The World is a Beautiful Place

The Ruination of Irish Dancing
by Kiera Brady
Jigs, hornpipes, reels.
If you close your eyes and imagine, you could be on the west coast of Ireland, feeling the moist breeze on your face as it
blows off Galway Bay. Listening to the tunes and hearing the clicks of a hard shoe jig, you are transported.
But, when you open your eyes, you realize you are sitting in a high school auditorium in Queens, New York, and you are
at a feis, an Irish dance competition.
I followed my two older sisters into Irish step dancing. There were strict restrictions on what we were allowed to wear, and
the level of competition determined what kind of dress we were to compete in. A beginner would wear a skirt; a novice and
prize winner, a school uniform; and a preliminary and above, a solo dress.
I started dancing as a five-year-old beginner, and dressed in a skirt and blouse with a ribbon tied in my curly hair. I worked
hard and could not wait until I was able to move up to novice, and when I won three first places, my dream came true.
When I began competing with other novices, we all proudly wore our school uniforms. The one requirement of the dresses
was the embroidery had to reflect what appears in the Book of Kells, which is an ancient manuscript of the four Gospels,
transcribed by Celtic monks. Of course we had to have our hair curled.
It wasn’t easy sleeping with 65 sponge rollers poking me in the head, and I can’t say I liked playing my softball games
looking like Lucille Ball, with curlers sticking out from under my batting helmet. But if I had a feis the next day, that is what
needed to be done.
By the time I was nine years of age, there was a subtle shift in the Irish dancing world. I qualified to compete in a major
competition, the Oireachtas, which is a feis for champion dancers. My friends and I gathered in a ballroom to practice the night
before the competition.
Girls tried on their dresses and posed for photos. That is when we saw it. The Celtic design had disappeared replaced by
a silvery-blue dress featuring characters from The Wizard of Oz along the bottom and on the cape. In our little nine-year-old
world, this was scandalous. It was the first dress that anyone could remember that did not feature the required traditional
design.
I was too young to realize that this was a turning point in Irish dancing. A year, and many feises later, I was back in
Philadelphia, once again at the Oireachtas. As I grew older, I understood the intense pressure to perform at the highest level.
Honestly though, nothing prepared me for the chat I had with a friend from a competing school. She had a problem with bending
her arms when she did her slip jig, so her mother decided the best way to handle this problem was to splint her arms. My
friend seemed relieved, but we both knew this was against the rules. Her mother swore me to secrecy and was furious with
her daughter for telling me. My ten-year-old self was shocked, but assured them I would keep their confidence. I didn’t agree
with my friend’s mom, but I didn’t want to cause any further problems for my friend. Her mom put way too much importance
on winning a trophy.
We were ten-year-old girls dancing on a stage in front of three very stern-faced judges. We all worked so hard and practiced
until our feet bled, but it was something that you had to love in order to continue doing it. We were all in this together,
celebrating and congratulating our wins, and hugging and consoling our disappointments.
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