Kieran Jordan lives in Boston where she works as a performer, teacher, and choreographer of Irish dance. With more than 25 years of dance experience, her unique approach to the dance marries deep-rooted traditions with contemporary innovations. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Kieran has a BA in English/Irish Studies from Boston College; an MA in Contemporary Dance Performance from the University of Limerick, Ireland; and the TCRG certificatefor teaching Irish dance.
As a solo performer, Kieran has developed a musical and expressive style, incorporating traditional Irish dance technique with various other styles – sean-nós Irish dance, Cape Breton step dance, and modern dance. She has collaborated with some of today’s finest players of traditional Irish music, and has performed in concerts and festivals in Canada, Sweden, Ireland, and throughout the US. She currently performs with the group Triptych as well as other music groups and dance ensembles.
As a teacher, Kieran has established a non-competitive Irish dance community in the Boston area. Her dance classes, specialized for teens and adults, focus on performance techniques and repertoire in traditional, contemporary, and sean-nós Irish dance. Outside of Boston, she travels widely to teach sean-nós dance workshops and her own Beyond the Feis™ Workshop at festivals, summer schools, and to Irish dancing schools. Beginning in January 2008, she will be a Guest Artist on the dance faculty at Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass.
Kieran directs and choreographs Kieran Jordan Dancers (her student performing group), and collaborates with other professional dancers on varied performance projects. She is Dance Director for the “WGBH Christmas Celtic Sojourn,” and she will be featured in that production’s DVD release — “A Christmas Celtic Sojourn, Live” – on Rounder Records. Kieran also produces dance events for the ICONS Festival at the Irish Cultural Centre of New England.
Kieran’s academic background, comprehensive Irish dance training, love of traditional music, and passion for many styles of dance have made her a distinctive leader in today’s growing field of contemporary Irish dance.
Training and Influences
Kieran learned to dance in the Philadelphia area, studying with the De Nogla, McHugh, Coyle, and Timoney Schools of Irish Dance. She competed nationally for 14 years, winning championship-level awards in U.S. East Coast competitions. As a high school student, she performed twice at Radio City Music Hall, New York, joining Irish tenor Frank Patterson and 100 Champion Step Dancers in the annual “St. Patrick’s Day Spectacular.” In 1992, she won the first college scholarship given by the Irish Dance Teachers’ Association of North American.
Kieran spent her weekends as a child attending Irish dance competitions and music festivals with her family. As a teen, she became acquainted with Irish musician and scholar Dr. Mick Moloney. She began performing in the Philadelphia area as a solo step dancer with the music trio — Mick Moloney, Seamus Egan, and Eugene O’Donnell. These experiences sparked her long-term interest in step dance and live music collaboration.
At Boston College, through the Irish Studies Program and Gaelic Roots Festivals, Kieran met and performed with some of Boston’s most established Irish musicians, including Seamus Connolly, Laurel Martin, Aine Minogue, Jimmy Noonan, and Mark Simos. She spent her junior year abroad studying Irish music, dance, and literature at University College, Cork, Ireland. There she had the privilege to take dance classes with Joe O’Donovan, one of Ireland most revered “old style” dance masters. She also took classes in Irish music and ethnomusicology with Méabh Ní Fhuartháin (at Boston College) and Mel Mercier and Dr. Liz Doherty (at University College, Cork). From these tutors, she learned to communicate in a musician’s “language” that she continues to use in her dance teaching and performing work.
Throughout her high school and college years, Kieran’s dance interests broadened beyond Irish dance. She took classes in musical theatre jazz, and she began exploring other styles of percussive dance – Cape Breton step dance, sean-nós Irish dance, Appalachian clogging, and tap. In these styles, she observed playfulness, inventiveness, and intrinsic dialogue between the dancer and musician. She found that — in contrast to the rigidity of competitive Irish dancing — these improvised “close-to-the-floor” dance styles allow the unique personality of each dancer to shine through.
Over the years, Kieran has learned from, performed with, or shared steps with the following inspirational “close-to-the-floor” step dancers: Joe O’Donovan (traditional Irish dance), Kevin Doyle (traditional Irish dance and tap); Melody Cameron, Christine Morrison, and Mats Melin (Cape Breton step dance); Róisín Ní Mhainín, Aidan Vaughan, Maldon Meehan, and Ronan Regan (sean-nós Irish dance); Amy Fenton-Shine (clogging); Rose Giovanetti, Josh Hilberman, and Jill Braverman (tap); Pierre Chartrand (French-Canadian step dance); and Sandy Silva (improvisation and percussive dance).
