Kieran Jordan bio

Kieran Jordan, based in Boston, is an internationally recognized performer, teacher and choreographer of Irish dance. With more than 25 years of dance experience, her unique approach to the dance marries deep-rooted traditions with contemporary innovations. Winner of an Artist Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Kieran is a dedicated artist and entrepreneurial spirit with boundless enthusiasm for Irish dance. She holds a BA in English and Irish Studies from Boston College, a Master’s Degree in Contemporary Dance Performance from the University of Limerick, and the TCRG certificate for teaching Irish dance. She brings intelligence, creativity, and a warm spirit to her dance projects in Boston and beyond.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Kieran trained and competed in Irish step dancing for 14 years. As a teenager, she began performing professionally under the encouragement of Irish musician and scholar Dr. Mick Moloney. As a college student, Kieran studied abroad at University College, Cork, Ireland, and back at home, she became fully immersed in the Irish music scene in Boston. She has since collaborated with many of New England’s finest traditional musicians and is a frequent performer at concerts and festivals all over North America. She currently tours with the group Triptych (with Laura Risk and Paddy League) and the Kitchen Quartet (with Shannon Dunne, Sean McComiskey, and Cleek Schrey).

Kieran’s solo performance style is musical, fluid, and expressive, incorporating traditional Irish dance technique with other influences. Her interests are broad and holistic, ranging from Irish dance history, to many forms of percussive dance, to modern dance and mind-body movement techniques. She has a particular passion for sean-nós dancing (improvised, old-style Irish dance), and has become a major figure in introducing it to the Irish dance scene in America. In 2005, she won second place in the Comórtas Chóilín Sheáin Dharach, a sean-nós jig competition in Ros Muc, County Galway, Ireland.

Kieran is Dance Director for “A Christmas Celtic Sojourn,” produced by WGBH radio host Brian O’Donovan, with Artistic Director Paula Plum and Music Director Seamus Egan. Since joining the show in 2004, Kieran has performed with top Celtic acts such as Solas, Danú, Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas, Karan Casey and Niall Vallely, the Sharon Shannon Band, Mulcahy Family, and more. She has recruited a wide range of other dancers as well, introducing audiences to the puckish sean-nós battering of Aidan Vaughan, the astonishingly lithe step dancing of Nicholas Yenson, and the adorable Christmas routines of the Harney Academy of Irish Dance. Kieran’s choreography is playful, refreshing, evocative, and sincere, making the dancing one of the most highly anticipated aspects of this show each year. Kieran’s dancing and choreography is featured on A Christmas Celtic Sojourn, Live DVD (2007, Rounder Records).

As an independent teacher, Kieran directs her own classes and performing ensemble called Kieran Jordan Dancers. She has established an enthusiastic Irish dance community in the Boston area, with non-competitive classes specialized for teens and adults. Outside of Boston, Kieran travels widely to teach at festivals and summer schools, and she presents her “Beyond the Feis™ Workshop” to Irish dancing schools worldwide. She is a Guest Artist at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, teaching dance and the history of Irish dance. She also teaches annually at the Catskills Irish Arts Week in New York.

In 2008, Kieran produced and directed her first DVD, entitled Secrets of the Sole: Irish Dance Steps and Stories. The film features the old-style step dancing of Kevin Doyle and Aidan Vaughan, two of Kieran’s most influential teachers and collaborators.

Before embracing dance as a full-time profession, Kieran worked as Arts Editor and music and dance writer for the Boston Irish Reporter newspaper, from 1995-1999. Since then, she has written numerous articles on Irish music and dance for the Boston Irish Reporter, Irish Music Magazine, and Irish Dancing and Culture Magazine.

Kieran lives with her husband and partner in the arts, Vincent Crotty, a visual artist originally from Kanturk, County Cork, Ireland.