Getting Into "Treble"
*with intensely irish*
It's the start of another year. And, as we look ahead to what will hopefully be another amazing year, it is also time to reflect on what a wonderful year we had last year. Firstly, we had several community performances throughout the year. We started off performing at the Bestival in September and at the Winter Artisan Market at the Kitchener Market for Christmas. Then, of course, we got to perform for St. Patrick's Day! We were lucky enough to perform 8 shows around our community, but highlights included the IRL at TheMuseum, Terrace on the Square Retirement, Rockway Gardens, Bobby O'Brien's, and McMullan’s Restaurant. We had an absolute blast! Of course, the audiences at the restaurants are always loud, raucous, and fun to perform for, but performing for our local youth and seniors is the best part! And, of course, Miss Jen and Miss Katie love seeing how excited the dancers are to perform in general! We continued with a successful competitive season. We had four amazing routines: a dramatic and beautiful senior hardshoe routine to music from Riverdance, an airy junior softshoe routine called "Irish Dance Above the Rainbow", a dark and moody duet from two of our returning grads, and a beautiful softshoe solo performed by one of our returning covid-graduates. Of course, the best part was just seeing our dancers up on stage showing off their hard work, but it certainly didn’t hurt that our troupe was honored with a "Tradition" special award, our soloist won a "Pure Joy" special award, and our junior duet won 4th overall (out of 7) in their category. Finally, we got to cap our season off with an exhilarating year end show back at Centre in the Square! Taking a cruise with the audience, our dancers performed softshoe routines to some pub tunes by The Fables, and a foot-stomping (deck cleaning!) hardshoe routine to Drunkin' Sailor. It was wonderful to see our dancers (and such a big group) up on stage again and was a great way to celebrate the end of the year! Luckily, we had some fun this summer too! Not only have we had a fun summer session of Irish dance, but Intensely Irish also performed back at the KW Multicultural Festival and the Cherry Festival – two of our favourite events. It was quite the successful year and we are very excited to see what our dancers accomplish next. Interested in joining our troupe? Classes run Sunday afternoons for beginner through advanced dancers, with competition and performance opportunities. No experience required! Check out our main webpage: intenselyirish.weebly.com or email us [email protected] for more information or to register!
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Wow! Who can believe it’s the end of summer already? Another crazy dance year has come and gone. Of course, like all small businesses, Intensely Irish has continued to be affected by the virus. We were lucky enough to hold in-person classes (following covid safety protocols) for a good portion of the year, but lockdowns in the new year switched us back to online in January. Luckily, this was just a small blip and, come the spring, things started to feel a bit normal again! Firstly, we were able to perform for St. Patrick’s Day again for the first time since 2019! We were lucky enough to perform at Briarfield Retirement, the Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum, the IRL Festival, and McMullan’s Restaurant. We had an absolute blast! Of course, performing for an audience again was amazing (and I think they had a huge appreciation for live entertainment again too!). Most of all though, Miss Katie & Miss Jen were very proud to see how happy and excited the dancers were to perform again too. We continued with a successful competitive season. We had three amazing routines: a fun senior hardshoe routine called These Maids Are “Treble”, an airy junior softshoe routine called Celtic Fairies, and a beautiful softshoe solo performed by one of our returning covid-graduates. Of course, the best part was just seeing our dancers up on stage showing off their hard work, but it certainly didn’t hurt that all three routines won an overall this season!!! Additionally, Celtic Fairies won two special awards for bringing a new/different form of dance to the competition while the Maids won a special award for bringing pure fun to the stage after two difficult years. Finally, we got to cap our season off with an exhilarating year end show back at Centre in the Square! Celebrating the legends of music, our dancers performed softshoe routines to Dolly Parton and Van Morrison, and a foot-stomping hardshoe routine to Shania Twain. Again, it was wonderful to see our dancers up on stage again and I think everyone (students and teachers!) has a renewed love of dance and showbusiness. Luckily, summer has continued a return to normalcy! Not only have we had a fun summer session of Irish dance, but Intensely Irish also performed back at the KW Multicultural Festival and the Cherry Festival – two of our favourite events! And we’re not done yet – we’ll be finishing off our summer with a performance at the Bestival in September. Hopefully this return to normal continues. Either way, our students have been amazing throughout the pandemic. They continued to show up for class, whether that was online or in-person. They worked hard, learned new skills, and continued to bring a smile and positive attitude to class even with the uncertainty faced this year. It has been humbling to see our dancers – and the size of our troupe – grow through this experience. I can’t wait to see what these dancers accomplish next! Interested in joining our troupe in September? Classes run Sunday afternoons for beginner through advanced dancers, with competition and performance opportunities (as public health restrictions allow). No experience required! Check out our main webpage: