The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #94257   Message #1827528
Posted By: DannyC
05-Sep-06 - 12:05 PM
Thread Name: origins of broom dancing
Subject: RE: origins of broom dancing
I first saw this danced here (as described above) in Central Kentucky (only 5 years ago) by a woman named Theresa from Dingle, Co Kerry in Ireland (She's here working the horses.). She prefers a Kerry polka played with steadily increased tempo to accompany her dancing - quicken and quicken until you can go no more.

I later saw it danced in a similar fashion here by a fella named Martin from a townland near Mallow in County Cork.

Having provided the music for the dancing in each of the above instances, my wife Beverly Buchanan states that she saw it danced in her youth in Appalachia (well, she's still young - let's call it her younger youth). She says it was exclusively danced by men in the Kentucky mountains, and she understood that the dance gave the men a chance to show off their physical prowess - a bachelor sort of thing. She says that there was an competitive element to the Kentucky version.