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Tualatin-Tigard Times
Doin’ an Irish dance
That's what a group gets together regularly in Tigard & Tualatin
to do for fun
By Elena Boryczka
When Sam Keator sees someone walk
into the Tigard Grange on SW Pacific Hwy for his Wednesday night Irish dance classes, he expects at least one thing:
that they try to have a good time.
“The biggest joy I have is when
you see someone who has never done this before. They’re just bashful, shy, their face is blah, and before you know it
they’re smiling and the spirits come out,” he said. “And what better joy? It’s more than money for
me. It’s just part of what I love.”
He is hopeful for the same amount of
enjoyment during the monthly céilí’s he holds at the Winona Grange (céilí means “celebration”) and the concerts
held at the music room he built on the back of his home in Tualatin. You could almost say he has a passion for encouraging
social interaction.
“A céilí is truly a gathering and
not just a dance. It’s a social experience,” he said. The same goes for the drop-in dance lessons held during
the week.
“I make sure [everyone has] nametags
on, that way they can get to know each other, meet each other,” he said. “The drop-in class is that way because
every week I don’t know who is going to be here, so it’s a nice surprise when I see someone I haven’t seen
in a while.”
Keator’s two-hour classes are relatively
simple – participants grab a nametag at the front and then follow him along for some step-by-step moves that will later
be strung together into more complex dance maneuvers. The music rings through the air, but Keator’s strong voice carries
out above it with instructions, compliments and critiques – always infused with a bit of humor.
Mary Meyer is a familiar face at the
Wednesday night gatherings, with regular attendance since around the time the class formed. The 82-year-old from Tigard has
more than 28 years of dancing experience under her belt, and she said she appreciates the opportunity to continue what she
loves.
”In the first place, it’s
good exercise, it’s fun, you get to meet a lot of good people,” Meyer said. One of the things she makes a point
of doing is talking to people who look like they are unsure or a little out of place, which coincidentally furthers Keator’s
goal of everyone getting to know everyone else.
“I make a point of talking to everyone
who comes in . . . I like to involve everyone,” she said. “It’s an outing, so it’s something different
to do. It’s just people that you try to get involved.”
Meyer also tries to get her neighbors
to come out to the class. On this particular Wednesday, she arrived with two other women she knows from around her neighborhood.
Donna Witten is one of Meyer’s neighbors who was encouraged to give it a
try about a month and a half ago, and she has been coming ever since. She said she likes getting to know the other people
there and also the great workout she gets from it.
“I like coming to the grange because
it’s still old fashioned, country, with a small-town feel,” she said.
Meyer said she likes to encourage every
one of all skill levels to at least give the Irish dances a shot.
“Come and try it, and see if you
like it,” she said.
To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, Keator
and the All-Ireland Tír Eoghain crew continuing to celebrate that Club’s 30th year of dance lessons will
be at PPAA, 618 S.E. Alder St. in Portland, on March 14, with a lesson at 7 p.m. and a dance at 8 p.m. Music will be offered
by Dale Russ, Tom Creegan, Mikey Beglan and Bob Soper, and Keator will teach and
call the traditional dances. Special guest pipers from the Tualatin Fire & Rescue Pipes and Drum Band will round out the
evening.
The Oregonian, February 7, 2008
Tualatin's Sam Keator brings the music home
Posted by The Oregonian February 09, 2008 02:00AM
JOHN GIVOT/THE OREGONIAN
Sam Keator has some rules for his dancing classes:
"Keep moving, keep smiling, have fun." Sam Keator and his wife, Anne Doherty, are having some friends over tonight
--friends such as world-class Irish fiddler Kevin Burke, who'll play a house concert with pianist Cal Scott in the music room
Keator built on the back of his Tualatin home.
The Wee Ceili (kay-lee) Room is a friendly space of warm, rough-textured wood and great acoustics, a perfect place for
40 people to watch and hear music being made. Hand drums and a County Donegal flag hang on the walls. There is no stage, just
a couple of chairs for the players, who sit nearly knee-to-knee with the first row of listeners. Nobody is more than 16 feet
from the stage.
