Irish Dance Competition

Julia has been in Irish dance classes since the fall and just had her first Irish dance competition - known as a feis - this past weekend.  She is a young beginner so she was in the first group to compete at 8:30am.  Lucky for us the feis was held about 1.5 miles from our house so our morning routine was similar to a school morning.

Julia loves a stage!  She loves to perform and since we arrived early she decided to practice on the "stage" - a roped off portion of the stadium hall - where she was dancing first.  The more she practiced the more she seemed to only want to dance her jig.  We kept trying to have her leave the stage and relax a bit before the competition started but she didn't want to leave the stage area.  It was actually quite funny to see her so into it all.

The reel was her first competition.  I reminded her a few times that she was doing a reel and only focus on the reel before she went on stage.  When her time came to dance she made up a couple of steps.  It seemed like she was mostly doing a jig but was mostly making the steps up as she went along.  She kept perfect time to the music and her footwork was really nice but I have no idea what dance she did!  When I asked her what happened she told me she was nervous out there and forgot what she was supposed to do. Even still she placed 4th in the dance and received a medal for it.  She is thrilled with her win!

Waiting for her group to go on stage.  She seems a bit bored but she told me afterwards that she was nervous.

Waiting for her turn to dance and smiling nicely.  Some children were crying and didn't want to dance but most of the little ones didn't mind it at all.

Emma LOVED watching all the dancers and cheering for Julia!

Once she finished her reel she had about 20 minutes before her jig, plenty of time for her nervous jitters to work their way out of her system.  Her jig went perfectly and she seemed much more at ease!

Overall, Julia's first feis was a huge success, she is very proud of her 4th place medal, and we were so happy to be there to cheer her on!