Delivered to students during a week of workshops at Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddle Camp in August, 2008.

Premise: The acquisition of footwork vocabulary is arbitrary without the contextual application of fiddle music.

In a revitalist culture, as manifested here at Valley of the Moon, it is impossible to avoid the influence of globalization in the creation of a personal aesthetic. Therefore, by appropriating steps, shoes sounds, foot motives, and movement techniques from the around the world and then recapitulating them – reapplying them organically in informal contexts to revivalist fiddle traditions - we can thereby create a once-again symbiotic relationship with these once unified art forms. This applies to all the music being taught here this week. Upon being questioned, I imagine all of the instructors will verify their incredibly varying influences that have affected their music. The same theoretical structure applies to my dancing.

Coming initially from a part of the world that does not lay claim to any specific style of ethnic percussive dance, I was enrolled in tap dance classes at a young age because my parents thought I needed more exercise. Later in the first year of my lessons, I was exposed to fiddle music at a folk festival and went in search of ethnic varieties of the percussive dancing that explored, what Eileen Carson Schatz and Tim O'Brien both refer to as the "roots and branches" of American tap dance. I soon discovered there were many corresponding traditional forms of percussive dance, originating from countries as disparate as Ireland, England, Scotland Cape Breton, Quebec, Appalachia, South Africa, Spain, Mexico, India, Hungary. The next thirteen years were spent familiarizing myself with some of these traditions – those that resonated best with the kind of music I enjoy as well as the way my body movers organically.

Considering the influence of the three teachers here at camp, my goal for this week is to introduce students to dance from the tutor's particular region of specialty. From Ireland, some sean-nós or old-style step dance, from Appalachia, American flat-footing and from Scotland, step dance originating there as crystallized in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. As important as I feel it is to be aware and kinesthetically fluent in these styles, I also believe that musically, we are allowed and the agency to incorporate other elements for their intrinsic aural relevance. Just as Bruce Molsky will sneak in poly-rhythm in his playing or Dennis Cahill will color the tune with a minor seventh chord – both complex conventions not inherently (historically) found in the tradition – so do we, as 21st century dancer-percussionists have the autonomy to examine and incorporate rhythmic elements to mirror the innovation that is occurring in the realms of traditional fiddling.

Thus, the role of the dancer has expanded two-fold. Firstly, not only is the dancer primarily a visual component of the performance of the music - both in professional and informal settings, but, it is now crucial that they, as dancers recognize their rightful, historically-precedent place as the rhythm makers and punctuators of the tune. That is the first innovation: dancers reclaiming their ability to insert into the sonic space the rhythms and sounds of the feet as evolved through hundreds of years of religious, economic or social oppression, emigration, disposition, interaction with industry, etc.

The second innovation takes its cue from the fiddlers of the 21st century. Once serving exclusively as a melodic instrument, the 21st century fiddler seeks to accompany herself and other players rhythmically and harmonically. The fiddle "chop" is a prime example of this. These fiddlers, by applying principles that have been utilized by drummers for millennia have created a percussive rhythmic style that uses contemporary rhythmic patterns that differ slightly from the melody intentionally and by repetition, create a rhythmic matrix for the melody to interact with. These, rhythmic counterpoints or "grooves," contrasted with moments of melodic imitation and contribute to an incredibly dynamic fiddle style. Thus, because of this symbiosis that we have are attempting to reconstruct with the fiddle community, dancers my now create such rhythmic patterns by being informed by the melody – contributing in the same way, to a diverse and engaging musical style of percussive movement that is informed by the tradition but seeks to make itself relevant for the 21st century by using contemporary phenomenology to place itself in a post-modern world.