In 2004-05, Kieran attended University of Limerick to pursue the Master’s Degree in Contemporary Dance Performance, directed by Mary Nunan. Her tutors there included: Mark Taylor (Body-Mind Centering), and Mary Nunan, Yoshiko Chuma, Michael Klien, and Liz and Jenny Roche (choreography and contemporary dance technique).
She also worked on independent projects in sean-nós dance, focusing on the County Clare dance style of Aidan Vaughan. She attended a sean-nós dance festival, Comórtas Chóilín Sheáin Dharach, in Ros muc, Connemara, and won second place for her sean-nós jig dancing there. Kieran graduated from UL with First Class Honors.
Kieran’s ongoing explorations in dance and somatic techniques have expanded her vocabulary of movement and broadened the range of expression in her choreography. In the Boston area, she has taken modern dance classes with Dr. Jody Weber, Rozann Kraus, Adrienne Hawkins, and Jean Appollon. With Debra Bluth, she has taken Contact Improvisation and Experiential Anatomy workshops. She has also attended workshops in Washington D.C. in the Franklin Method, with dance imagery teacher and author Eric Franklin.
Performance Experience
Kieran’s performance style displays percussive footwork, a lyrical use of the body, and a compelling emotional dynamic. Of a recent performance, The Boston Globe wrote, “Jordan complemented Irish step's vivid high kicks and swiveling footwork with an uncharacteristically loose upper torso and a playfully theatrical use of the head and arms, bringing the traditionally rigid dance form the freedom and fluidity of jazz tap.”
Kieran is a seasoned solo dancer who has performed with many renowned musicians and bands. Besides those mentioned above, she has also collaborated with: Sarah Blair, Hanneke Cassel, Matt and Shannon Heaton, George Keith, and Tina Lech. She has given guest performances with: Beolach, Brendan Begley and Caoimhín O Raghallaigh, Liz Carroll, Laura Cortese, Paddy Keenan, Buddy MacMaster, Gearoid Ohallmhurain, Myron Bretholtz and Patrick Orceau, and step dancer Donny Golden.
From 1998 – 2003, she worked actively with the Rhode Island band Pendragon, step dancing alongside her dance partner Kevin Doyle. In 1999, she joined the Boston-based music ensemble Childsplay, led by violin-maker Bob Childs. She has performed annually with this group, touring New England with a cast of 30 musicians, as well as dancers Amy Fenton-Shine and Pierre Chartrand. In 2006, Kieran joined her friends and collaborators Laura Risk (fiddle) and Paddy League (guitar and bodhran) to form their new trio called Triptych.
Kieran was invited in 2004 to dance in the WGBH “Christmas Celtic Sojourn,” a live theater production produced and hosted by WGBH radio presenter Brian O’Donovan with Artistic Director Paula Plum. The following year, she became Dance Director for this production.
She has contributed choreography and dance performance to this show annually, working with stellar musical line-ups including: Danú, Paddy League, Tony MacManus and Natalie Haas, the Mulcahy Family, Navan, Sharon Shannon Band, Robbie O’Connell Band, Niall Vallely and more.
This project has sparked new choreography between Kieran and the dance colleagues she’s invited to join the show, including Kevin Doyle, Nua-nós (Maldon Meehan, Mats Melin, Ronan Regan), Nicholas Yenson, and Aidan Vaughan.
Other theater credits include “And They Called It Ireland,” a Riverdance-style revue choreographed by Marybeth Griffith, A.D.C.R.G. Kieran danced in a 10-week run of this production at the Fireside Theatre (Wisconsin) in 2000-01. She has appeared as a guest artist with various contemporary dance companies, including Catherine Young/Siamsa Tire (Tralee, Ireland), Fusionworks Dance Company (Rhode Island), and the Vanaver Caravan (New York).
Select performance venues include:
Festivals: Blás International Summer School (Ireland), Boston Celtic Music Fest (Massachusetts), Catskills Irish Arts Week (New York), Falun Folk Festival (Sweden), Festival International Des Arts Traditionnels (Quebec), Irish Connections (ICONS) Festival (Massachusetts), New World Festival (Vermont), Philadelphia Céilí Group Festival (Pennsylvania), Sionna Festival (Ireland)
Theaters: Cutler Majestic Theatre at Emerson College (Massachusetts), Greenwich Odeum Theatre (Rhode Island), National Heritage Museum (Massachusetts), Providence Performing Arts Center (Rhode Island), Siamsa Tire (Ireland), Somerville Theatre (Massachusetts)
Universities: Boston College, Georgia Southern University, Ohio State University, Rhode Island College, Roger Williams University, University of Limerick, University of North Florida, University of Pennsylvania, Virginia Tech University
Teaching Experience
Kieran began her teaching career with the desire to teach traditional and original Irish dance technique and choreography, with a goal towards performance rather than competition. She offered her first classes in 2001, at the Blackstone River Theatre in Rhode Island. That same year, she attended a TCRG preparation course at Boston College with Irish dance teacher and adjudicator, Rita O’Shea. Kieran earned her TCRG teaching credential from An Coimisiún le Rincé Gaelacha in 2002.
