Viral dancer Kaitlyn Sardin on mixing Irish and Jamaican styles
A video of Kaitlyn Sardin dancing at a gallery opening went viral on social media
After falling in love with Irish dancing when she was six years old, Kaitlyn Sardin has captured the attention of people around the world with her unique interpretation of the traditional dance.
Combining hip-hop, Jamaican Dancehall and traditional Irish dancing, the 26-year-old has created what she describes as a "fusion" of various dance styles.
The Orlando native began her now-two-decade-long dancing career with ballet classes before she stumbled upon a new style of dance that immediately entranced her — Irish dancing.
While her maternal great-grandparents are Irish, it was the striking style of Irish dance that first caught Kaitlyn's attention.
“During one of the ballet recitals, they had Irish dancing for the intermission, and I was just like, ‘What is this?’ And then I got hooked. I started it about a week later,” she explains.
“I thought it was incredible. Especially because of the sound. Coming from ballet, you weren't really allowed to make a lot of noise in classes or when you're dancing. So that was the first draw to it for me. I've always loved the sound of drums. So, I was like, ‘Oh, you could do that with your own body’.”
Dance and music have always played an important role in Kaitlyn's life. She describes Dancehall and pop tracks as some of her favourite genres to dance to though she also loves hip hop and rap — or “anything that really excites my ears,” she says. “And if it has a cool beat, that's immediately where I'll go.”
“I definitely find dance as another way to communicate. Sometimes if I'm having trouble figuring out how I'm feeling, I'll just turn on some music and see where my body takes me to help understand my emotions.”
At home in Florida, she notes a growing interest in Irish dancing. “There's so many different parts of Florida with a huge Irish dance community,” she says. Further north, the dancer points to New York native Jean Butler when discussing her inspiration for crafting such a unique style.
“I've always been very inspired by Jean Butler. She's incredible. She's also somebody who has been taking Irish dance and just seeing what else you can do with your body,” she says. "She has a lot of contemporary movements added with her Irish dancing, which I find incredible.”
With years of experience under her belt, Kaitlyn first began mixing different dance styles in 2014 and, in the summer of 2020, she posted her first video to social media.
However, it was a clip from a recent performance at a gallery opening in the States that really took off online. At the time of writing, it has 1.6M views on X (formally Twitter) and Kaitlyn has received recognition from some well-known names in the music industry including British rapper Little Simz and South African singer Tyla — as well as former mayor of Belfast, Niall Ó Donnghaile.
“I had the former mayor of Belfast messaging me about how much he enjoyed the video. Little Simz saw it as well....she said it was fire. So many people have been reaching out just saying how much they enjoyed it,” she says.
“Tyla reposted me on TikTok. I never saw the notification, but I got a bunch of comments being like, ‘Tyla reposted’ and ‘Tyla saw this’ and that was just mindblowing too because I love her music and she's also another dancer who I've just been obsessed with.”
Kaitlyn says she was “shocked” to see how far her video went but was “hurt” by some of the negative and racist commentary she received as the video garnered more attention.
“I felt very small seeing those comments and I'm so thankful that there were so many people that immediately came to defend me and also so many people just sending so much love to me. I had a whole swarm of messages in my inbox and requests just checking how I was doing which was super nice.”
But it hasn’t deterred her from dancing, and the Floridian has big plans for a return to Ireland, following a trip to Limerick in September of last year.
“I’m working on some of the details, but in July I'll be in Boston for a dance festival, and I'll be up there for a week and I'm also looking to come to Ireland for a few things. I'm just trying to get everything sorted. But I am hoping to do a lot more performing this year,” she says.
“I just love performing so whenever there's an opportunity, I'm always like, yeah, let's try it.”
