Overnight Dance Camp

This morning my husband & I dropped our daughter off at her first week long over night dance camp. We were surprised when we got the invitation because she was a level four dancer and the overnight camp was usually restricted to level 5 and above. At our school dancers are placed in their weekly classes by levels according to how many years they have danced IE: Marina's a level 4 so this was her fourth year of Irish dance. For this year's camp however our director felt she had a strong group of dancers going from levels 4 to 5 and invited them along. Marina jumped at the chance to go and we thought it would be a really good opportunity for her to work with Micheal Ryan from Ireland and get some very intense training - not to mention having fun along the way. The past two weeks leading up to the camp have been a roller coaster ride to say the least. There was the excitement of getting the roomate she wanted, the planning of how to decorate the dorm room, what to take and purchasing the big girl suitcase. Yesterday as we were packing for the week her mood seemed to go from excited to nervous to downright scared. The tears started flowing at 10:30 last night and continued until she cried herself out at midnight. Try I might I could not console her. Would she not have fun? Didn't she get the roommate she wanted? Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? Ooops wrong story. No - all was well it that department but she was going to miss her father and me and was dreading watching us walk away from her. God I'm going to miss that when she's a teenage in a few years and will look forward to being away from me (us)! The best I could do was reassure her that she was with friends in a safe environment and while it would be a lot of dancing it would be alot of fun too. It would be diffeent for mom & dad too as she is our only child and we've never been apart for this long in the almost 9 years we've had her. I told her to take one day at a time and look at each night as an individual sleepover. Besides we are leaving for a family vacation the evening camp ends and she'll be stuck with mom & dad for a week. I won't lie - I was feeling guilty. Maybe she was too young for a week long overnight camp. Maybe we should not have let her go this year but if we didn't think she could handle it we wouldn't have considered it.

This morning went off without a hitch (Thank God) and although I knew she was still nervous she seemed to be handling things well. She was especially relieved when I told her I had signed up to work a lunch shift and a dinner shift on two separate days so she would see me during camp. As for me - I'm suddenly exhausted and want to go back to bed. I think I was more nervous for her than I wanted to let on but I know she's in good hands and with a great roommate and will be fine. I'm fulling expecting to hear good things when I go in to help with lunch tomorrow.

Secretly though I am relieved that she's occupied this week. I've been asked to write a major story on Terry Gillan and Philip Owens two of Irish Dance's movers & shakers who have recently opened their own school, Gilleoghan, in Connecticut. Look for it in the next issue of Irish Dance Magazine! 'Til next time - Slainte!

Croatian Irish Dance

I saw on Twitter the other day a story about 35 year old Paul O'Grady who quit his day job as an architect in Ireland, moved to Croatia and opened an Irish dance school in Zagreb.  The story caught my eye because I'm of Croatian/Irish decent - my paternal grandparents are from Croatia, Jastrebarsko to be exact.  I thought this was very cool and had to explore a little further.  I read that O'Grady's school, Irish Maiden which opened in 2006, has over 100 students and there are 4 other Irish dance troupes and 13 bands (according to O’Grady) that play Irish music in Croatia! Not that Irish dancing and music isn't popular all over the world - we all know that it is - I just never expected Croatia would have that much interest in Irish Dance especially because Croatians have their own cultural dancers in the Tamburitzans. I could also be operating on outdated info. My dad and his sisters were first generation Croatian Americans and you would think there was no other heritage except Croatian. The leader of the Youngstown Tamburizans lived 4 houses down from us and was Dad’s childhood friend. Naturally he wanted me to take dance lessons with her. Mom being Irish wouldn't accept that and wanted me to take Irish dance. A compromise was struck and I took ballet, jazz and tap. I'm sure that somewhere Mom's delighted that she ultimately won now that I'm taking Irish dance all these years later and the focus of our family is our Irish heritage! I did a bit of research to see if there’s a Zagreb feis but it doesn’t look that there is – yet. I’m sure with the interest in Irish dance in Croatia that it will only be a matter of time before we that happen – perhaps with Paul O’Grady’s help. There is a Budapest feis however and since my husband has to travel to Hungary on occasion maybe he time a visit around the feis so Marina and I can tag along. I read once that my maiden name of Kolar is actually a Hungarian name (I think I just heard Dad flip in his grave) so it would be fun to do some family research as well! Better start the travel account! Til next time – Slainte!

Feised Out

Forgive me followers for I have sinned – it has been one month since my last confeission. While I had planned to Blog about my experiences at the Louisville, Dayton and Cincinnati feiseanna I can’t. The truth is I did not go to any of them as planned. I had to cancel plans to go to the Louisville Feis because of my work schedule as a part time merchandiser for American Greetings and the Father’s Day holiday took precedence. (After the week I had at that job I’m actually starting a Blog about my experiences there called Seasoned Greetings - coming soon to a browser near you.) The Dayton/Cincinnati weekend was called off to due to being feised out.

I never thought that would happen to either my daughter or me. Both of us love to feis because of the fun aspects of it – hanging out with and seeing friends we’ve made along the way, making new friends and meeting people we’ve met on social media sites. However, after going to seven feiseanna in five months plus an Irish dance filled month of May neither one of us could face another feis. The summer’s here and the time is right for playing in the street and that’s what my daughter decided she wanted to do rather than face a back to back feis weekend - not mention spending 8 hours in the car driving back and forth across the state of Ohio. OK she wasn’t really playing in the street but she wanted and needed to spend time with her neighborhood friends. After all we are feising in Columbus, Ohio and Niagara Falls, NY in August and after three disappointing feiseanna in row it was time for a break. Although even I type this we are mulling over the Rochester, NY feis next weekend so maybe she has come up for air and has enough time off.

My question is how much is too much?  My daughter will be nine at the end of this month and only needs her Slip Jig to be in all Open/Prizewinner but do we really need to feis so much given her young age? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on how much she wants to move up and then the fun really begins. As many of you know in order to get in championship level dancing a dancer has to get first place in all for dances to make the leap. Then you really have to feis in order to get to that level. I’ve different things but I believe the criteria are that a dancer has to get all the firsts within a year’s time.  So why not take a break now and then to stop and smell the shamrocks. I have a feeling both she and I will have a renewed feising spirit for it. Until next time – Slainte!