Irish dancer Cara Butler remembers the helpful advice that her teacher Donny Golden gave her as a child to ease her mind before competitions.

“I remember that he was really good at calming my nerves as a kid. He would always say, ‘Your nerves are a form of energy. Use it as fuel.’ That was something, especially when I was younger, that would always get me through it. I find that even today I still get nervous about certain performances. But he taught me to just use it as energy and think of it as a good thing. If you’re not nervous, where is the emotion and the passion? Nerves are good.”

Donny Golden with the first American to place at the Irish dance world championships in 1970. He opened the Donny Golden School of Irish Dance in Mineola, New York, in 1972.

See Butler perform with The StepCrew Saturday, May 20 at 8 pm at On Stage at Kingsborough.