The 500-square-foot room embodies a participatory ideal of music that Celtic and other folk cultures never forgot: that
music is best made at home and shared among friends.
Keator does his part. He teaches Irish dancing classes twice a week, puts on monthly ceilis in Tualatin's historic Winona
Grange, teaches seasonal dance classes at various parks & rec departments and sets up about 30 ceilis a year for wedding
receptions, reunions and other private or corporate events. He devotes his time to perpetuating the very Irish idea that art
and music and life and conversation and dancing entwine in an intricate, beautiful Celtic knot called life.
"Ceili really means celebration," he said. "A gathering of friends to enjoy each other's company and music, poetry, song,
food, dancing its more than just a dance."
Keator, 55, is a true believer and all the more dedicated because he came to it later in life. He was born in Broward County,
Fla., at a considerable remove from Ireland, though Anne Doherty is very much from County Donegal, where the two were married
in 2005 in a party that lasted days.
Keator worked in and managed family-owned cypress sawmills, until he moved west in the 1980s following a divorce. He worked
for Louisiana-Pacific Corp. in Samoa, Calif., where, after several rounds of downsizing, Keator was laid off. He moved to
Oregon to work for a large lumber wholesaler in the early 1990s. That's about the time a friend sent him an inspirational
card listing 101 ways to reduce stress.
"Right in the middle was the sentence, 'Dance a jig,' and it just leapt out at me," he said. "I could do that. I knew I
had an Irish background."
That chance encounter set him on the search for Irish dancing classes. He eventually found Portland's All-Ireland Cultural
Society. He first learned Irish dance at their Tir Eoghain (tyrone is a close pronunciation) weekly ceili dance lessons, which
he has taught since 2001.
He's gone on to dance competitions, and in 2005 was certified as a ceili teacher by Dublin's commission of Irish dance.
That's no small test, by the way: It included a written section on the 30 ceili dances and a practical portion in which he
had to teach two of the dances.
Many of the hundreds of students he's taught through the years keep coming back because of his relaxed style. Keator has
strict rules for the class: Move, smile and have fun, he tells students.
At a recent Wednesday night drop-in class at Tigard's historic grange, the two dozen dancers ranged in age from Mandy Thomas,
12, to Mary Meyer, 82.
"Even though other people are better than you or more experienced," said Tualatin photographer Carol Cummings, "they make
you feel a part of it, there's a lot of camaraderie. I'm hooked now; I went out and bought dancing shoes after the second
class."
When he puts on a ceili for a wedding reception or a business event, Keator provides the sound system, hires musicians
as needed and calls the dances. He knows that if he can get people up and moving and smiling, they likely won't stop. He gets
paid for his work, but sharing the joy he takes in music and movement is part of the reward.
Sam Keator's events
House concert: Traditional fiddler Caoimhin O'Raghallaigh is one of Celtic music's young stars. 7 p.m.,
Feb. 29, Wee Ceili Room, Tualatin $20; 503-691-2078.
Tir Eoghain Ceili Dance Class: 7-9 p.m. Mondays, Yeates-Malone Studio, 4231 N. Interstate, $3 a week,
13 & older.
Tigard Irish Dance Class: 7-9 p.m. Wednesdays, Tigard Grange, 13770 S.W. Pacific Highway, Tigard; $5 a
week, 13 & older, drop-ins welcome. 503-691-2078.
Tualatin Ceili Mor (The Big Dance): 7-11 p.m., March 7, Tualatin Winona Grange, 8340 S.W. Seneca St.,
Tualatin; $10, family maximum of $40, all ages, live music. 503-691-2078.
Web site: http://mysite.verizon.net/res0i3uk/samkeator
He is still a part-time lumber broker and consultant, which is just as well, because he won't likely get rich from
the dance classes at three or five bucks a head. Nor from the house concerts --all the ticket money goes to the players except
for a maximum of $80 for the rental of three dozen folding chairs.
