| 13 May 2008, at 2.13 am | Sign In or become a Member to use the Guestbook, Results Exchange or Chatroom |
Irish Dance in Alaska
Donna Barrington, who lives in Anchorage, Alaska, (along with around 258,000 other people) sent us some pictures showing Alaskan dancers at the Western U.S. Regional Oireachtas (see our picture gallery).
We were interested to find out how Irish dancing works in Alaska, given the scattered communities, the distances involved, etc., so we asked Donna for more information. If you live in northern Europe and struggled to get to class this winter through a few centimetres of snow, spare a thought for the dancers who live in Alaska!
Donna says:
"We have 125 dancers in our school with a local dance director and a TCRG, Tony Comerford, who flies to Alaska from California every four weeks or so. Out of the 125, they range in age from 5 to 20. We have a total of 10 boys. We have kids who started ID about 10 years ago and are now in college outside of Alaska and continuing to dance. In fact, two of them will be going to the Worlds in April. They are both on Tony's Seattle team and one will be dancing solo competition.
"Owen [Donna's son] was the first dancer from Alaska to reach open level and the first to qualify for the Worlds. The Worlds last year was his 9th "feis". We don't get out much (ha). He will be at the All Irelands next week dancing on Wed night (his dad is accompanying) and also at the Worlds. He danced for 2 years before anyone ever thought to teach him "boy steps". Thank you to Michael O'Hare and John Timm for that. Katie Anschuetz qualified for the Worlds in U10 and will also be in Belfast.
"Our dancers have 1-2 classes a week and Owen teaches an optional conditioning/pliometrics class one night a week. We have about 30 kids just in that class alone. They are always clamoring for more. Several families have built full fledged studios in their homes and almost every kid has at least a board or two. Two of our moms have started a celtic embroidery business on the side and are now doing vests and all sorts of things and sending them out all over the US.
"Getting to competitions is tough. There is no such thing as a "drive to" feis. We must fly out of state, with the closest being Seattle and/or Vancouver. This is 1448 miles one way by air with an average cost to fly of around $300-400 [around £170-220 or 240-320 Euro] or more. The dancers here who have qualified for the Nationals and or Worlds, travel out of state to have extra classes, either to Seattle, Oregon or California. As you can imagine the expense is quite substantial. Along with the airfare, hotels must be booked, rental cars and with younger dancers, a parent has to go along.
"We are lucky to have made some good friends among families at the other Comerford schools, so they are able to help us out with housing sometimes. We had a large number of kids go to the dance camp held in Tacoma last August and even some who have gone to camp in NY and also on Vancouver Island. Families a lot of times try to plan vacations outside Alaska to coincide with feiseanna. We have had families travel to Florida, California, Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Illinois and Nova Scotia in search of the ever illusive dance competition near the "family". My own daughter is flying to New York this summer to visit friends and will compete at three feiseanna in the East prior to meeting me at the NAN in Philadelphia [see you there, Donna!].
"A lot of our dancers have never been to a feis, but we try to get most out at least once a year. Our most popular one is the Pacific Northwest Feis, held in March in Bellevue, Washington. This year, we will have 48 dancers flying out with assorted hangers-on (parents, grandparents, siblings, etc) so it'll end up being over 60-70 total. We sponsored a scholarship this year to get a little dancer to this feis along with her grandmother. She has been dancing three years and had never been able to afford a competition. As you can imagine, she is working very hard on her steps.
"Our school has a high profile in the local community. We do a lot of performances at various charity events and have danced for a lot of dignitaries, both local and national. It will be interesting to note that out of all these dancers, only 5 have solo dresses. Of course, all the girls are dreaming of having one "someday". We are in the process of getting new school dresses made -- the first 12 are done and the rest are to follow. They are embroidered on the East Coast of the USA and then we have a lady who sews them together here. That project has been ongoing for over two years. The school is paying for the dresses by our fundraising efforts and then renting them to the students. The dresses have Tony Comerford's designs on a royal blue with gold dress (colors of the Alaska flag).
"At the end of each dance season, we have a class feis/recital and fly an adjudicator up from either Canada or somewhere in the U.S. We have had Margaret Cleary of Los Angeles and Sally Houston of Calgary in the past. I don't have a clue on the next one.
"So, as you can see, this ID is popular here. We have many kids who live in other parts of the state who would love to also do ID but there's no one to travel to them. Fairbanks, which is north of us, and with a population of probably around 100,000 has no ID. They have been begging for years but it's over 400 miles there and tough for a teacher. We have the Kenai Peninsula (home of the world famous king salmon runs) and they, too, want ID but there's no one yet to travel to them. We think perhaps maybe some of our dancers will eventually become TCRG's and want to stay in Alaska and establish satellite schools here and there. Who knows? Due to the distances involved, competition will always be a lot harder for any of the dancers in Alaska, so we tend to put a lot of emphasis on performance pieces.
"Frank McCourt [the author of Angela's Ashes amongst other things] will be here next weekend, and we may have a group of dancers doing something at one of his engagements. It seems to be in the works. Well, that's a lot of verbage -- hope you can glean something of value that won't max out your website. Feel free to edit and pick out what you like for the flavour of the state of ID in Alaska, where kids dance for the sheer love of the art, in spite of huge, sometimes almost insurmountable odds."
Living as we do in the densely-populated south-east of England, with a half-dozen competitions within a half-hour drive of our front door, Donna's 'Alaskan Tale' is an eye-opener. We know what it takes to support our own dancers with fundraising, fun events, etc., and we really admire the amount of self-help and mutual support illustrated by Donna's story.
Well done Alaskan dancers and their parents, and also to the teachers, adjudicators, etc. who travel huge distances to help make it all possible.
