In the brightly lit church hall across from the Memorial Lutheran Church outside Rhinebeck, 12 black-clad young women stand poised in the corners of the room. They wait, cheeks flushed with exertion, as the music swells—a quaint Irish air morphing into the propulsive opening bars of Jethro Tull's "Locomotive Breath"—and then the stillness explodes in a burst of energy and emotion. Like the torrents of a heavy storm the violent clattering of 24 feet is deafening as the dancers sweep across the floor. The dancers arms are pinned to their sides as their feet fly out from under them as if they were unconnected to their motionless torsos. Yet, like the storm these pockets of focused athletic aggression resemble, they fade out as quickly as they crept in leaving a single figure alone floating amidst the drizzle and delicately swimming in the puddles. Graceful and languid gestures emanate from the dancer's entire body, her arms now free to explore the space around her until she is again joined by the frenzy of the group. It's a typical Sunday night at a Solas an Lae rehearsal.

Solas an Lae founder Deirdre Lowry (center).

The Irish dance school Solas an Lae was founded eight years ago by Deirdre Lowry. Training and performing professionally in New York City since the age of seven, Lowry first began offering lessons to local children out of her parents' garage at 17, responding to the entreaties of local parents who were interested in Irish dance lessons for their children. In a corner of her family's garage Lowry set up an eight-by-eight-foot wooden platform, leaned a mirror against a wall and Solas An Lae ("Light of Day" in Gaelic) was born.

Sarah Santos, Kayli Sinon, Samantha Mason, and Gwenn Gideon.

"Before I knew it, I had a garage full of kids," says Lowry. "I needed to teach on Saturdays because I was still in school during the week and studying dance in the city in the evenings. Saturdays were long, but it was so casual and intimate; it was a very innocent time," says Lowry. Now 25, Lowry continues to be the sole instructor with an enrollment of 70 dance students hailing from points all over the Hudson Valley, some driving upwards of an hour for a lesson. In 2003 Lowry teamed up with Patrick Brown, a Manhattan-based aesthetic designer and professional musician; together they formed a professional dance troupe of the same name. Lowry teaches, directs, and choreographs, while Brown focuses on creating original compositions and visual tapestries for each performance.

Lowry studied with renowned Irish dance instructor and choreographer Donald Golden, and has performed at Radio City Music Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center, and at 19 was a lead dancer in a European tour with Irish musical group Cherish the Ladies. The daughter of a historian and Gaelic speaker, Lowry was brought up in the mainstream of Irish dance culture, and quickly found that the competitive aspects detracted from her deep love of dancing. The conventional model for an Irish dance performance is the feis ("festival" in Gaelic)—a competition involving expensive costumes, strict judging, and little room for innovation. Solas an Lae became a non-competitive venue for Lowry to express herself creatively as opposed to aggressively. "Competitive dancing in itself is not a bad thing, for it does breed a strong incentive to practice, which is absolutely necessary for one to gain a certain level of perfection and technique," says Lowry. "On the down side, it creates a conformity and hinders individuality, dancing for points on the marking system, which makes you dance without soul and grace."

In the last 10 years Irish dance has been globally popularized and made commercially viable (and subsequently satirized) due to the great success of professional revues such as Riverdance and Lord of the Dance. Although both Lowry and Brown are happy to see these groups creating interest on a public level and thereby drawing new students to their school, they feel that their professional work is an even greater departure from the stronghold of tradition and, moreover, a far more complex investigation into Irish identity. Dancer Leighann Kowalsky, 15, attests that "Solas an Lae strips away all of the wigs and the poofy dresses and the makeup and the emotionless faces. We portray what Irish dance really is, at its best."

the Solas an Lae troupe performing a number in soft shoes.

A Solas an Lae performance transforms into a collage of sight, sound, and movement that bombards the audience with an emotional multimedia experience. "Irishness is upbeat," Lowry says, "but everything doesn't have to be uppity-up, jigs and reels. We try to dramatize the depth of the culture while staying away from cliché." Brown interjects, "We intentionally stay away from all that shamrockery—no green, no Celtic crosses." During performances images are projected behind the dancers, ranging in content from abstracted color planes to historical and political photos and documents from 19th- and 20th-century Ireland. Aside from the rhythmic and visual elements, Brown scores each of the 90-minute performances, using traditional and contemporary Gaelic music, as well as tunes from totally unexpected acts, such as Moby, Television, and the aforementioned Jethro Tull, mixing each original composition in coordination with the visuals and the choreography.

The dancers in the Solas an Lae performance troupe were once students in the school but have "graduated" to the professional level. Although ranging in age from 12 to 16, the-all girl group, according to Lowry "may seem young, but when they're on stage it's a whole other game. They are very professional—they carry a whole show." (Interestingly, only one of the 12 girls in the troupe is of Irish descent.) Aside from their school obligations, these young professionals rehearse six days a week. The reason they work so hard has a lot to do with the community that Lowry has created through her work teaching and inspiring children to dance.

Sarah Santos helps Christy Kowalsky tie her shoes.

"Most dance schools," says Kowalsky, "are training their dancers to collect their talent and guide it into poise and grace. But Solas an Lae does not just teach moves and rhythms—Solas an Lae teaches its dancers how to identify their feelings and how to portray them."

"I was fortunate to have a great teacher who was very inspiring and instilled the love of dance," says Lowry. "I want my dancers to dance for themselves and find their own strength and determination to succeed in dance. When you find that fire within yourself you can get through anything in your life. I want my dancers to have a freedom, confidence, and character that they take with them and use to get through any obstacles in their lives."

Despite Solas An Lae's short history the troupe has matured at an accelerated pace, and Lowry, Brown, and the girls have big plans. The troupe kicks off their first theater and festival tour this summer, when they'll be taking their show all over the Northeast. But before heading off to points as far as Ithaca, Syracuse, Rochester, and Boston, Solas an Lae will be performing three shows at the Center for Performing Arts at Rhinebeck the weekend of March 10-12. Lowry hopes the troupe can eventually tour internationally, maintaining its core of Hudson Valley dancers. "We hope to keep it as tight as it is now," says Lowry. "I would love for there to be a place in dance for Solas an Lae."