"I make zero on the concerts," he said. "We even have to clean the house beforehand. But I get to hear world-class music
right in my home among people I know and new friends that I meet every time."
--John Foyston; johnfoyston@news.oregonian.com
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Passions: Sam Keator
Jigs, reels and
his Irish heritage lead to wife and zeal for teaching
Thursday, March
15, 2007
The Oregonian
submitted by Ian Ruder : ianruder@gmail.com
At the All-Ireland Cultural Society of Portland's weekly drop-in
dancing classes, they'll tell you how hard it is to keep your feet still once the music starts, and you need look no further
than instructor Sam Keator to know they are right.
Nine years ago Keator,
who lives in Tualatin, was working in the lumber industry and likely wouldn't have even described himself as Irish. Then he
heard the music.
He still works in the lumber industry, but now he is the two-time
president of the All-Ireland Cultural Society, the beloved instructor of hundreds of Irish dancers statewide, a frequent visitor
to Ireland with his Irish wife and a renowned
dancer on the West Coast céilí scene. He teaches weekly drop-in classes in North Portland and Salem
and has classes starting in West Linn and Newberg in April.
It all started when Keator read that dancing a jig was a good
way to reduce stress. Then he happened to meet a woman who turned out to be one of the area's premier Irish dancers. He started
dancing and soon after found himself attending the Irish club meetings and unlocking his Irish heritage.
"For whatever reason, it just started hitting me big-time,"
said Keator.
When he eventually met Anne Doherty at an Irish club meeting,
he surprised her with his passion and knowledge.
"He embraced his Irish side with all of his energy," said Doherty,
now his wife. "He loves it so much and he's learned so much about it. He's become such a big part of the Irish community."
Keator devotes most of his time to sharing his passion for céilí
dancing. Céilí (pronounced KAY-lee) is a traditional form of Gaelic dancing that resembles square dancing but, as Keator said,
is "more brisk and more lively."
If you picture the wheels, reels, lines, hand-clapping and knee-slapping
of square dancing and add Irish music and the flourishes and legwork of Irish step dancing, you'd be on the right track.
Learning the high-energy dances is only part of céilí’s
appeal. Loosely translated, céilí means "the gathering," and each lesson/meeting truly is that.
The North Portland class draws
many participants who've been attending for more than 25 years. Everyone has or gets a name tag to encourage familiarity,
and members approach socializing with the same passion they bring to the dance
floor. They share food, songs, poetry, updates on past and current members and much more over special tea prepared by Bette Lou Halterman.
With a shamrock sticker affixed to her glasses, Halterman has
been coming to the weekly get-together since 1978. She raved about Keator's skill and teaching approach and singled out his
enthusiasm as the factor that separates him from other instructors.
"If the music is playing, he's out there dancing," she said. "He gets out on
the floor and he's out there dancing when nobody else is dancing. He's waiting for somebody to come and dance."
An Irish tradition gives all a reason to gather
Céilí - Learn a simple
reel and enjoy the company at an old-fashioned event
Thursday, August 30, 2007
JOE FITZGIBBON
Special to The Oregonian
TUALATIN -- The fiddle music
starts slowly as three rows of dancers -- teens to seniors -- move back and forth in unison, some stumbling a bit, a few studying
their feet.
"Nice and easy," Sam Keator calls
out. "Now, push out two, three. Close. Push over two, three. Close." His voice is rhythmic, soothing, more comforting than
commanding, as he leads a Monday night class in a three-step movement of an ancient Irish reel.
As soon as Keator senses the
dancers have the basics, he signals the musicians to pick up the pace. "Here we go," he urges the group with a laugh. "Just
stay with the music and you'll be dancing your hearts out before you know it."
Fifteen minutes later -- after
nonstop whirls, twirls and promenades -- everyone is breathing hard. A few are perspiring.
"I didn't know if I wanted
to try it at first," said a panting 29-year-old Dan Sorensen of Vancouver, whose good friend, Gwyn Dryden, 22, talked him
into the two-hour session in North Portland. "I'm not usually very good at these kinds of
things, but this is great fun."
