The pic here is of a painting - “Riverdance” - by the fantastic East Belfast artist, and Hearth session regular, Sara Erskine.

“That was a wee moment in history David!” said my mate. “You’re gonna have to start charging an entry fee!” said another. I was both delighted and emotional. I’d counted 21 trad musicians at the session that night…big sound and the tunes were flyin’. And we’d just had a group of teenage Irish dancers, all in black, dancing on the tiles in front of the bar with their hard shoes. The impact was immense. They absolutely nailed it. The Hearth faithful loved it, and the positive energy in the room was palpable!

We started this session back in October ‘23. I’d been approached a few times about introducing some dancing - e.g. Irish dancers, set dancing - but I’ve always resisted. I just didn’t feel the time was right. With a local project like this, timing is everything. I didn’t ever want to go too fast, or try to do too much too soon, given the local nuances. As I’ve said here before, the fact that we were even doing a trad session in a bar in East Belfast was progress enough.

But I’d started, more recently, to chill about the dancers. The music wasn’t really controversial any more. ‘Thursday, trad night in Hearth’ was now a pretty well established and ‘trusted’ part of the East Belfast vibe. And so now was the time to dance!

My 17 year old daughter Eve is a great footballer, and her wee mate Mathilda (Tilly) Brown is a great Irish dancer. They’ve been proper besties since they started going to nursery school here in 2013. Tilly goes to a dance school every Thursday in the local Presbyterian church, 100 metres or so from Hearth. This means that she and her wee mates are often walking past the front door of the bar every Thursday on their way home, around 8.45pm, just when our session is usually getting into full swing. I asked Tilly if she’d be up for coming along and dancing a few sets. She was. Not only that, she enlisted three of her mates, worked out the routines, and bossed what they did the whole night. They were brilliant! They nearly brought the house down and I was so proud of them!

What I liked most about this, our very first trad session with dancers, was that it was locally authentic. We didn’t ‘rent-a-troupe’ or get a few randomers in. Rather, our dancers lived locally, went to school locally and learned how to dance locally. They, and the friends and family they had with them, were just delighted to get a chance to dance in public locally, in a live session environment, accompanied by a bunch of local trad musicians. Love it!

Dancing and dancers are now part of our journey and our story, and I’m pretty sure we’ll have more in Hearth soon!

It’s everyone’s music, and now everyone’s dancin’!

Join us at The Hearth session each Thursday evening 8pm - 10pm for a tune or sit back and enjoy - it's everyone's music

Everyone’s music #5 - Now everyone’s dancin’…