Rochelle Hoffman has been practicing Irish dance since she was 5 years old. She is skilled in both soft shoe and hard shoe dancing, the two styles of the athletic and rhythmic cultural dance of Ireland. Hoffman, 28, today brings her talents, along with 13 other dancers, to New England.
A Taste of Ireland, an Irish-dance company that performs all over the world, will banger theaters in Andover, Worcester, Springfield, and Plymouth starting Thursday, Sept. 25, until Sept. 28.
From the Viking Age, to the Great Famine, to Easter Rising, the dancers guide audiences through the history of Ireland and into the present day through traditional Irish-dance performances. The dance numbers are accompanied by live fiddle, guitar, and banjo players, as well as a singer.
The cast wears elaborate costumes and is accompanied by visuals, with the dance and track in the driver’s seat of the historical recounting in lieu of spoken word storytelling.
Despite Ireland’s tumultuous history, Hoffman believes the show’s track and dance are upbeat, exciting, and inviting.
“It’s so happy, and it makes you want to get up and dance,” she said. “The feeling that you get from it is like nothing else.”
The show features an ensemble cast who perform both soft shoe dance, similar to a speedy-paced ballet dance, and hard shoe dance, the more widely known tap style dance.
The stage is surrounded by microphones, according to Hoffman, to pick up the rhythmic tapping from the shoes for the whole audience to hear. She estimates each dancer takes hundreds of steps per dance.
There are also a cappella dances, meaning dancers performing without track, creating the beat with their shoes. While it requires intense practice, Hoffman said the beat comes naturally to the performers by simply listening to the other dancers’ movements.
Hoffman, who is from British Columbia, said that the dancers are excited to bring the show to Mass., due to the state’s large Irish American population (and famous Irish pride). “We want to do the [Irish] culture justice,” she said.
“We just came off touring in Ireland, and the response has been really good,” she said.
One of Hoffman’s favorite parts of the show is being able to interact with the audience.
“There is one boy that tries to do as many heel clicks as he can. The audience will yell up to the stage and say, ‘do five, do six!’” Hoffman said. “It’s really fun.”
In addition to their shows this week, the company returns to the Bay State this December. The US leg of their “A Celtic Christmas” tour stops for several dates in Boston.
Find tickets and details at atasteofirelandshow.com
Isabella Bernstein can be reached at isabella.bernstein@globe.com.
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