Each year the World Irish Dancing Championships are held in a different city over Easter. This year London is the host from April 13th-20th welcoming around 15-20000 people to the venue. Over 5000 dancers will be competing in solo, céilí, modern figure choreography and dance drama categories. This is a huge change from the very first Worlds held in 1970 in an auditorium with 500 seats.
On Sunday I will be getting a train from Glasgow to Peterborough (via Edinburgh) where I will be meeting my sister, and Irish dance teacher, Lindsay. We will then be hopping on a train to London where all the madness will begin.
In Winter 2012 Lindsay took the difficult teaching exam and became a fully qualified TCRG for An Coimisiún (yay!). This year is the first year that she will have dancers, both solo and teams, competing in the World Irish Dancing Championships under the Stanley-Carroll Irish Dance School where she now takes the Peterborough area classes. She asked me if I fancied going along so I’m looking forward to supporting her and the dancers for the week.
As an ex-competitive dancer myself it’s always nice to go to the Worlds and meet up with old and new friends from the dance world. I intend to take my TCRG exam myself (hopefully sooner rather than later) and so it will be enjoyable to watch dancing at it’s highest standard at this prestigious event.
I’m also looking forward to hearing the musicians play over the week as I play music for Irish dancers as well. Fair play to the musicians who have a very hard job playing for long hours over the week at the championships. The longest championships I’ve played for lasted for 3 days. These last for 6 so well done in advance to the musicians. I hope that one day I might get the opportunity to play at them.
Our time will mainly be spent in London at the championships venue over the week with dancers from the Stanley-Carroll School competing most days, though we will get a little bit of time off in Peterborough to relax with the cat.
On Friday evening we have tickets to the Senior Dance Drama event. Dance drama blends Irish dancing with the drama and comedy of live theatre. I’ve never been to one of these events at the Worlds so I’m very much looking forward to it. The week of competitions will come to a close on the 20th with the exciting senior dancers and then the Worlds Ball that night. Lindsay will be graduating just before the ball and then it will be a big party for everyone to celebrate the week. I will be heading back to Glasgow on the 21st. I’ll need a holiday after all that!
Good luck to all dancers competing throughout the week 🙂
