Dance! - The Road to Heavies: October 20, 2013: Ragús at the Purmaryn theatre

Together with my mom, I visit 'Ragús', an Irish dance and song performance in the local theatre of Purmerend, the Purmaryn on a Sunday.
Unfortunately, the description in the program of the theatre doesn't completely match. They wrote 'A performance with traditional Irish dance' or something similar but the dancers, move their arms like there's no tomorrow and what one of the guys does on his heavy shoes is stunning, but more looks like tapdance than Irish dance.

The lightshow is nice but a long line of LED-lights, that constantly change color in every color of the rainbow, distract greatly from the people on stage. There are very few moments those lights just stay on a single colour.

Impressive fiddling, but no bodran

From the musicians, the fiddler impresses the most. Without getting to a point you get the idea he's impersonating someone, he takes his instrument to the limit and plays like mad.
Surprisingly, there is no musician that plays a bodran: an Irish percussion-instrument like no other.
The Uillean pipes are there fortunately, besides a guitar- and keyboardplayer.
Bandmember number five has total control over his button-accordeon and plays very good, but it's a pity it drowns so quickly in the sound of the keyboard.
A good show, but I don't think I will pay a visit to it again.

After the show, the CD's from the piper, fiddler and signer is on sale in the foyer of the theatre. I expect it to go wild, but that seems to be a little too much thought. I take a stand at the table and get into a short talk with the fiddle and after that with the piper, especially because I never saw a set of Uillean pipes from up-close.

Now that is a complex thing to see, a set of Uillean pipes...

I'm amazed by the amount of buttons on this instrument. The Scottish bagpipe my dad had is very familiar to me and I know how to produce sound with that instrument (allthough I never managed to do that myself).
This thing has a huge amount of buttons and valves that can be used to control all kinds of things.
The piper explains that he only plays the flute when he is playing in the band and plays the drones when it is a solo piece, and that he can - in contrary to a Scottish bagpipe's deep hum - turn the drones on and off while playing.

I get the question if I play the instrument myself as well. The fiddler did that as well: I probably look skilled...
No, my dad thinks about changing to a set of Uillean pipes because of the high volume of his Scottish and because I dance I could benefit from it as well if he does so...

Both the piper and the singer hear that and especially the piper is chuffed to bits. They both think it's great because it takes so much dedication (and time).
I tell them it takes about 7 hours of my free Saturday and it is tough, but I like it enough to do that.
I still can't really accept that I quit a while ago so actually, I'm kind of lying.

'The Hague? You should talk to Renske!'

"Quite some dedication then! You're taking classes in Amsterdam?" the piper asks.
"No, The Hague." I tell him, amazed. I don't know if they know there isn't a class at all in Amsterdam, but the Irish dance-world is small, especially in the Netherlands, so the chance that a group of Irish musicians that is close to a 'troupe' is also aware of the classes given in my country, is there.

The piper reacts vividly: "The Hague? You should talk to Renske then!"
"Renske?"
"Renske is one of our dancers in the show, and, now what did she do? Was she like teaching or taking classes in Amsterdam or?" He asks for confirmation from one of his colleagues, but he's right.
"She dances in Amsterdam?" I repeat his answer because I don't really believe it. This can't be true now...
"Yeah! Wait.... just write down your email-adress and I'll pass it on to her!"
He grabs a flyer from the stand and I can write my e-mailaddress on a blank piece of it.

While still in the act of doing so, she [Renske] coincidentally walks into the foyer from the changing room.... The piper waves his arms in the air and loudly asks her to join us, which grabs the attention of the rest of the crowd in the cafetaria. That's also down to the way he pronounces her very Dutch name. The first 'e' is almost silent which makes it sound a bit silly.

I have a short talk with her. To my amazement, the Redmond School of Irish Dancing holds fridaynight classes in the North of Amsterdam (Amsterdam-Noord).
On enthusiastic encouragement by the piper, I shake her hand and get a sturdy handshake from the piper as well: it probably looked like I knew those people for ages already and many people from the foyer are looking at us.

I start a search on the internet when I get home. Why I overlooked that result the last time, I don't know, but the internet has its ways that are hard to understand sometimes. I also quickly find out the Redmond School doesn't have a website.
But indeed, fridaynight danceclass in the North of Amsterdam. Better: there even is a bus-service straight from home to the location where the classes are held and it has a stop that is even right in front of the door (for public-transport understandings that is)

And deep inside... there is this energy...