In the great tradition of Irish storytelling, Melissa Roberson can’t help but impart a dash of family legend retelling how her son, Michael, came into his love of Irish folk dancing.
“Way back when, we were at a performance of the local Celtic society,” she said. “Michael got up on the table and started dancing along to the music. He was 2.”
Michael, now 19 and a freshman at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, dismisses the tale as so much blarney, saying his mother deposited him one day at a dance studio when he was 9 telling the instructor, simply, “My son wants to learn about Irish dancing.”
He quickly took to it with a natural flair.
“It was awkward at first, because I was a 9-year-old boy in a room with a bunch of 13-year-old girls,” Michael said. “But I soon found out that I learned the steps faster than anyone else.”
Michael was soon joined by his sister LeAnne and the two have traveled the United States competing and appearing in a long list of performances. Members of the McCafferty School of Irish Dance’s Little Rock studio, the duo and their companions are in high demand in March as parades, bars, and even the governor showcase all things Irish in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.
Each venue brings its own challenges. In some of the bars, the crowd pressed in on all sides or sometimes walked across the performance to get another beverage.
“Bars are a fun atmosphere to dance,” said LeAnne, 14.
“Jump high and hit your heels and the place goes nuts,” Michael agreed.
Other times, the response is less enthusiastic. Once, at a Polish festival, the crowd was so disinterested Michael ripped his pants during the performance and no one noticed. He tells the story with a note of incredulity, but it doesn’t much mask the fact that although he has ascended to the highest levels of dance competition he would perform just about anywhere.
LeAnne is just the opposite. Give her the pressure of competition over the jitters of live performance any day, she said, her ice-blue eyes sparking at the thought of a judge, a stage and a trophy at stake.
One can find such a competition, called a feis, any weekend across the country — in Arkansas, the Roberson’s school alone hosts three feiseanna every year. Competitors crowd stages from Boston to Los Angeles. LeAnne competes in about three or four a year while Michael competes in six to eight.
Economics have as much to do with the family’s competition schedule as anything — besides travel and lodging expenses, the Robersons have invested in lessons, incidentals and, especially in LeAnne’s case, costumes.
“A girl’s competition dress can cost thousands of dollars,” said Melissa, a fourth-grade teacher at Our Lady of Holy Souls School in Little Rock. “You can find used dresses, but that is sometimes challenging because they are often tailored for a particular dancer so it’s hard to find one that fits just right.”
“Or, it’s just ugly,” LeAnne added. “Dancers try to stand out on stage and they come up with some pretty awful-looking outfits.”
Even with the cost and lost weekends, the kids’ dancing isn’t something that Melissa and her husband Randy, who works for Arkansas state parks, would trade. Not only have the kids been given the opportunity to travel, but getting in front of audiences and judges has fueled in them a healthy self-confidence.
“Being a teacher, people are surprised to find out I have never been able to get up in front of a group outside the classroom,” she said. “Seeing them up there, dancing in front of all those people, that’s amazing. I wish I could do that.”
Dancers hit their peak in their 20s and even before then, the relentless physicality of Irish folk dancing brings on a variety of injuries and general wear and tear. Michael normally practices eight to 10 hours a week but has been derailed because of an injury, which is nerve-wracking given the world championships in Boston are looming.
He’s also landed a coveted spot in a dance company in Dublin that will perform on a mini-tour of Ireland this summer, sponsored by Riverdance, the traveling dance show with which most casual observers of the art form are familiar.
You don’t have to book a trip to Ireland to see the Roberson dancers in action; the parishioners of Our Lady of the Holy Souls Church in Little Rock will be performing at the Rock to North Little Rock St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Saturday, March 16 at 1 p.m. and as part of the annual St. Patrick’s Day Mass at 9 a.m., Sunday, March 17 at St. Edward Church in Little Rock.
