funding to enhance my “Step with Annette” business has been approved!

Many thanks to both the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Department for Communities for their support.

​Did I say I am THRILLED!! ​

Physical exercise has an anti-aging effect on the hippocampus region of the brain – an area that controls memory, learning and balance. A new study, comparing different forms of exercise – dancing and endurance training – undertaken by elderly volunteers for eighteen months, shows that both can have an anti-aging effect on the brain, but only dancing corresponded to a noticeable difference in behavior. This difference is attributed to the extra challenge of learning dancing routines.

As we grow older we suffer a decline in mental and physical fitness, which can be made worse by conditions like Alzheimer’s disease. A new study, published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, shows that older people who routinely partake in physical exercise can reverse the signs of aging in the brain, and dancing has the most profound effect.

“Exercise has the beneficial effect of slowing down or even counteracting age-related decline in mental and physical capacity,” says Dr Kathrin Rehfeld, lead author of the study, based at the German center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Magdeburg, Germany. “In this study, we show that two different types of physical exercise (dancing and endurance training) both increase the area of the brain that declines with age. In comparison, it was only dancing that lead to noticeable behavioral changes in terms of improved balance.”

Elderly volunteers, with an average age of 68, were recruited to the study and assigned either an eighteen-month weekly course of learning dance routines, or endurance and flexibility training. Both groups showed an increase in the hippocampus region of the brain. This is important because this area can be prone to age-related decline and is affected by diseases like Alzheimer’s. It also plays a key role in memory and learning, as well as keeping one’s balance.
While previous research has shown that physical exercise can combat age-related brain decline, it is not known if one type of exercise can be better than another. To assess this, the exercise routines given to the volunteers differed. The traditional fitness training program conducted mainly repetitive exercises, such as cycling or Nordic walking, but the dance group were challenged with something new each week.

Dr Rehfeld explains, ”We tried to provide our seniors in the dance group with constantly changing dance routines of different genres (Jazz, Square, Latin-American and Line Dance). Steps, arm-patterns, formations, speed and rhythms were changed every second week to keep them in a constant learning process. The most challenging aspect for them was to recall the routines under the pressure of time and without any cues from the instructor.”

These extra challenges are thought to account for the noticeable difference in balance displayed by those participants in dancing group. Dr Rehfeld and her colleagues are building on this research to trial new fitness programs that have the potential of maximizing anti-aging effects on the brain.

“Right now, we are evaluating a new system called “Jymmin” (jamming and gymnastic). This is a sensor-based system which generates sounds (melodies, rhythm) based on physical activity. We know that dementia patients react strongly when listening to music. We want to combine the promising aspects of physical activity and active music making in a feasibility study with dementia patients.”

Dr Rehfeld concludes with advice that could get us up out of our seats and dancing to our favorite beat.

​“I believe that everybody would like to live an independent and healthy life, for as long as possible. Physical activity is one of the lifestyle factors that can contribute to this, counteracting several risk factors and slowing down age-related decline. I think dancing is a powerful tool to set new challenges for body and mind, especially in older age.”
​
This research is part of a Frontiers Research Topic investigating the cognitive and neural effects of physical and cognitive activity across the lifespan.

Posted on August 29, 2017 by Frontiers Communications in Neuroscience 
Original link