JAMES KEANE is probably one of the more unusual artists in residence at an Irish university. For a start, this native of Labasheeda, Co Clare, is 79, which makes him one of the more senior figures on the University of Limerick's campus.

He is also a practitioner of sean nos dance, a style of Irish dancing which is some distance from the high stepping of Riverdance, though it is still in a similar tradition.

Finally, Keane is probably the only sean nos dancer to be the subject of a multimedia experiment designed to record his steps on to hard disc using special shoes and an electronic mat. His steps will then be analysed to produce a pattern of his steps, but they may also be reproduced in the form of music, or colours, allowing one art form - dance - to be transformed into a purely visual medium or extended into a musical one.

Keane's talent is only one of a number being examined - and preserved - at the Irish World Music Centre at UL. The centre was founded in 1994 by Dr Micheal O Suilleabhain, the first holder of the chair of music at UL, and started off as a research centre into Irish and Irish related music. It is now moving into the area of taught master's programmes, of which ethnomusicology and ethnochoreology are among the more unusual.

Ethnomusicology and ethnochoreology are probably unfamiliar terms to most of us, beyond vague notions of ethnicity in both cases and a hopeful stab at a music element in the former. To the folks of the Irish World Music Centre, by contrast, ethnomusicology and ethnochoreology are bread and butter stuff and form the backbone of two of the more unusual postgraduate qualifications in the third level sector.

Ethnomusicology is the international study of traditional music, including that of our own native land. Ethnochoreology, then, is the study of dance within its cultural context; it embraces anthropology, area studies, gender studies and cultural studies in addition to dance itself.

For the first time, students will now be able to study these subjects at postgraduate degree level, in addition to another new postgraduate diploma course aimed at those who wish to become teachers of music and a further course in music technology with which the Irish World Music Centre is co operating.

O Suilleabhain sees the centre as more than a place of research and learning, but as "an attitude, an increasing awareness of the whole global, tradition of music making". At the same time, as Irish music increasingly moves on to the world stage, he sees the centre as "a voice in the university system which will comment on this, monitor this and also contribute to it".

The centre now houses the Irish Chamber Orchestra, following what O Suilleabhain describes as a "courageous" decision by the Arts Council. In addition to James Keane, there are a number of other artists in residence involved with the centre, including Dara Ban, a sean nos singer from Connemara.

The centre receives £100,000 through the Toyota Performing Arts Initiative each year until the year 2000, to encourage innovation in music and dance - as well to preserve and honour traditions which might otherwise fade into extinction.

"There is a sense of honouring a balance in the tradition and I see it as part of the role of a university in society," O Suilleabhain says. "There is a preservationist attitude, but it is primarily celebratory. We are celebrating them and documenting them at the same time. Our agenda is the creative process."

This agenda has extended to the commissioning of new works of contemporary dance and music, including a set dance based on the Limerick Tumbler, which is, apparently, a type of pigeon.

Next year, the centre plans to extend its programmes to include music therapy and a range of performance based options which, O Suillebhain says, will continue to "give life to the academic investigation".