On Sept. 7, Keator and other
members of Tir Eoghain Céilí and the All-Ireland Cultural Society of Oregon will offer céilí (pronounced kay-lee) dance lessons
in Washington County
at the Winona Grange in Tualatin. The program kicks off with an hour-long lesson in reels, jigs and waltzes, followed by live
music, dancing and lots of friendship-building.
A tall, graceful man with
a leprechaun smile that fills his face, Keator, 54, took up traditional Irish dancing about 10 years ago to relieve stress
after he lost his job in the lumber industry. "I've been dancing ever since and have never felt better."
Members of the All-Ireland
Cultural Society are quick to point out that a céilí is more than three and seven-step dance movements.
"The word really means 'a
social,' " Keator says. "If you were invited to someone's house for a céilí,, that likely means that there'd be lots of socializing,
then someone would start singing, or telling a story, or playing some music, and pretty soon everyone would be up dancing."
During the past seven years,
Keator has been teaching classes and traveling around the Northwest spreading the joy of this centuries-old Gaelic tradition.
He's persuaded many of his students to dress up and perform with him in nursing homes, community centers and community festivals.
Friday's program will be a
homecoming of sorts for the 17-year resident of Tualatin.
"It's hard to believe that
I've lived in Tualatin all these years and never offered lessons here," he said with a laugh. "I've spoken with some old-timers
in town, and I think this will be a first for Washington County."
Fans of Irish dancing say
that it offers the cardiovascular benefits of an aerobic workout and the sociability of an old-fashioned barn dance. And,
it's fairly easy to learn. "All you have to do is get out on the floor, find a partner and someone will help you along," said
81-year-old Mary Meyer of Tigard. "Even if you turn the wrong way, people will keep moving until you sort it out."
Bette
Lou Halterman, now in her 70s, has been a member
of the All-Irish Cultural Society for nearly 30 years and said that through the years, couples have met at céilí’s,
married and now their children are signing up for lessons.
"You come for a while and
you'll begin to feel like you're part of one big, happy family," she said.
So, whether you want to release
some extra endorphins, enhance your mood or mix up a little blarney while kicking up your heels, Dublin native Robert Deans, also in his 70s, said
that Irish dancing is just the thing.
"Try sitting still -- it's
impossible," he said. "Once that music starts, your toes will start tapping and before you know it, you'll be up and dancing."
A note from Mary Rose Kerg, RE: A Mid-Summer Night Irish Gathering, Friday, July 13, 2007
"
Dear Anne and Sam,
Well, it was such a pleasure to work the admissions last evening. I met
some wonderful people and did a bit of pr work. One woman is here from Ashland
in 6 weeks. Come to find out she is living within four blocks of me, someone
I would love to walk Glendoveer with and accompany to the Monday night dance if only to watch the people. It brought joy to my heart to see so many out there dancing, and dancing so well, and of course you are
the prince of it all with all that calling and walking around, but without you it would never happen. May God bless you for it all and to Anne for supporting you. What
a great team you make.
I have sort of poo pood my involvement with starting the céilí lessons years ago.
It's just last night that I realized how significant it was for Brother Eugene and I to launch something that had never
been done before and not know how it was going to go. It is simply amazing that
it has gone on that many years and that it has branched out to the céilí club. I
remember that Peggy was one of the spear headers of the Portland Céilí Club. She
and another woman came over to our house on Omaha and Anna
Marie and Sheila worked with them on their three's and sevens and the jig and reel.
I often wonder about Peggy. She was a dark haired girl, looked a bit Jewish,
can't remember her last name. Marilyn Zorn was another one of the beginners.
Anyway, thanks Sam for the accolates.
Lucky. It ended Friday the 13th beautifully. I was thrilled and felt greedy. I made out a check in advance for $30, expecting to make a donation and to turn in
a few tickets in the bucket. That was so fine that the Halterman's won the big
one.
Well, I'm off to do some serious work now.
Have a lovely weekend.
Mary Rose"
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