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Edwina Guckian is a proud Leitrim lady who comes from a family steeped in the lengthy traditions of song and dance. Having fallen in love with sean-nós dancing early on in life, Edwina began teaching dance at 16 and set up Áirc Damhsa as a culture club for youths to interact with their heritage and culture in a fun, non-competitive environment.
The artistic director of Leitrim Dance Project, and the author of the children’s book Sparks from the Flagstones, Edwina was awarded the Arts Council of Ireland Next Generation Bursary back in 2017 to support her work in redeveloping the connection between music and movement, musician and dancer.
One of this year’s Culture Night ambassadors, we sat down with the community-minded artist to hear about the importance of preserving Irish traditions and passing them on to the next generation and the thrill of community celebrations.
It was just a part of everyday life in our family, the same as many other families in Ireland. You learned to walk, talk, dance a step, lilt a tune… music and dance were always just there. It was the same for my own parents and grandparents, and probably many more generations before them.
I love children’s books! I’ve been a bookworm since my mother first read books to me as a child and the greatest gift you can give me today is a children’s book. So, I’ve always dreamt of someday writing my own.
It’s part of my everyday work as an artist. Our Irish culture is rooted in tradition yet is ever-growing and changing. Much of our Irish culture centres around bringing people together to celebrate through music, song, dance and the arts. That’s what our ancestors have done for thousands of years and what we continue to do today. And we do it so well. Just look at Culture Night as an example.
It’s a very exciting night. You can really feel this huge collective energy fizzing across the country as the nation comes together to celebrate the arts. It’s a night for everyone to get out and experience the huge range of our diverse culture in Ireland.
To step inside an arts venue that you might pass by every day. To visit something you’re already interested in or step out of your comfort zone and experience something completely different. Who knows what it might spark in you? The possibilities of this night are very exciting.
I’m usually performing on Culture Night and I’m always looking for new faces in the audience, wondering if this might be the night that they get hooked on dancing and I’ll see their faces a lot more over the coming years at events.
There’s over 1700 free events happening across Ireland on Friday 20 September. Visit culturenight.ie to see what’s happening near you and get planning your own.
Photography by Philip Doyle.