Stepping lively

A Chinese teacher and performer of Irish dance hopes to tap growing interest in the genre's fancy footwork in her homeland. Xing Yi reports.

It's 7 pm. The clerks leave. The melody of Riverdance starts.

"One, two - one, two, three, go!" Wu Dan says to the other five dancers.

A unison of rat-a-tat-tat clicks and clacks resound in rapid fire in a meeting room-turned-ballroom at Beijing's Junefield Sogo building.

Irish step dance enthusiast Wu Dan teaches kids of the elementary department of Beijing Chenjinglun High School to do the steps of tita dancing. Photos Provided to China Daily

This is a weekly two-hour practice of The Irish Dancers, a Chinese group of Irish step-dance lovers consisting of students, office workers and retirees.

Wu is their troupe leader.

"The boss of this company is also our member, so he allows us to practice in this room," says Wu, who meets with the dancers on Monday and Thursday evenings.

The Chinese word for Irish step dance - tita - is onomatopoeic for the sound created by the quick foot movements and brisk beats of shoes tippity-tapping against the floor.

Despite the popularity of the world-renowned Irish performance Riverdance since its 1994 debut, the genre is rarely practiced by Chinese. But those who undertake it are diehard.

"They've all danced tita for more than 10 years," Wu says of the dancers in the room.

"I'm the youngest. I've only practiced for four years."

Wu is in her mid-20s but is perhaps the group's most dedicated member. She practices for hours daily.

She recently fractured her left leg, but she still sticks to her weekly practice.

Her years of hard work has paid off.

The troupe won third place in the 5th International Feis & Championships held by the Echoes of Erin School of Irish Dancing in Hong Kong in May.

She took home four trophies in several individual categories - two first places in the slip jig and hornpipe respectively, a second place in reel and a third place in treble jig.

"I am very proud of all my students - Wu especially. She is my most talented dancer," says Dominika Cedro, who has taught the dance genre in Beijing since she arrived in China to learn Chinese in 2013.

Cedro is Polish but has practiced Irish step dancing for 16 years.

She believes it's difficult. Those who start younger go further.

"But the majority of my students here are adults," she says.

"That's why, in my eyes, it is even more amazing."

Cedro has taught around 40 Chinese.

"My Chinese students are always very passionate, diligent and extremely hardworking," she says. "they want to learn more, to get stronger and to understand this foreign dance better. I respect them for that a lot."

Wu majored in Chinese folk dancing at Beijing Sport University. So Irish step dance isn't a giant leap from her college studies.

In 2012, she became a teacher at Beijing Chenjinglun School, where her department's head showed her some Irish dance videos.

"My director said: 'This is beautiful. Maybe you can teach our students and put on a show'," Wu recalls.

"I love dancing and found this exotic folk dance interesting. It's very different from its Chinese equivalent. So I took the director's 'maybe' seriously."

Wu scoured dance studios. But the closest genre they taught was American tap dance, which is similar but involves more upper-body movements.

She met Cedro through the Irish embassy, soon after the instructor with a World Irish Dance Association teaching certification arrived in Beijing.

They met and practiced, and their small group grew. It attracted novices and veterans.

Wu started teaching her middle-schoolers trebles, reels and jigs.

She opened another extra-curricular basic Irish-dance course at Chenjinglun last year. The youngest students are third-graders from its elementary department.

"I hope to also let them feel the lively spirit of the Irish when teaching them how to dance," says Wu.

She attended a Riverdance summer school in Ireland in 2015.

"Dancing is an important part of their culture," Wu adds.

She joined the Irish dancers she knew for a performance at Century Theater during the Riverdance troupe's China tour this January in Beijing.

She brought three of her brightest young dancers from Chenjinglun to the tour's launch ceremony at the Irish embassy.

Their reels and jigs - though imperfect - won applause from the professionals. That encouraged the children and Wu.

"They gave us all a big surprise," says the Irish embassy's cultural program officer, Bai Han.

"We can't wait to see them onstage in the future."

The young dancers may need a few more years to hone their skills.

But Wu's adult group has already created two Irish dance plays and performed several times.

"The Diary of Love tells the story of a city romance. The Celtic is based our own story of learning Irish dance," Wu says.

Cedro returned to her homeland to get married last year.

But part of her heart remains with China's Irish-dance practitioners.

"I wish for Wu, our dance friends, her students and for myself that this path of Irish dance in China is just a beginning for a wonderful, lifelong adventure."

Contact the writer at xingyi@chinadaily.com.cn

Wu Dan, a Beijing Sport University graduate, does Irish step dancing in a Hong Kong competition in May.