Bonnie, I'm completely with you on this one. One of the things that gets to me is the complete indifference of most parents of 'Irish Dancers' to Irish Traditional Music. Obviously I've got an axe to grind on this one but I've repeatedly offered the chance for kids to learn to play the music to 'Irish Dancing' parents - mostly to be met with a blank stare and a response along the lines of 'What, like Riverdance?'.

Having said that, our own daughter's dance teacher doesn't push the wigs and radioactive dresses on kids and is indeed very down on them herself. It doesn't seem to hurt the kids' prospects at Feiseanna - one of her girls won first prize at the last feis she was at and the only special costume was a green (yeah, I know) leotard and a plain skirt. No wig.

A couple of the other dance schools in my area, on the other hand, are among the worst offenders - some of them seem to make more selling the dresses than they do from teaching the dancing. And it is a business, when all is said and done. The music is only a means to an end.

Since my daughter has been doing the dancing it's helped her music a lot - we often find that kids who dance are often more able to make sense of traditional music than kids who don't or who don't have traditional music in the house.

Apart from that benefit, however, most of the 'Irish Dancing' schools in our neck of the woods are businesses first and foremost and if you get involved with them you are going to be spending a lot of money and subjecting your child to some very questionable treatment, in my view. My daughter's own teacher is an honourable exception - for which I'm very grateful.