The Bradford Creative and Performing Arts Center will be
bringing a bit o’ the Irish into Bradford on St. Patrick’s Day with
the Irish dance and music show “Spirit of the Dance.”

The show will be held at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Bradford Area
High School Auditorium.

Ollie Rovet, company manager for “Spirit of the Dance,” said
this specific show has been performing since 1996, when it started
in Bristol, England, and has been touring the United States since
1998. He said they’re looking forward to performing in Bradford,
and their performances around the country have been well-received
“especially in the Florida area for some reason.”

“It’s a pleasure to be there (in Bradford),” Rovet said. “We
really appreciate the hospitality we’re shown. It makes it a
pleasure to do our show, as much as a pleasure for people to watch
it.”

Some of the places in which the show gave performances in the
past include Australia, New Zealand, China, South America, Canada,
around Europe and the United Kingdom.

Rovet said the dance is “extremely colorful, fast,” and this
particular show doesn’t “just stick with 100 percent Irish theme,
which differentiates us from other Irish shows.” He cited a few
examples of a “Spanish number” and a “Scottish dance.”

Rovet explained that the music and dancing of the Irish or of
the Gaelic tradition has always been “enchanting” and “seems to
stay popular.”

“It has always been an enchanting, magical music,” Rovet said.
“It’s a mixture of magical dancing and music, which is still always
new. It has an old-fashioned, romantic line to it,” though Rovet
explained “Spirit of the Dance” does not have a constant story line
to it.

Rovet said the dance has come about from “constant shifts of
population and migration” from different people coming into
Ireland. He said throughout Ireland’s history, different people
would come into Ireland and leave again, contributing to the
combination that makes up the dance as it is today. Rovet said
traditional Irish dances go back a 100 years but didn’t really
become “mainline” until the 1990s. He said the popularity “was
brought about by several shows that became popular.”

There have been other Irish-themed music and dance performances
that have come before and started around the time that “Spirit of
the Dance” began their performances, which helped the popularity of
these Irish dancing shows grow. Rovet explained there’s a huge
Irish connection in the United States, which may also explain the
show’s popularity here.