For one ISU student, the chance to show her friends and the Ames community her talents as an Irish step dancer will finally become a reality on Friday.

Kate Arends, freshman in art and design, began Irish dancing when her father introduced her to it when she was 5 years old. Since then, her career as a dancer has never slowed down. She is now a dancer for the popular Celtic rock band Lenahan, who will be performing a charity concert at Northminster Presbyterian Church, 1416 20th St., on Friday.

“My dad met some people whose kids were involved with [Irish dancing], and it seemed pretty cool,” Arends says. “I liked it because we got to go to competitions all over. I got pretty good at it, and I’ve been going to competitions ever since.”

She has experienced both high and low moments during her lifelong love affair with traditional dance. After winning the national Irish dance competition, Arends planned to audition for a part in Riverdance, but her dreams were cut short when she broke her foot.

While the injury did slow down her career with a major stage production, Arends says it has given her, along with her sister and fellow dancer Allie, the chance to work with Lenahan lead man Tom Lenahan who, along with fiddler Clarence Ferrari, drummer Ryan Cavan and bassist Brendan O’Grady, have been bringing new and innovative approaches to their brand of Irish folk music for several years.

The chance for Arends to dance during Lenahan’s live performances came after a fellow dancer recommended her to the band.

“I was teaching a dance workshop at a small Irish dancing school, and one of the dancers there knew Lenahan, and she told them, ‘I know of these good dancers out of Chicago. Give them a call and they can dance during a show for you,’ and he gave me a call,” Arends says. “My first show that I did with them was in Wisconsin, and they’ve been calling me ever since to dance with them when they come to town.”

Arends says Lenahan’s music is different from what most people think of traditional Irish music.

“It’s contemporary Irish music, I would think,” Arends says. “But it’s kind of got a reggae twist to it. It’s a little weird.”

Tom Lenahan could not be happier with Arend’s part in the band’s live shows in the Midwest.

“Kate and her sister are both great dancers. It’s funny, because on the East Coast, we naturally seem to think we have a monopoly on all the great dancers,” Lenahan says. “But there’s talent wherever you look, and Kate and her sister have a really unique style that we just don’t see out East. They’ve got some really ‘hot steps’ that we don’t see normally.”

Lenahan, who began including folk dancers in his live performances within a few years of the band’s formation, says the traditional dancing brings a visual element to his performances.

“After a while, we realized that, possibly, the four of us weren’t all that exciting to look at,” Lenahan says. “It adds a little motion, and it is something that’s fun to look at.”

Even without the dancers, Lenahan’s performances are known for excitement and energy, much of which can be attributed to Tom Lenahan’s use of contemporary guitar and drums alongside traditional Irish instruments like the bagpipes and pennywhistle. Once combined, these various instruments form a sound that effortlessly crosses over between folk, rock, blues and even reggae.

Lenahan says that in the beginning, his unique sound made it difficult for him, and music journalists, to pin a title on the style.

“I used to call it ‘rhythm and greens’ back when I was first starting,” he says. “Back then, there wasn’t really a term for it, so they called it ‘Irish folk rock,’ because no one knew what to call it.”

According to Lenahan, his eclectic musical upbringing really laid the groundwork for him to develop his own music into a fusion of several different styles.

“When I was a little kid, my parents listened to a lot of Irish stuff around the house, and I guess that’s how I got my first exposure to it. And then of course, as I grew up, I wanted to listen to the rock and roll stuff just like everybody else,” Lenahan says. “Later on, when I got to be in my 20s, I stumbled across some of the stuff that bands like Fairport Convention were doing.

“I found that there was a way to put the two worlds together, and I thought I’d have a go at it.”