Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections, 2015.196.19, Connecticut Historical Soc…

Flyer: Traditional Irish Music & Dance Concert, 2011

Date2011

MediumPaper

ClassificationsInformation Artifacts

Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections

DescriptionFlyer for a Traditional Irish Music & Dance concert, June 4, 2011.

The event was a required public presentation of the Year 13 (2010-2011) Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program team in Irish step dance - Teaching artist Kevin Doyle with apprentice Nicole LeBlanc.

Object number2015.196.19

CopyrightIn Copyright

NotesBiographical Note: Kevin Doyle is a renowned traditional Irish step dancer based in Rhode Island. His dance is devoted to and inspired by steps brought to the United States by his Irish-born mother in the 1930s. He performs old style traditional Irish step dance and American tap dance. A lifelong dancer and performer, Kevin was a U.S. Champion Irish step dancer in his early competitive years, and has been entertaining audiences ever since with his traditional style of "close to the ground" rhythms and intricate foot work as an artist, a choreographer, producer, and teacher. Since 1996, Kevin has been the dancer and more recently, percussionist, for the Celtic band Pendragon, and he performs as part of the ensemble Roscommon Soles. Kevin has been featured in Secrets of the Sole, a documentary on Irish dance released in 2008 by dancer, choreographer, and director Kieran Jordan. In 2004 and 2008, Kevin starred in the Boston-based A Christmas Celtic Sojourn, produced by WGBH's Brian O'Donovan, which appeared in theaters in Boston, Worcester, and Providence. He won a prestigious National Heritage Fellowship award from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2014. Kevin served as a teaching artist in Year 13 (2010-2011) of CCHAP’s Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, mentoring student Nicole LeBlanc in Irish dance, and they presented their work at a concert in Lowell MA with two other Irish music and dance apprenticeships from the Mass Folk Arts Program, and repeated the concert in RI at the Blackstone Summer Solstice Festival. Kevin has also taught his daughter Maureen who often performs with him. Kevin performed at one of CCHAP’s outdoor concerts in 2018 and at the Passing It On Apprenticeship 20th anniversary exhibit opening event at CHS in 2018. See also http://www.kevindoyledance.com/

Subject Note: The Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program is a CCHAP initiative since 1997 that fosters the sharing of community-based traditional (folk) artistic skills through the apprenticeship learning model of regular, intensive, one-on-one teaching by a skilled mentor artist to a student/apprentice. The program pairs master artists from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or Connecticut with apprentices from one of the other states, as a way to knit together members of the same community or group across state lines. Teaching and learning traditional arts help to sustain cultural expressions that are central to a community, while also strengthening festivals, arts activities, and events when master/apprentice artists perform or demonstrate results of their cooperative learning to public audiences. The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at the Connecticut Historical Society manages the program in collaboration with the Folk Arts Program at the Massachusetts Cultural Council and independent folklorist Winifred Lambrecht who has a deep knowledge of the folk arts landscape of Rhode Island. Primary funding for the program comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, with support also from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Institute for Community Research, and the Connecticut Historical Society.

Additional audio, video, and images materials exist in the archive related to this event and these artists.

Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.

Subject Terms