DANCE

Cypress Creek FACE presents the McTeggart Irish Dancers, 3 p.m., Tuesday, March 8, 2011.

The original McTeggart School of Irish Dance was established in 1939 in Cork, Ireland. The first director was Peg McTeggart, the eldest of four sisters, all of them champion dancers. The school soon spread throughout the whole of County Cork due to the efforts of younger sister Maureen McTeggart Hall.

In 1958 Maureen and her family immigrated to the United States, bringing with them the art of Irish Dancing and introducing it to the Western Region of the United States by setting up a schools in Fresno, California and the San Francisco Bay area. She has since set up more than a dozen schools in Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. Mrs Hall’s two daughters have followed in her footsteps and are also certified Irish dance instructors and adjudicators.

The McTeggart School of Irish Dance is one of the most respected schools in the nation, with its dancers consistently qualifying for the World Championships in Ireland. Maureen McTeggart Hall is a vice-president of the Irish Dancing Commission and often adjudicates at the North American and World Championships.

The McTeggart School of Irish Dance in Houston was started in 1989. At that time, the Hawks family of Houston had attended a feis in Boulder one summer and saw the McTeggart Irish Dancers. They were intrigued by the event and their two daughters became interested in learning Irish dance. After returning to Houston, they met Cara Bradley, champion level dancer who was interested in finding an Irish dance instructor to help pursue her goal of qualifying for the World Championships.

The Hawks convinced Mrs. Maureen McTeggart Hall, vice-president of the Irish Dancing Commission,l to come Houston once a month to teach. In order to spread out the cost the two families each found other families. With the Hogans and Pendergasts joining, the first class included just four families and the new school was born! They met the next year in homes, church halls, subdivision clubhouses and the YMCA, always looking for recruits to join. They stayed a relatively small school for a few years and did not really start growing as an established school until they located a studio in The Woodlands.

Today more than 70 students of all ages and skill levels attend their school in The Woodlands.