SAL’s mission is to explore and refine the unlimited possibilities of Irish Dance. At the forefront, is the creative output artistic director Deirdre Lowry and co-director Patrick Brown have created in performance and repertoire. At its core, is a highly disciplined training process that Lowry has cultivated since the schools founding in 1998 and the Company’s creation in 2006. The training process incorporates cultural and classical disciplines that aspire to create at its peak, a distinct and highly versatile dancer that can deliver to its fullest expression and capacity, a captivating power and artistry that will reverberate in performance, in turn, influence dancers and students of dance for generations to come. The dance forms most celebrated tools, the delicate, ascending soft shoe slipper, and its percussive counterpart, the hard shoe, are used to the fullest advantage at SAL. Yet the essential tool remains in the training of the dancer.

In title and technique, American Irish Dance describes specific parameters of exacting dance facility, physical awareness, cognition and musical comprehension.  Facilities that are designed to guide, instill and inspire the dancer beyond the studio and stage. Successfully preparing the dancer physically, artistically and academically.  In performance, the American Irish Dance Company Solas An Lae brings to fruition the spectacle and virtuosity of that process, through a choreographic style that is at once engaging and highly entertaining. Lowry’s choreography remains intuitive, abstract in design without narrative. The completed work, as in all of Lowry’s repertoire, is moving in complexity, artistry and musicality, yet accessible and absorbing. The performances are complemented by Brown’s seamless sheen of auditory and visual elements. His musical score is a diverse and eclectic mix culled from the most innovative Celtic composers and musicians today.