r/irishdance • u/Bootsy3 • Jul 14 '25
How does Trad Set work?
Our school is on summer break and I don’t want to bother the teacher with this, but I have a question lol 😂
How exactly does trad set work at Feiseanna? My son is in grades (novice and prizewinner) and has just learned his first trad set. He’ll likely do it at the next feis he goes to. I see they’re on the registration by age (all levels). So, like: 510TS (Under 10 All Levels).
Do you ‘level up’ in trad set? Or how does it work if there are no separate levels to place in? What’s the incentive or reason to keep doing them? 🫣I hope this makes sense lol
We’re still pretty new to all of this, so forgive my ignorance. ❤️ Thanks!
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u/No-Effort5109 Jul 14 '25
Some feisannas will have a Novice and “lower” and then a Prizewinner level. Sometimes it will just be by age level.
Some schools have dancers compete in Trad Set as a precursor to Solos at Oireachtas. At Oireachtas and NANS, dancers can place so the incentive is to win.
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u/Bootsy3 Jul 14 '25
Ah I see! My little guy is U9, so he’s not old enough to do solos this year (I think), but he’s supposed to be going to Oireachtas for a ceili and trad set. So he can basically use the trad set at Feiseanna as practice and kind of a sounding board to see how he’s performing leading up to regionals. ❤️ Makes sense! Thanks so much.
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u/orangealiment Jul 17 '25
Solos start at u8 but it’s teachers discretion who to send.
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u/Bootsy3 Jul 17 '25
Ah that makes sense! My son has only just moved into 2 prizewinner dances and the others are in Novice. He wouldn’t likely be the caliber dancer to perform well at oireachtas.
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u/starsarefixed Jul 14 '25
Aside from competitive experience etc, I'm a strong advocate for them as they are very different to regular solos and teach the relationship between music and steps better. The trad set steps were created WITH that music and you can almost see the steps from just listening to it. The timing can be tricky on them and although the steps seem straightforward - both of these things combined make for a real learning curve.
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u/Bootsy3 Jul 15 '25
Ah, so true! Funnily, my son seems way better in time with the set dance than his solos sometimes 😂 I love watching that ‘stretch kick your heel’ every single time he does it haha
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u/Lopsided-Position430 Jul 14 '25
Trad Set is such a great opportunity to compete against dancers who may not be in your typical line. But to answer your question, winning trad sets doesn’t count toward your next level or milestone. But as another commenter mentioned, Oireachtas and Nationals have trad sets events, which are a great entry point for dancers who aren’t quite ready for solos in majors.