Canadian stepdance, also known as Maritimes stepdance, is a style of stepdance in Canada, stemming from European origins including France, Scotland and Ireland.[1] Canadian stepdancing involves fast dancing to fiddle music using shoes with taps designed to accentuate the dancer's rhythmical, drumming foot movements.[2] Dancers generally require little dance space to perform their routines. Some styles of Canadian stepdancing include upper-body postures that are relatively relaxed compared with older stepdance styles, allowing occasional arm movements that flow with the rhythm of the dance, or hands on hips.[3]

Traditional stepdance styles

There are several different stepdances, which are named after the musical tempos that they are danced to. A reel, the most popular step dance, is played in 4/4 time, and is fun, fast and lively. A jig, also quite popular, is played in 6/8 time and sounds like an energetic march. The clog is slower, danced at 1/2 time, and is considered to be a more graceful dance. Other stepdances include the hornpipe, strathspey, two-step, and polka.

Canadian stepdance by region

There are three different Canadian stepdance styles originating from different regions across Canada. Cape Breton Stepdance is unique to the Cape Breton Island region of Nova Scotia, brought there by the Scottish settlers fleeing the Highland Clearances in an effort to preserve their traditional Highlands culture. It is danced with straight arms, stiff upper bodies, and quick, repetitive footwork. French Canadian or Quebecois Stepdance originates from the lumber camps and villages of Quebec, taking influence from Irish and Breton dance, and involves intricate footwork with arms relaxed but mostly immobile. Ottawa Valley Stepdance, a uniquely Canadian stepdance style, deriving from the Ottawa Valley, features variable, aggressive steps danced high off the floor, and flowing arm movements. Ottawa Valley Style originated in the lumber camps, as a way of leisure after the day's hard work. Curiously, it has incorporated tap dance elements.[4]

Cape Breton Step Dance

The style of Cape Breton step dancing originated in the Scottish Highlands and Western Islands, with the large numbers of Scottish Gaels that left their ancestral homeland in great numbers, to settle on Cape Breton Island, which is now part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada.[5] Large waves of Gaelic immigration happened all throughout the 18th-20th centuries, sometimes by force of their landlords, and other times voluntarily, in hopes of establishing a better life and cultural freedom. Often whole communities would come over either together, or in a pattern of chain migration, in order to preserve their language, and unique cultural practices and identity.[6] One of these features is the Gaels' love of music and dance. Cape Breton step dancing emerged from solo step dances, which were likely not originally percussive in nature. These solo dances were the precursor to what would become the lively percussive steps now pictured at the mention of “Cape Breton step dance.” The popular percussive steps brought over to Cape Breton by these Gaels continues to be passed on generationally, primarily in the home, and this informal style of transmission was able to continue on the island well into the twentieth century, until around the nineteen seventies, when formal classes started to become a more common transmission method, alongside the tradition of learning from family and neighbours. While the style of step dancing brought to Cape Breton with the early Highland Gaelic settlers, known now as Cape Breton step dancing in it’s own right, was passed on and preserved in the New World, the tradition managed to die out in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (though it has since been re-introduced), making it a unique element of Cape Breton culture. [6] 

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Canadian Step-Dancing". Dancethroughlife.ca. Archived from the original on 2012-10-28. Retrieved 2012-10-04.
  2. ↑ "Scottish Highland & Canadian Step Dance". Boldsteps.ca. Archived from the original on 2012-11-03. Retrieved 2012-10-04.
  3. ↑ "A History of Step Dancing". Maccullochdancers.ca. Archived from the original on 2011-01-12. Retrieved 2012-10-04.
  4. ↑ "Stepdancing: A Canadian Tradition". Fiddle.on.ca. Archived from the original on 2012-09-12. Retrieved 2012-10-04.
  5. ↑ Melin, Mats (2015). One With The Music: Cape Breton Step Dance Tradition and Transmission. Cape Breton University Press. ISBN 978-1-77206-028-7.
  6. 1 2 Melin, Mats. "Step Dancing in Cape Breton and Scotland: Contrasting Contexts and Creative Processes". Canadian Journal for Traditional Music.
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