This St Patrick’s Day, grab a Guinness and your dancing shoes and a ticket to Melbourne’s premier Irish dancing event, A Taste of Ireland.
With over twenty years of Irish dancing experience to his name, Brent Pace has unlaced his dancing shoes and picked up the director’s hat instead as he ramps up preparations for bringing his production of A Taste of Ireland to Melbourne’s The Palms theatre at Crown this St Pat’s Day. Having started the production at the ripe young age of 21, now twelve years, countless shows worldwide, and the birth of his own child later, Pace isn’t slowing down. “A Taste of Ireland is still my baby,” he says, before adding, “Well, [my] second baby now.”
A performance that brings the rich history and tradition of Irish dancing and music to audiences across the globe, from New York to Darwin, A Taste of Ireland showcases stories of Ireland on the stage in an exciting way that even those uninitiated in Irish culture will be clapping along to. With a mix of styles like heavy shoe, light shoe, ceili dancing, set dancing, figure dancing and more, the show presents this traditional style of Irish performance through a modern context for all audiences.
A Taste of Ireland
- March 17 at 2pm and 7pm
- The Palms at Crown, Melbourne
- Tickets here
Explore Melbourne’s latest arts and stage news, features, festivals, interviews and reviews here.
As the producer and director of the production, Pace has thought a lot about bringing such a historical artform to modern audiences. But what it comes down to, when translating a pocket of culture from a performer to a spectator, is always the story underpinning it all. “Storytelling is a crucial part of the show,” Pace says. Utilising modern production elements like vision and lighting design to help “[give] rise to a more literal understanding of the show”, as well as choices like the combination of “contemporary dance with modern Irish heavy shoe” to help portray the story. And all without a verbal script.
Even still, it’s no surprise that a country so built upon storytelling doesn’t need to rely on speech when it comes to speaking from the heart. “The celebration of music and dance is at the very soul of the nation,” Pace says about Ireland. “That was really the spirit of the nation and brought the people together and kept them going through the dark times.” One set piece in the show that happens in the Kilmainham Gaol after the Easter Rising in the early 20th century is reflecting a moment in history of distress and upheaval, but through music the Irish spirit plays through.
“It is quite a comical number,” Pace says, “But [it] really reflects the spirit of Irish culture whereby they can have the ‘craic’ even during the hardest of times.”
Whilst that Irish spirit can be a point of relation to people all over the globe watching the show, there are some audiences that are relating to it more so than others, Pace reflects. “We’ve really noticed lately that in places that have a younger Irish audience – for example, in Darwin or even in some regional mining towns – the crowds absolutely love it as it brings them a sense of being at home.” With the more well-known Irish songs that are performed throughout the show, Pace says that there’ll be some in the audience that even singalong.
It’s this playful enthusiasm of the arts that whilst isn’t specific to only the Irish, has been a source of discovery for some other attendees of the show. “I think sometimes [the excited audience members] can even shock some of the more conservative local theatre goers,” Pace says. “They embrace it like a full-blown rock concert, which we just love.”
Ultimately, A Taste of Ireland is a show of celebration – be it for storytelling, or culture, or just being who you are. “Irish dancing was unashamedly what I loved doing growing up,” Pace tells me. Whilst he might have copped some flak from his friends when he was in high school, that didn’t stop him from pursuing the thing that he loved. “Now as I see it perform around the world, [it] is still a bit of a pinch me moment.”
Tickets to A Taste of Ireland are on sale now.
This article was made in partnership with A Taste of Ireland.
