Taken from Issue 001 of The Irish Dance Globe. Purchase any remaining copies here while stocks last.
For decades, Irish dance has been marred by the perception that it’s a strictly rule based dance form — to the point where people will automatically prefix it with the word “traditional”. As a result, the explosion of creativity that has taken over our social media feeds for the past few years has, for the most part, been met with awe and delight from admirers and onlookers who have since discovered Irish dancing’s endless possibilities.
One dancer who continues to break the mould and push boundaries is 26-year-old Kaitlyn “Kait” Sardin from Orlando, Florida, who can be found on TikTok and Instagram fusing slick Irish dance rhythms with fiery hip-hop moves, dancing to music by the likes of Beyoncé, Little Simz, and Lady Gaga. Her technical prowess and magnetic energy has garnered praise from stars like Cardi B and Tinashe, along with viewers in their hundreds of thousands blown away by what they’re seeing. Here, Kait tells us about how she continues to push herself creatively, why it’s important to use her platform to educate, and her hopes for the future.
When did you realise that hip-hop and Irish were compatible dance styles?
It was the music. During my first year of going to a dance club at college, me and my friend, who’s also an Irish dancer, were like, “Why don’t we just do a hip-hop and Irish dance routine to this Missy Elliott song?” There were a couple of times before college too, where I would just play around with songs. My first treble reel that I ever posted on Instagram was to ‘Formation’ by Beyoncé. That was when I first thought, “This is reel timing, I can easily do this.” I always try to look for the drum beat in the music, because it’s so similar to Irish dancing.
What’s the creative process like of planning your choreography? There’s a lot of crossover in hip-hop music like 4/4 time signature and eight counts.
First, I listen to the track and I think, “What sounds the best rhythm-wise?” Because it is about finding that drum beat. I used to practise Irish dance with a metronome. So I was always looking for the beat. So now, whenever I’m hearing a song, I’m like, “This would sound nice with certain rhythms.” There’s a lot of 4/4 time signatures. I’ll always do a reel but there’s also polkas — which is like a fast hornpipe — that I’ll do, along with dances to a lot of modern music. I’ve been doing a lot of Afrobeats and amapiano, and a lot of different African styles. With them, they’re very heavy on the drums where I can either recreate the rhythm, or find a rhythm that complements it.
At what point were you able to incorporate your arms? Did that come naturally to you?
Not at all. When I was first learning hip-hop, the first thing that I ever did was robotic stuff. So it’s slowly come together where, if I’m moving my right leg, I can move my left arm up. I had to figure that out to make it look natural. There’s a lot of practising in front of the mirror where I can see how my body’s looking, to see if it actually makes sense.
“People are like, ‘I didn’t know you can moonwalk in Irish dancing!’”
Kait Sardin
I’ve started trying to figure out certain moves with the songs that would fit with my arm flow. I’ve done this one song, ‘Move’ by Beyoncé, and there were certain accents in the song where I was like, “I could do a little something silly there that would match the timing of the song,” and then I added a cheeky moment.
How have you found the response to your videos on social media? People are just realising how versatile Irish dancing can be.
People literally had no idea that you could do certain things with other music. People have been dancing to other music for so long, but I feel like, with TikTok, it’s just been exploding. I’ll have videos just randomly start to pick up and people will be like, “What? You’re dancing to Cardi B!” I was on my TikTok the other day, and I recently danced to ‘Bongos’ by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, and I just looked in the comments, and Cardi had commented: “I love it.” And I was like, “No way!” Everybody’s been showing so much love and support, and it’s been really awesome.
A video of you doing a super smooth moonwalk in your ‘Vanishing Lake’ set dance has also been popular online.
Around that time when my teacher at Drake Irish Dance was choreographing my dances, she would see my videos and be like, “Let’s try to add this to your set.” So there’d be random things from my videos that started going into my competitive dancing. That moonwalking was my favourite set ever, I love ‘Vanishing Lake’. People’s minds get blown. They’re like, “I didn’t know you can moonwalk in Irish dancing!”
“I always try to look for the drum beat in the music, because it’s so similar to Irish dancing”
Kait Sardin
There’s so many different moves in Irish dancing footwork where people will bring it to another style of dancing. With drums in Irish dancing, they’re very similar to the amapiano hamba haa dance, and other African styles. Sometimes people will notice that, and I’ll be like, “It’s literally the same move!” That’s always cool to me, seeing different cultures and styles being acknowledged, too.
Hip-hop celebrated 50 years in 2023. Do you think there’s a crossover between Irish dancing and hip-hop’s evolution within a wider social context?
100 per cent. I actually just did a documentary about The Supremes’ 1981 tour of Ireland, and we were talking about everything that was happening at that time, including all of the people who were in prison for talking about the Troubles in Northern Ireland. So much of the art has come from oppression, and being able to use these platforms to speak out. That’s always been another big thing with my social media; I want to be able to use my platform, and I want to be able to educate all the people that follow me, too.
“I want to keep spreading Irish dancing”
Kait Sardin
I just feel like me dancing alone has become political for a lot of people. People are so crazy in my comments sometimes, they’re like, “Why are you doing this as a Black person?” It’s a lot sometimes, but there are so many people who are ignorant without realising. I’m glad that both me and Morgan Bullock will take time to educate people.
Where do you hope to go with your platform in the future?
I want to keep spreading Irish dancing, and I want to start getting groups of people together and just creating a bigger thing. I want to have a collective even, where we’re creating together and pushing our brains to places that we never thought we could go. One of my favourite things about social media is that I’ve had so many new beginners, new Black Irish dancers, people of all different cultures, or parents message me like, “My daughter wanted me to show you what happened at her first feis.” And they’ll send me the pictures of all the medals. And I’ll have some comments that are like, “I was so afraid to start Irish dancing, but seeing you and all this support you get, I found classes near me.” It makes me so happy, seeing that people are joining. I think it’s super awesome. Honestly, that’s one of the reasons why I keep posting.