Kieran now teaches and produces weekly dance classes, special dance workshops, and Irish dance history lecture/demonstrations. Her weekly dance classes take place in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and cater to an enthusiastic group of about 50 students.
Her Beyond the Feis™ Workshop — focusing on aspects of Irish dance that expend beyond competition steps and competition culture – is available to Irish dancing schools and dance organizations worldwide. Her sean-nós dance workshops are popular at Irish festivals and summer schools, and with céilí and set dancing groups.
Kieran’s teaching celebrates the most traditional dances of Ireland, while also encouraging innovation and creative expression. Classes emphasize rhythm, musicality, mind-body awareness, and performing skills. Her step dancing classes include specific warm-up and conditioning exercises that Kieran has designed with influences from modern dance, yoga, and fitness techniques.
Kieran has served on the faculty at the following music and dance summer schools: Blás International Summer School (Ireland), Catskills Irish Arts Week (New York), Falun Folk Festival (Sweden), Pinewoods Dance Camp (Massachusetts), and Vanaver Caravan Summer Dance (New York).
She has presented Irish dance history lectures throughout Massachusetts at: Bridgewater State University, Cambridge Center for Adult Education, the Folk Arts Centre of New England, the Irish Cultural Centre of New England, and the Lowell Folk Festival.
Further afield, she has given workshops at: the Festival International Des Arts Traditionnels (Quebec), New World Festival (Vermont), New York City Irish Dance Festival (New York), Philadelphia Céilí Group Festival (Pennsylvania), Roger Williams University (Rhode Island), University of Limerick (Ireland), Villanova University (Pennsylvania), and for Irish dancing groups throughout the US.
In 2007, Kieran produced a two-day program called “American Women in Sean-nós Dance,” as part of the ICONS festival in Massachusetts. This event featured workshops, panel discussions, and performances by America’s most active sean-nós dancers and teachers – Shannon Dunne, Alician Guinn, Maldon Meehan, and Kieran. Live music was provided by Amanda Cavanagh, Johnny B. Connolly, Ted Davis, Shannon Heaton, Dan Isaacson, Tina Lech, and Dana Lynn.
Choreography Projects
As a freelance choreographer, Kieran has collaborated in Boston with musicians and dancers from diverse genres, from the jazz-fusion band Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, to Indian Kathak dancer Gretchen Hayden, to the Cape Breton step dance group Four on the Floor. She initiated the groups Kieran Jordan Dancers, Nua-nós (with Maldon Meehan, Mats Melin, and Ronan Regan), and UnBeaten Path (with Darrah Carr, Niall O’Leary, Ben Power, and a Mark Simos), and as choreographic ensembles that explore new directions in Irish dance.
Kieran has presented choreography with these groups in Massachusetts at: the Boston Celtic Music Fest, Cutler Majestic Theatre, The Dance Complex (Shared Choreographers’ Concert and Faculty Concert), Irish Connections (ICONS) Festival, Jacob’s Pillow, John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Regent Theatre, and Springstep, and also at the New York City Irish Dance Festival, and Riversing (Rhode Island).
In 2004, Kieran received the first commissioning grant from the Irish Connections Festival in Canton, Massachusetts to choreograph a new work celebrating Irish and Irish American themes. Other choreography credits include the Brian Friel play “Dancing at Lughnasa” which she choreographed for the Providence College Blackfriars’ Theatre in Rhode Island in 2004.
Publications and Research
From 1995-1999, Kieran worked as Arts Editor for the Boston Irish Reporter newspaper, writing her own music column “Last Night’s Fun” and dance column, “Come Dance With Me.” She has written numerous articles on Irish music and dance for the Boston Irish Reporter, Irish Music Magazine, and Irish Dancing and Culture Magazine. Kieran is a member of Dance Research Forum Ireland, and she presented her practice-based research at the DRFI conference in Limerick in 2006.
Kieran lives with her husband and partner in the arts, Vincent Crotty, a visual artist originally from Kanturk, County Cork, Ireland.