By Rita McInerney

The music in the studio in this shopping center isn’t modern jazz; the dancers aren’t wearing leotards. In a trendy era these young dancers are harking back to ancient traditions. In swirling skirts and kilts, they’re stepping to the reels and jigs of Ireland.

This school of Irish dance directed by Karl Drake, a young Dubliner who came to this area by way of Connecticut, opened late last year in an Alpharetta shopping center. Already the students are making a name for themselves in out-of-state Irish dancing competitions.

Twice monthly, Drake flies here from Greenwich, Conn., for three-hour sessions with 14 students. At one recent lesson the dancers donned the costumes they will wear participating in St. Patrick’s Day festivities, including the annual downtown march sponsored by the Hibernian Benevolent Society of Atlanta. It will be the school’s parade debut.

As parents and younger siblings looked on from the small anteroom, Drake drilled the boys and girls in their routines. Rehearsal was serious, discipline enforced by Drake in a no-nonsense tone. Younger tots watching and waiting their turn had a hard time keeping still while the older children stepped to the lively music.

Girls moved gracefully across the hardwood in ballet-like routines created by their teacher choreographer. Boys stepped out in the treble jig, hard shoes tapping a tune on floor boards.

Drake’s reply was an emphatic ‘no’ when asked if Irish dancing is similar to Georgia clog dancing. In Irish dancing, he explained, backs are straight, arms close to the side, the foot “very” arched and pointed. The feet are always crossed.

Until recently, Drake found challenge in Irish dance competition (feis in the Gaelic language) in the U.S. and abroad. After collecting more than 100 trophies in three years he decided to change course. He took the stiff exam given in Dublin and became certified to teach Irish dancing. Now, at 23, he enjoys both instructing and performing.

He looked South, believing it was a fertile area for spreading Irish culture through dance. Encouraged by area residents who had seen him dance, he advertised in The Georgia Bulletin with good response.

From the start he found support from parents eager to keep the Irish traditions alive in their children.

Mary and Kevin Gorman of St. Patrick’s parish in Norcross have three of their six children, Linda, 14, Kevin, 12, and Gerard, 10, enrolled in The Drake School of Irish Dance. Arriving in Atlanta from Dublin in 1989, they felt it important their children remember their heritage.

Mrs. Gorman likes the social aspect of the dancing class, the chance it offers her children to get to know others from the same background. And she likes the way the dancing “keeps them occupied.” They have to practice every day.

Linda Gorman won prizes in both competitions in which the fledgling dancers have competed so far, the Florida state feis in Orlando and the Louisiana feis in New Orleans.

Another Florida and Louisiana prizewinner, Denise Riedlinger, a student at St. Pius X High School, is enrolled in Lynn Fleetwood’s popular dance class at Pius and has danced in a school musical production.

The class did well at the recent Florida state Irish dancing championships in Orlando. Drake said they captured over 40 medals, including 11 golds. In the ten and under competitions, they received the three top prizes. There were about 150 Irish dancers competing.

Katie Mills, a fourth grade student at St. John Neumann Regional School in Lilburn, hasn’t danced in competitions since joining the class. But she does enjoy performing for her relatives when Janie and Dan Mills and their children return to their native Iowa for family celebrations. Katie had two years of instruction with a Chicago dance master before the family moved here last summer.

Annette Wood, whose twin sons, Graham and Brent, 12, dance with assurance whether in kilts or knickers, said Drake designed the dressmaker-sewn costumes. The embroidered teal green and lavender design of drakes and scrolls was first traced by Joanna Sistrunk, whose daughters, Emily and Aisling, are in the class. The colorful costumes are trimmed with crocheted collar and cuffs of lavender. The boys wear teal green kilts and purple velvet jackets.

Drake credited his design to the Book of Kells, the priceless early Irish manuscript decorated with intricate designs in colors that remain bright today.

Dancing with the group on St. Patrick’s Day Weekend will be Saundra Donnelly, who has appeared “for years” in the annual parade. Her mother, Lilly, an active member of the Hibernian Benevolent Society first taught her Irish dancing. She loves it, saying, “it beats aerobics.”

She also enjoys the ceilis (dances for adults) which Drake leads about one Sunday each month at the county Cork. This draws Irish Americans who enjoy the chance to dance and socialize just as their ancestors did – in farmhouses, village pubs or at the crossroads, by the light of lantern and moon.