ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the Masters programme in Irish Traditional Dance Performance, which was introduced at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick in 1999. It reflects upon the rationale for its emergence and explores how it contested and negotiated hegemonic discourses present within the world of competitive Irish dancing. This hegemonic discourse is examined, focusing on historical, ideological and cultural issues and their impact on the construction of an Irish step-dancing body. The chapter investigates questions relating to the institutionalization and artification of indigenous dance practices within university contexts, and argues that the Masters programme in Irish Traditional Dance Performance at the University of Limerick, while engaged in these processes, also respected and involved marginalized indigenous dance practices together with competitive Irish dance, to provide an important pedagogical, reflexive and training site for advanced Irish dancers.