intenselyirish.weebly.com or email us [email protected] for more information or to register! Wow! Who can believe it’s the end of summer already? What a year this has been! Of course, like all small businesses, Intensely Irish has been affected dramatically by the virus. We were lucky enough to hold in-person classes (following covid safety protocols) for a good portion of the year, but lockdowns in the new year switched us back to online. Perhaps worst of all, we had no shows or St. Patrick’s Day again this year. Luckily, our students are amazing! They continued to show up for class, whether that was online or in-person. They worked hard, learned new skills, and continued to bring a smile and positive attitude to class even with the various hardships faced this year. I know this last 1.5 years has been difficult for everyone, so seeing the students continue to just show up week after week makes us incredibly proud of every one of them. Of course, we found ways to have fun too! There were lots of themed classes (beach day was an especially big hit), we moved to our new (and absolutely stunning) facility, and even built an outdoor pavilion to have an outdoor “year end celebration” where we celebrated our grads. And we even found ways to perform! It wasn’t our usual performances, but luckily restrictions allowed us to film some St. Patrick’s Day routines for virtual performances with the IRL and Kitchener Market. And, luckily, in June, restrictions lifted enough where we were able to film our year end show routines outside and all together! All of our ‘virtual’ routines are posted on our Intensely Irish YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAla9NNzBawN0oWyTINNCog. Now, after a short summer session of indoor classes, we are back at it starting in September! We can’t wait for our entire dance family to be dancing under one roof at our gorgeous new home. And, while we know the year will start off much the same as this past dance year, we are hopeful to continuing to transition back to some of our usual events throughout the year. Interested in joining our troupe? Classes run Sunday afternoons for beginner through advanced dancers, with competition and performance opportunities (as public health restrictions allow). No experience required! Check out our main webpage: intenselyirish.weebly.com or email us [email protected] for more information or to register! Wow! Who can believe it’s the end of July already? Normally, Intensely Irish would have had a crazy busy spring, with competitions and shows, and now be enjoying performing at festivals and getting some well-deserved rest.
Of course, like many others have experienced this year, the virus put a huge kink into our usual routines. Unfortunately, due to the restrictions put in place, all of our usual events were cancelled – St. Patrick’s Day events, competitions, the year end show…even in person classes! Despite the necessity of the lockdown, it obviously left our dancers disappointed. Luckily, we learned to adapt! Intensely Irish quickly pivoted to virtual classes. Having dance class through zoom was a challenge…technical issues, dancing at home, figuring out audio; but we made it work! We even found some dance activities that seemed to be more fun via a computer screen – scavenger hunts, virtual performances, and even themed classes (Disney Day, beach day, and wear your favourite colour day). It may not have been the end of the year that we envisioned, but our students are so passionate about dance that they made it work!! And, now, in just one week, we’ll be returning to the studio for a brief summer session before classes start again for the fall. Of course, things will be different – social distancing and health and safety guidelines will be followed rigorously (check out our new COVID safety page for more details: https://intenselyirish.weebly.com/covid-safety.html). But we are more than a little excited to get back into the studio!!!! Wow! It is hard to believe that 2020 is already here! September seems like only yesterday, but in reality our dance season is already halfway over…it seems like this year is going really fast! As has been our tradition for the past several years, Intensely Irish spent some time at Christmas spreading holiday cheer around the Kitchener-Waterloo Region! We had a lot of fun performing at the Kitchener Market twice – once earlier in December and once right before Christmas. We had a lot of fun both time performing both some traditional dances as well as some Christmas-inspired routines. These performances were extra special, because they were the first performance ever for many of our newest members! Not only that, but due to an ill-timed snow day, our dancers had to perform the first show with very little rehearsal time. Regardless, both rookies and veterans alike rose to the occasion and performed beautifully! Miss Jen & Miss Katie were very proud. In November, some of our older dancers also performed at the Waterloo Region Museum. We also took some time to educate the community about Irish dance and even taught a step or two. The young kids in the audience had an especially fun time stomping around in the hardshoes! It was a lot of fun for our dancers to share their passion – who knows; maybe we encouraged a few to become the next generation of Irish dancers. Currently, our Intensely Irish dancers are working hard to prepare for the competitive season. Soon we’ll start working on St. Patrick’s Day choreography as well! I can't wait to see how much our group will continue to grow over the next few weeks!! Wow! Who can believe it’s September already! The summer has gone by so fast! And, considering that we take a break from regular lessons over the summer, Intensely Irish stayed quite busy! We finished off our regular dance season with our competitive season and year end show. This year Intensely Irish