- [Instructor] Toe, and 1, 2, 3, 4, stretch right and left, then 1, 2, 3, 4, back right, back left, back 1, 2, 3, 4, up, then back, keep those arms to your sides.

You all right, Fiona?

- [Presenter] No, this isn't some strange obscure ritual that involves synchronized skipping.

And no, these children aren't the victims of a cult of mad tap dancers.

These young hoofers are members of the Irish Dancers of Indianapolis- - [Instructor] All the way down the line.

- [Presenter] - a group of young performers and their parents dedicated to keeping an age-old tradition alive.

- [Instructor] Toe, and 1, 2, 3, 4, skip right- - We do emphasize the Irish heritage and the culture in this group, although not all kids are of Irish descent here.

Actually, we have dancers from five years old to 17 and 18 years old, so it's a full range of ages, which is a lot of fun.

Also, we are all over the city, we have kids from the south side, the north side, east and west alike, and so in that sense, it's a really kind of a unique group of kids that get together and do this dancing.

We've been performing in Indianapolis for over 17 years, and this September we had a really unique opportunity to bring a world class step dancer, John Timm, the 1993 senior men's world champion, over to Indianapolis to teach our girls, so you can imagine how exciting that is for us.

- [Presenter] Under John's direction, the Irish dancers have performed at a variety of venues and events around the Indianapolis area, including halftime at the Butler Notre Dame game.

John himself is not of Irish descent, and although he started out very early to master the complexities of the steps and patterns involved, he has discovered that Irish dancing isn't a simple thing.

- It is a very difficult dance form to master.

One of the reasons is because it's very defined.

Clogging and tap dancing is very loose, not only with the upper body, but with the lower body.

The feet can pretty much do whatever they want, there's really no emphasis on exactly where you place your feet.

In Irish dancing, there's an extreme emphasis on foot placement, that being one foot in front of the other, rather than side by side, and that's very difficult to master, especially then when you're talking about holding the arms down to the side to keep your balance, so you can't use your arms to balance yourself, like you can in tap dancing and clogging, so in essence, it sometimes it sort of feels like you're dancing on a balance beam.

Holding the arms to the side was the church's influence on Irish dancing.

At the time that Irish dancing was becoming popular back in the 1800s, the church didn't want anyone involved with them to be dancing, they felt that it was just un-Christian-like, but they felt that if they held the arms down to the side, it would make it a little less provocative, and then they felt that that might then make it okay to do, and the tradition has sort of stuck.

- [Presenter] While the forms of movement in Irish dancing are somewhat formalized, the area of costuming can be very independent.

Each dancer can design his or her own costume using elements from Irish lore.

- I have the only dress that looks like this, there's not a single other dress that looks exactly like this.

You really design it yourself.

I, for example, picked the velvet, I really wanted the orange, and I decided I wanted the kick pleat in the middle with the accordion pleats, and I picked the design, and I even took it so far as to send a colored-in pattern of the design on a piece of paper of where I wanted the colors.

It's very unique.

There's, like I said before, there's not another girl in the probably world who has a dress exactly like this.

Once you get started, I mean, there's no way I could ever quit now.

My sister and I, especially my sister, when we get older, we wanna be Irish dance teachers and teach students.

Once you start, there's no way you can stop once you make it this far.

It's just something I love.

- With the right instruction and with the right dedication from the dancers, I feel it's a two-way street.

A teacher can't, you know, produce a champion if they don't work themselves, but a dancer cannot become a champion without the dedication from the teacher, so it's a two-way street, and I think that's something that we have here, and with dedication on both sides, these kids can definitely go places.

(bright music) - [Narrator] For more Across Indiana stories, go to wfyi.org/acrossindiana.