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The Set Dances for Solo Dancers
The information I have may be out of date as to whether these are still the official dances for Solo competition. However, these were the official dances in 1999 in North America, and presumably the rest of the dancing world!
I am indebted to Don at Irish Traditional Dancers' List for this info.
There are a total of 30 Dances listed for Open Set Dance competitrions.
In each case, I give the name of the tune (which is also the name of the dance), the number of bars of music in the step, and the number of bars in the set part.
For a great new Set Dance CD click here. The Final Round has all the set dances at various speeds to suit every dancer!
| No. | TITLE |
Bars in Step | Bars in Set |
| 1 | The Blackbird | 7½ | 15 |
| 2 | Rodney's Glory | 8 | 12 |
| 3 | The Downfall of Paris | 8 | 16 |
| 4 | The King of the Fairies | 8 | 16 |
| 5 | The Lodge Road | 8 | 20 |
| 6 | Planxty Davis | 16 | 16 |
| No. | TITLE |
Bars in Step | Bars in Set |
| 7 | The White Blanket | 6 | 12 |
| 8 | Youghal Harbour | 6 | 14 |
| 9 | The Hunt | 8 | 12 |
| 10 | Madame Bonaparte | 8 | 12 |
| 11 | The Piper Through the Meadow Straying | 8 | 12 |
| 12 | The Job of Journeywork | 8 | 14 |
| 13 | The Garden of Daisies | 8 | 16 |
| 14 | The Rambling Rake | 8 | 16 |
| 15 | Bonaparte's Retreat | 8 | 20 |
| 16 | The Kilkenny Races | 8 | 24 |
| 17 | The Ace and Deuce of Pipering | 12 | 12 |
| No. | TITLE |
Bars in Step |
Bars in Set |
| 18 | The Hurling Boys | 8 | 14 |
| 19 | Jockey to the Fair | 8 | 14 |
| 20 | Rub the Bag | 8 | 14 |
| 21 | St. Patrick's Day | 8 | 14 |
| 22 | Hurry the Jug | 8 | 16 |
| 23 | The Orange Rogue | 8 | 16 |
| 24 | The Humours of Bandon | 8 | 16 |
| 25 | Miss Brown's Fancy | 8 | 16 |
| 26 | The Three Sea Captains | 8 | 20 |
| 27 | Planxty Drury | 12 | 16 |
| 28 | The Blackthorn Stick | 15 | 15 |
| 29 | The Drunken Gauger | 15 | 15 |
You will note that this only makes a total of 29 set dances. However, there is (or at least was) a 30th set dance, called "Is the Big Man Within?" This is an unusual set dance because what actually makes it a set dance (rather than a standard Irish dance tune) is not the number of bars in one or both of the parts (it has 8 bars to the step and 8 bars to the set part). It is rather the fact that the step is in 9/8 time, while the set part is in 6/8 time.
"Is the Big Man Within?" is included on the official list in a document, dated November 1988, sent out by IDTANA (Irish Dancing Teachers Association of North America) to help students prepare for the TCRG exam. However, more recently "Big Man" has failed to appear in some collections of set dances (for example, Olive Hurley's two volume "Sets and Solos" recordings), and some of the recent Feis syllabus have failed to include it.
At present we do not know if it has been officially dropped by the Commision.
Incidentally, there is a very nice listening version of "Big Man" on James Kelly's recent "Traditional Irish Music" CD, on his own label I believe.