Like a beautiful Celtic interlace, Siamsa le Cheile evolved from many strands interweaving and interpatterning over time.
The group’s earliest roots can be found in the Renaissance Pleasure Faire at Black Point Forest in Marin, circa the late 1970s and early 1980s, when several of the troupe’s “vintage” members performed with Clan Colin, the Guilds of St. Patrick’s and St. Brigid’s, and Patti Blanco’s Merry Pryanksters. In the mid 1980s, various iterations of what would become Siamsa also began performing at alternative venues, libraries, corporate events, and the Dickens Christmas Fair.
The very first incarnation of Siamsa le Cheile by that name was as an Irish dance and stage combat show, with the odd Scottish dance tossed in.
Siamsa le Cheile in its present form was born at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire at the Nut Tree, in Vacaville, in the late 1990s, and has been growing ever since. The troupe’s current repertoire includes modern lightshoe and hardshoe Irish step, oldstyle step, ceili dance, set dance, Highlands, National dances, Scottish country dance, Cape Breton step, instrumentals and songs both old and modern, mouth music, and juggling.
