Eileen Ivers pays homage to Irish immigrants and their contributions to American musical history in “Beyond the Bog Road.” The multimedia celebration at GMU Center for the Arts tells their story through Irish and Old Time musicians, singers, step dancers, cloggers and film.
If you go
Virtuoso fiddler Eileen Ivers presents “Beyond the Bog Road”
Where: George Mason University Center for the Arts
When: 4 p.m. Sunday
Info: $22 to $44; 703-993-2787; gmu.edu/cfa
Throughout her extensive career as All-Ireland Fiddle Champion, founding member of Cherish the Ladies, star of “Riverdance” and a world-acclaimed artist, Ivers has unearthed archived materials that illustrate how the parallel development of folk songs, dance and instruments in various parts of the world came togetherto form the roots of American music. By participating in late night jamming sessions with musicians both here and abroad, she recovered long-lost stories and verses of songs brought from Ireland by those fleeing the Great Famine. They called that journey to their new home in America the “exodus” because there is no word in Irish for “immigrant.”
The show emphasizes the cross fertilization of traditional Irish songs and dances with those of other immigrant groups. The Celtic songs and styles can be heard in old-timey bluegrass from Appalachia and today’s country songs, but black, American Indian, and Cajun influences soon flowed together and contributed to the mix.
One segment of the show features a film taken during Thomas Edison’s era of Irish and black railroad workers (Gandy Dancers)laying tracks in rhythm reflecting the Appalachian clogging tunes married with the musical beats and styles indigenous to Africa. The connection of the two cultures is further cemented in the Black Bottom, a popular dance of the 1920s derived from the Charleston.
“The name Black Bottom refers to the muddy bottom of the Mississippi,” Ivers said. “We found a recording Louis Armstrong made during the 1920s called ‘The Irish Black Bottom,’ so we put together a set using it to illustrate the link between Irish step dancing and African juba dancing, the forerunner of tap dancing.”
The Irish coming to America shared a woeful history with suchimmigrants as the Jews of New York tenements andthe Cajuns of eastern Canada who were exiled to Louisiana in the mid-1700s. Another intriguing connection is that of the Irish to theChoctaws.
“The tribe was forced from their home in Mississippi and Alabama to walk the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma,” Ivers said. “Despite their own sorrows, when their tribal leaders learned of the famine the Irish were suffering in their homeland, they collected $170 and sent it to Ireland.
“In 1849, 600 starving people of County Mayo made a 14-mile walk to beg their English Board of Guardians for help. Because they were refused, over 400 died and their bodies were washed ashore. A simple Celtic cross on a hillside marking the event bears an inscription from Mahatma Gandhi asking how man can do this to a fellow human. Every May, the leader of the Choctaw nation still comes to Ireland to make the very same walk.”
While putting the show together, Ivers did not realize how powerful and intimate the effect would be on both the performers and the audiences they are reaching on this tour. Many images in the visual portion were shot in Ireland; others come from archives. She wants the audience to enjoy the brilliant music and dance routines and take away the realization that their own ancestors could have experienced the very same things, whether they came from Ireland, Africa or mainland Europe.
