Each August, Milwaukee Irish Fest brings the community together to celebrate Celtic culture for four days. There’s authentic food, traditional music and, of course, great craic. But the Milwaukee Irish Fest experience wouldn’t be complete without the Irish dancers.
This year, nine different Irish dance schools from the Milwaukee area performed at Milwaukee Irish Fest. Among these groups were the Trinity Irish Dancers, one of Irish dance’s most recognized groups – including a win at this year’s Irish Dance World Championships back in March.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
Trinity has appeared at Milwaukee Irish Fest every year since its formation in 1982, one year after the festival was founded. The histories are inextricably linked, and the two have been staples of Irish pride in Milwaukee for over 40 years.
Trinity had nearly 200 dancers perform at Irish Fest this year, from their three-year-old beginner dancers to high school seniors taking their final bows.
The Trinity Irish Dancers were born in a church basement in Chicago in 1982 by founder and Artistic Director Mark Howard. Prior to Trinity’s arrival in Milwaukee, Irish dance was taught only at the Shamrock Club by Dr. Mary Eileen Geary. Once she retired, Trinity expanded to Milwaukee and took in Dr. Geary’s students.
From their humble beginnings, Trinity has expanded to multiple locations across Chicago, along with locations in Elm Grove, Waunakee and Madison.
Yet Trinity’s recognition stretches beyond our corner of the Midwest, and the school has appeared on six Tonight Shows, the Today Show, CONAN and Good Morning America.
This dance school was also the first American dance school to win gold at the Irish Dance World Championships in 1987. Since then, Trinity’s teams and soloists have won dozens of awards, securing their legacy in the Irish dance community.
But Trinity’s true claim to fame is The Dawn, a competitive dance and performance piece that’s history is deeply intertwined to the school’s identity. The choreography tells the story of powerful female warriors conquering Ireland and sending its ancient spirits to the underworld.
It’s a story of female empowerment, and according to Performance Program Manager MacKenzie Holland, the dance has a profound impact on every young dancer who is lucky enough to perform it.
The Dawn first premiered in Milwaukee in 1996, and dancers have since performed it on stages all over the world.
“It really brought choreography competitions to a whole new level,” said Trinity teacher Dierdra Kiely, who grew up as a world-class dancer in Ireland and heard of The Dawn in its early days.
In 1998, The Dawn won gold at the Irish Dance World Championships for the first time. “I read about their win in a magazine and hoped that one day I would see this iconic dance,” Kiely said.
Since 1998, The Dawn has won multiple world titles for Trinity.
The nearly 30-year-old dance was recently re-choreographed, bringing a new vibrancy to an old classic. This year, Trinity sent two teams to the Irish Dance World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland to reintroduce The Dawn, bringing home one first and one second place title and turning the tides of Irish dance – again.
At this year’s Irish Fest, the two winning teams of dancers brought The Dawn back to Milwaukee. In the audience, all movement and talking came to a halt as spectators watched these young champions carry on the dance’s legacy.
While Trinity’s competitive triumphs have made them a worldwide name, their performances are what set them apart from other Irish dance schools.
At the heart of Trinity’s performances is the Trinity Irish Dance Ensemble, the only Irish dance performing arts training program in existence. This program focuses on developing Irish dancers as performing artists rather than as competitors, which is the prime focus of the Irish dance world.
The Ensemble program was born in the early ’90s when Howard took a group of senior dancers to a folk festival in Schoten, Belgium, where Trinity danced alongside other traditional dance groups from around the world. Howard’s revolutionary choreography and the group’s spellbinding skill led to invitations to festivals around the world and the creation of the Trinity Irish Dance Ensemble.
The Ensemble performs in festivals all over the world each year, with many of their dancers at Milwaukee Irish Fest this year recently returning from a trip to Burg Ludwigstein, Germany.
But among all of these accolades and performances, Milwaukee Irish Fest is still Trinity’s largest event – as well as an annual favorite among dancers.
“The energy backstage at Milwaukee Irish Fest is electric. This is the biggest stage and largest audience that the Trinity dancers perform in front of every year, and the dancers are always eager to get on the stage,” Holland said.
All of these experiences stay with a Trinity dancer for life. The training, competing and performing shape each student as a dancer and as a person, and often, dancers find it hard to say goodbye to a community as big and supportive as the Trinity family.
When lifelong Trinity dancer Izzy Peters retired to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she felt something missing from her new life. Now a senior in college, Peters has become one of Trinity’s newest teachers and helps young dancers prepare for Milwaukee Irish Fest.
“I love seeing everyone brought together to have fun. It’s so great to see old friends come back to watch our show, but to also watch our new dancers get to experience it for the first time,” Peters said.
