Getting Into "Treble"
*with intensely irish*
It is hard to believe that 2018 is already here! September seems like only yesterday, but soon St. Patrick's Day, the competitive season, and even our year end show will be upon us...it seems like this year is going really fast!
We started off this dance year with two community performances in September. First, we performed at the 1st Annual Belmont Village Bestival. This outdoor performance was a lot of fun! Not only did we have a great time performing, but the festival also featured some great bands and was a lot of fun to walk around as well. Later that night, a few of our dancers performed at the September Ceili at the Kitchener City Hall. The girls had a great time showing off their routines as well as joining in the other ceili dances. All too soon it was December! Sticking with our tradition of spreading Christmas cheer around the Kitchener-Waterloo Region, Intensely Irish spent a weekend before Christmas out performing! We started things off with a performance at the Kitchener Market, followed by a performance at Sunnyside 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 newest 6-year-old dancer for whom these were her first performances ever! Now our Intensely Irish dancers get a bit of a break to start preparing for both St. Patrick's Day and our 2017 Competitive Season. I can't wait to see how much our group will continue to grow over the next few weeks!!
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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 year end show ‘Celebrating Canada’s 150th Birthday’ at Centre on the Square. Our Irish 1 & 2 dancers joined forces to present a lively Great Big Sea 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 fundraiser 'Hockey Helps the Homeless'. We had so much fun being part of this amazing show! We also performed at the KW Multicultural Festival. Although it rained that morning, the weather cleared in time and our large group of dancers looked and sounded amazing on the stage! In July we performed at the Cherry Festival in Kitchener. Not only was the performance fun, but we also set up a booth this year to help generate interest in our group and Irish dance in general. We even taught the audience how to do a jig! Finally, for the fourth summer in a row, Intensely Irish offered a summer lesson program! 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 while still practicing important skills and technique. This year we again offered both a youth and an adult class and both classes had fun learning and showing off some new dances. 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! This year Intensely Irish had one very special competition routine - a pre-competitive small group called Celtic Fuzion. Fusing four of our Irish 1 dancers and four of our Irish 2 dancers, this routine featured both hardshoe and softshoe on stage at the same time!! Over the course of the 2017 competitive season, our dancers performed in Hamilton, Richmond Hill, and Niagara Falls. Between the intricate choreography, the two types of shoes, and the glittery costumes (including bubble socks) the routine looked amazing on stage. Every single dancer worked so hard over the course of the season and it really showed – the routine got stronger and stronger each time. In the end, our season was a huge success – not only were our dancers happy with their performances but we scored 90+ at each one of our four competitions. In addition, our girls finished 3rd Overall Pre-Competitive Junior Small Group at Fever Dance Competition (out of 14 routines) AND 2nd Overall Junior Pre-Competitive Junior Small Group at Terpsichore Dance Celebration (out of 21 routines)! What an amazing result! I can’t wait to see how our team continues to grow and develop next year!
It is hard to believe that 2017 is already here! September seems like only yesterday, but soon St. Patrick's Day, the competition season, and even our year end show will be upon us...it seems like this year is going very fast! Sticking with our tradition of spreading Christmas cheer around the Kitchener-Waterloo Region, Intensely Irish spent the weekend before Christmas out performing! We started things off with a performance at A.R. Goudie Retirement Home, followed by performances at both the Kitchener Market and Fergus Place 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 since many of our dancers were performing new routines. The next day a few of our older dancers continued to spread Christmas Spirit by performing at Shelter in the Storm’s Christmas Dinner for the homeless. Not only did we have a lot of fun, but we were very honoured to be able to give back to our community in such a special way! It was definitely a rewarding experience! Now our Intensely Irish dancers get a bit of a break to start preparing for both St. Patrick's Day and our 2017 Competitive Season. I can't wait to see how much our group will continue to grow over the next few weeks!! Our new dance year is well underway and the Intensely Irish dancers are off to a great start! Both our junior class and our senior class are working hard to learn new skills, steps, and dances. I think this year will be our best year yet! Usually the fall is pretty quiet for us in terms of performances and events. But that definitely wasn’t the case this year! Our first performance of the year was at Steckle Farms Annual Family Fun Day at the beginning of October. All of our dancers performed very well - for some of them it was their first ever performance! At the end of our show, we got some of our audience members up to learn a jig - it was a lot of fun! Miss Katie, Miss Jen, and dancers Kady & Sarah also represented Intensely Irish at both the September and October Ceili Dances in Victoria Park. The routines were a big hit and we also had fun dancing the various Ceili dances during the rest of evening. In November, Intensely Irish