Jeanette Mollenhauer, ‘Competitive Irish Dancing in Sydney 1994–2013’, Australasian Journal of Irish Studies 15 (2015), pp. 35–54. COMPETITIVE IRISH DANCE: CULTURE AND COMMUNITY Jeanette Mollenhauer When my older daughter first began competing in Irish step dance in 1995, there were seven dance schools in Sydney represented at the New South Wales Championships, two of which were less than two years old. 1 Going to a competition was a relaxed outing, taking up half a day. Within a few years, we more experienced mothers would warn newer parents: ‘Don’t plan to have guests for dinner on the same day as a competition—you’ll never be home in time to cook.’ By then, we had learned that due to the exponential growth in competitor numbers, a whole day (and often part of the evening) would be sacrificed. In 2013, there were nineteen dance schools in Sydney competing at State level, with several more schools already established but yet to produce championship level dancers. 2 This essay seeks to describe competitive Irish step dancing in Sydney, Australia. Competitive step dancing is one of several genres which may be included under the over-arching title of ‘Irish dancing’. Within Ireland itself and in much of the Irish diaspora, there are other dance genres such as the rural step and sean-nós dancing which have been practised for centuries, 3 particularly in rural areas of the country, but which is choreographically different from the dancing found within the realm of competitive step dance. 4 In Sydney, there are also recreational dance groups in operation, including the Sydney Irish Céili Dancers 5 and the Harp Irish Set Dancers, 6 which are beyond the scope of this paper. The dancing with which this essay is concerned is the dancing which is practised under the auspices of the Irish Dancing Commission (IDC), the development of which I will discuss later. This paper is written primarily from the perspective of ethnochoreology, a relatively new discipline in the Australian context. Ethnochoreologists are interested in the dance per se, but are also concerned with the community practices operating amongst those who dance, and the interconnections between the dances and the cultural group within which those dances are located and practised. 7 Of particular relevance here is that relatively little scholarly work currently exists concerning dancing amongst Irish immigrants in Australia, 8 who have been in this country since the earliest days of non-indigenous settlement. 9 The reflective discourse of this paper is informed by an emic perspective, based on the author’s twenty years’ experience at a competitive Irish dancing school in western Sydney, as a parent, a teaching assistant, a stage manager at dance concerts, and as a supervisor at public performances of competitive Irish step dancing. Such a perspective provides insights known by the members of the group concerned, and foregrounds the dance