Anyone know anything about Irish dancing?

[cville]

Why do the girls (I mean literal girls, age 5+) wear giant fake hair? What is the point? How does it enhance the dance?

I can think of no other dancing with practically mandatory, purposefully fake looking fake hair. They all look like British barristers in skirts.

[sweetchix]

No idea. But when I first saw them in a parade I could not for the life of me figure out how they got all the girls’ hair to curl like that. Never dawned on me that they were wigs.

[mooselovah]

Doesn't it go back to having girls dressing in their Sunday best for church and that meant hair in rag curls?

Then it just translated to Irish dancing = curls= hair pieces are easier than curling hair?

[cville]

Nov 19, 2017 21:36:09 GMT -5 sweetchix said:

No idea. But when I first saw them in a parade I could not for the life of me figure out how they got all the girls’ hair to curl like that. Never dawned on me that they were wigs.

I only know for certain because a high school friend posted a picture of her daughter on FB with a line about how her kid just got a new wig with before and after photos. But she called it something else that's probably Gaelic. Then I did some scrolling and internet searching and it appears to be a near-universal Irish dancing phenomenon.

[cleo29]

I do not understand that either. I need to ask my Irish friend to see if she understands this phenomenon. lol

[cabbagecabbage]

It wasn’t a thing where I grew up but it’s big in Chicago and so freaking weird! I swear if they didn’t wear that fake hair I wouldn’t even notice the genre.

[cville]

Nov 19, 2017 21:39:09 GMT -5 mooselovah said:

Doesn't it go back to having girls dressing in their Sunday best for church and that meant hair in rag curls?

Then it just translated to Irish dancing = curls= hair pieces are easier than curling hair?

Is Irish dancing typically performed at church? On Sunday?

[mooselovah]

Nov 19, 2017 21:41:34 GMT -5 cville said:

Nov 19, 2017 21:39:09 GMT -5 mooselovah said:

Doesn't it go back to having girls dressing in their Sunday best for church and that meant hair in rag curls?

Then it just translated to Irish dancing = curls= hair pieces are easier than curling hair?

Is Irish dancing typically performed at church?

No, but the culture was highly caltholic. I didn't dance but being from the east coast many friends did. Randoms from Canada.

[mooselovah]

Nov 19, 2017 21:41:34 GMT -5 cville said:

Nov 19, 2017 21:39:09 GMT -5 mooselovah said:

Doesn't it go back to having girls dressing in their Sunday best for church and that meant hair in rag curls?

Then it just translated to Irish dancing = curls= hair pieces are easier than curling hair?

Is Irish dancing typically performed at church?

No, but the culture was highly caltholic. I didn't dance but being from the east coast many friends did. Randoms from Canada.

[mcsangel2]

I've never seen that. Of course, I haven't paid attention to anything having to do with Irish Dance since it sort of became a phenomenon about 20 years ago, but I don't ever recall seeing girls or women wearing wigs.

[cleo29]

This is the answer according to google:
Beginning around the 1960s, the girls wanted to have their hair in natural ringlets when they were dancing in their competition. It meant that the poor dancers had to sleep with their heads in rollers and curling devices of all sorts, which was torturous. So someone came up with the idea of using wigs instead.Jul 6, 2012

I do wonder if they thought the curls looked better with all the bouncing and leaping, etc.

But there is a movement to get it banned:
ireland-calling.com/lifestyle/irish-dancing-go-back-to-basics-for-our-kids-sake/

[cleo29]

And the women wear them too:

ourpastimes.com/why-do-irish-dancers-wear-wigs-12343120.html

[spindle92]

I have a good friend who has a 13 yr old daughter who competes weekly all over the state of Wisconsin in Irish dancing. Her daughter has 3 wigs so she can alternate them and they Don't get ratty looking. Those wigs are fucking expensive as hell.

[woodgnome]

I used to Irish dance competitively when I was younger. The wigs are weird- when I first started, we put our hair in rollers & then it turned into giant, heavy fake looking wigs.

[Pippin]

I had a friend that did Irish dancing in high school and she told me at the time that curls looked better because of all the jumping around. I think she only ever used the curly pony tail extensions. I don't know why I remember this lol.

[dragon's breath]

Not that this is an official ruling or anything, but I found this:

hooleyirishdance.weebly.com/hair-and-wigs.html

Irish dancers have worn curly hair for decades. The tradition started in the early 1900's when it was popular for girls to curl their hair for church on Sundays. After church they typically got together with their congregation to participate in ceili and social dancing, still sporting their Sunday curls. The "wig" is a relatively new adaption, made popular by the mass amount of time, pain, and tears that curling hair for every dance event typically brought.

The site even has instructions on how to prep your hair for the wig.

[knx9211]

Nov 19, 2017 21:43:57 GMT -5 mooselovah said:

Nov 19, 2017 21:41:34 GMT -5 cville said:

Is Irish dancing typically performed at church?

No, but the culture was highly caltholic. I didn't dance but being from the east coast many friends did. Randoms from Canada.

Yes! The only people we know whose kids do this moved here from Canada.

[readyin07]

Huh. My friend’s two girls do this and I never noticed their hair in curls.i just went back and confirmed with photos that no one in their “troupe” has curls.

[eclaires]

I have no idea but this has been a hot topic among my friends for the past month because our girls were in the Nutcracker. In the party scene the girls are supposed to have ringlets but most of them are also in other scenes with vastly different hair styles. For our girls (and maybe all ages but with the 6-9 range it seems ESP common to have wild baby hairs everywhere) it would be virtually impossible to go from ringlets to a ballet bun, let alone in the amount of time they have, along with costume changes. So we ordered these crazy ringlet hair pieces. Ours said it was perfect for Irish dancing and we were all like wait is this style mandatory for Irish dancing? Because I get it for costume changes. Scarlett had to go from a party girl with ringlets to a mouse with a bun in under five minutes. But to an extent I get it for just general usage if you are supposed to have curly hair. For some (maybe most even if your hair holds curl) girls it takes a lot of product and heat to accomplish a ringlet style and if you are doing that all the time it could get really old and even damaging.

Based on my internet shopping they seem to be common for Nutcracker party scene, Irish dancing and competitive cheer.

[gerberdaisy]

Its weird. DD started step dancing classes a couple months ago, its really popular in our area. If she sticks with it, not sure how I feel about the wigs.

[wambam]

I knew a girl who did it in HS. Apparently it's incredibly expensive. That's all I got.

[af1212]

Nov 20, 2017 9:57:29 GMT -5 wambam said:

I knew a girl who did it in HS. Apparently it's incredibly expensive. That's all I got.

Yes so expensive. My girls were both really interested in it but I never let them compete in a feis. The dresses alone were $1500-2000 USED (!) not to mention the tailoring, hair pieces, shoes, etc.

[onetruething]

I grew up dancing and slept in rollers the night before every feis in order to have my curls. My natural hair is pin-straight and my curls always fell out straight away no matter what we tried. Dead serious, I danced for 9 years competitively, and started seeing the wigs about the year after I gave it up. I would've killed for one of those babies!!!!

[HiC]

The wigs are a new-ish addition. It became trendy to have curls in your hair during competitions sometime in the 60s. If you wanted to have curls, then you needed to have long hair and sleep in rollers before a feis. The wigs came about in the 80s and Irish dancing girls everywhere got better sleep because of it.

PS. If you ever want to see good people watching, go to a feis!  It's amazing!