was invited to perform at a Baha’i Celebration in Waterloo. Miss Katie and dancers Kady & Olivia represented our team . The community was very welcoming and enjoyed our performance! They even invited us to stay for dinner! It was a lot of fun to experience a new culture and get out into the community. Finally, at the beginning of December, Miss Katie & Miss Jen taught some Irish dance to the students at Brigadoon Public. The students were very enthusiastic and great listeners. They also asked us some great questions! It was a lot of fun to bring our passion for Irish dance to a new generation. Now our dancers are working hard preparing for our Christmas events and the competitive season. I can't wait to see all that our dancers accomplish this year! Considering that regular lessons stop over the summer, Intensely Irish stayed quite busy this summer! For the third summer in a row, Intensely Irish offered a summer lesson program. Except, for the first time, we offered both a youth and an 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. Both our youth and our adult class worked very hard on learning some new dances and had a lot of fun! We also had several performances over the summer. We started things off by performing at the KW Multicultural Festival. It was a beautiful day and our large group of dancers looked and sounded amazing on the stage. We received many compliments on both our dancing and our glittery costumes (which looked amazing in the sunlight). We followed this up with a performance at the Cherry Festival in Kitchener. It was our second year performing at this festival and bringing Irish dance to our community. Although the weather wasn’t the best, our dancers performed beautifully and we even taught some members of the audience how to do a jig! In August we also did a small performance at Winston Park Retirement Home. Not only did our dancers perform well, but we even had some new members strut their stuff as well. It’s always fun to bring some cheer to our local seniors. Finally, no summer would be complete without our annual year-end party at Miss Katie & Miss Jen’s house. Held in June this year, all the dancers all had a lot of fun playing games and watching old dance videos of themselves. Miss Jen's Hollywood Game Night-style games were a huge hit as well! It was a great way to end the year! It's hard to believe, but another year is over! Although it's very sad that another year is done, Miss Katie & Miss Jen are so proud of how much all of the Intensely Irish dancers have grown over the past year! And we went out with a bang at In.Motion's year end show earlier this month. The theme of this year's show was a re-telling of the children's book "Giraffe's Can't Dance". For the first time in our studio's history, the show was held at Centre in the Square! Our junior and senior dancers combined forces to perform an impressive hardshoe routine where our feet represented thunder and we used bright silver sticks to represent lighting. Our senior dancers impressed with their intricate footwork while our junior dancers (for many of whom it was their first time on stage) brought tons of energy to the routine. Our juniors and seniors combined forces once again to perform an exciting softshoe routine representing the moment at which Gerald the Giraffe realizes he can dance! This routine allowed our dancers to work together as a team and also showcase some of the difficult moves they've been working on all year. In the end, both of the routines looked phenomenal and the audience loved them! Needless to say, although it is sad another year is over, Miss Katie & Miss Jen are incredibly proud of all the things their dancers have accomplished this year and how well they performed at our year end show! But don't count us out just yet - we still have a busy summer ahead of us with a couple of performances and our 3rd annual summer class. Plus, there is always next year to look forward to! This year Intensely Irish had three competition routines - a pre-competitive small group consisting of 6 of our teen dancers and two pre-competitive duets, one performed by our two of our junior dancers and one performed by two of our seniors. Over the course of the 2016 competitive season, our dancers performed in Guelph, London, and Richmond Hill...and our senior duet even performed at an additional competition in Huntsville at the Deerhurst Resort. Our junior pre-competitive duet was titled 'Celtic Fairies'. Between the gorgeous costumes, sparkly bubble socks, and flowing wings, our Fairies looked beautiful on stage and performed well at each competition, especially since it was the first competitive season for one of them! Our senior pre-competitive duet was called 'Celtic Heartbeat'. Once again, our dancers looked beautiful on stage and were very in sync with each other. Despite this being a very technical routine the girls got stronger at each competition, culminating with a season's best at the Deerhurst Resort! Our pre-competitive duet was titled 'The Pipe Tunes' and featured a prop - silver sparkly ribbons. Over the course of the routine our dancers not only had to worry about their toes and their steps, but they also had to knot and un-knot the ribbons successfully. This routine was a hit with the audiences at each one of the competitions...we had them clapping and cheering the whole time. In fact, at In.Motion's Competitive Showcase we were even one of the finalists for the audience's favourite routine!! This was our first year with two competitive routines and it was so nice to see the dancers support their teammates at each and every competition. Overall, our dancers had an amazing season, continuing to challenge themselves while also having a lot of fun! I can't wait to see how our team continues to grow and develop next 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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