had three competition routines – a rhythmic hardshoe small group called Afrocelt, a theatrical hardshoe trio called Riverdance Rival, and a beautiful hardshoe solo by our graduating dancer called Irish Dream. Over the course of the 2019 competitive season, our dancers performed at several competitions and got stronger and stronger! Each scored the highest score at least once over the course of the season and the trio even won two overall awards! . Our year end show ‘Celebrating 10 years of In.Motion’ took place at Centre on the Square. The theme was celebrating past routines that have made an impact on the previous 10 seasons. Our Irish 1s did a rendition of 2017’s Celtic Fuzion and wowed the audience while also giving our graduate a beautiful send off. Our Irish 2 dancers celebrated 2009’s Celtic Beat – the first Irish comp number In.Motion had, and 2014’s Warriors – a legendary routine amongst the Irish dancers that also won an overall. The show was tons of fun and Miss Katie & Miss Jen were incredibly proud of all of the dancers! We can’t wait to see what the next 10 years will bring. We also had a couple of performances over the summer break. First, we performed at the KW Multicultural Festival. The weather was absolutely perfect and our large group of dancers looked and sounded amazing on the stage! In July we also performed at the Cherry Festival in Kitchener. Not only was the performance fun, but we hope that we inspired some of our audience to try out Irish dance too! Finally, for the sixth summer in a row, Intensely Irish offered a summer lesson program – both a youth and adult class! Our summer classes are a chance to have some fun doing things that we don’t always get the chance to do during the regular year and also a perfect time to try out Irish dance in general. Now, although we would love for summer to last even longer, Intensely Irish is already gearing up for the new dance year! We can’t wait to see all that our dancers accomplish this year!
Wow! It is hard to believe that 2019 is already here! September seems like only yesterday, but in reality our dance season is already halfway over…it seems like this year is going really fast! As has been our tradition for the past several years, Intensely Irish spent some time at Christmas spreading holiday cheer around the Kitchener-Waterloo Region! We had some really fun events, including performances at the Kitchener Market and Winston Park Retirement Home. We had a lot of fun performing both some traditional dances as well as some Christmas-inspired routines. All of our dancers performed very, very well – especially our two newest members who had never performed in front of an audience before! We also were part of the Canada Day 1 Exhibit at the Waterloo Region Museum. Not only did we do two performances, but we also educated the community about Irish dance and even taught a step or two. The young kids in the audience had an especially fun time stomping around in the hardshoes! It was a lot of fun for our dancers to share their passion – who knows; maybe we encouraged a few to become the next generation of Irish dancers. Currently, our Intensely Irish dancers are working hard to prepare for the competitive season. Soon we’ll start working on St. Patrick’s Day choreography as well! I can't wait to see how much our group will continue to grow over the next few weeks!! Wow! Who can believe it’s almost September already! The summer has gone by so fast! And, considering that we take a break from regular lessons over the summer, Intensely Irish stayed quite busy! We finished off our regular dance season with our competitive season and year end show. This year Intensely Irish had two competition routines - a hardshoe small group called Siamsa and a spy-inspred softshoe duet called Dublin-O-7. Over the course of the 2018 competitive season, our dancers performed at several competitions and got stronger and stronger! The green and gold costumes of our group routine sparkled up on stage and really brought the theme of celebration to life. Our Irish spies performed their complex duet beautifully and received a lot of attention from the judges both for their amazing dancing and the fun name of their routine (thanks Miss Jen!). Our year end show ‘Amazing Race Around the World’ too place at Centre on the Square. Our Irish 1 & 2 dancers joined forces to present a lively softshoe number that got the audience clapping along! Then each class performed their own impressive hardshoe routines, showing off all the impressive skills they learned throughout the year. The show was tons of fun and Miss Katie & Miss Jen were incredibly proud of all of the dancers! We also had a couple of performances over the summer break. First, we performed at the KW Multicultural Festival. Although it was raining on and off all day, the rain held off for our performance our large group of dancers looked and sounded amazing on the stage! In July we also performed at the Cherry Festival in Kitchener. Not only was the performance fun, but we hope that we inspired some of our audience to try out Irish dance too! Finally, for the fifth summer in a row, Intensely Irish offered a summer lesson program – both a youth and adult class! Our summer classes are a chance to have some fun doing things that we don’t always get the chance to do during the regular year and also a perfect time to try out Irish dance in general. Now, although we would love for summer to last even longer, Intensely Irish is already gearing up for the new dance year! We can’t wait to see all that our dancers accomplish this year!
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AuthorIn addition to our lesson program, Intensely Irish Performance Troupe also performs at various venues & events throughout the Kitchener-Waterloo region. Archives
September 2023
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