CNY Feis Recap
Whoops, I realized I never actually took the time to write about how the CNY Feis actually went! So, a few months after the fact, here it is!
I definitely was not having a great day the day of the feis - right before I left my parents' house for the fairgrounds, I found out about the earthquake in Nepal. Due to my (albeit brief) time doing field work in Kathmandu, I have a number of friends who still live there and who I was naturally very worried about. Naturally, most of the time my attention was focused on worry (and constantly checking Facebook for updates on people - their Safety Check feature is amazing and also let those of us Stateside know very quickly who was safe). Thankfully, later that weekend I was able to confirm that all of my friends were safe, if not yet feeling totally secure.
My panic did not help the time pass, seeing as how in checking the schedule and only seeing two competitions before mine, I did not factor in that they were championship competitions, which dragged on for what felt like forever. Needless to say I got into my dress much too early (I may have also been a little excited about wearing my new solo dress for the first time!), realized I couldn't sit down in it and didn't want to put my sweatpants on because they already got a ton of grey fuzzies on my black tights, so I did a lot of pacing and walking around the building. Thankfully it wasn't too cold so I also paced a bit outside as well. I will certainly say it is very odd walking around the state fairgrounds when nobody's there!
The long wait meant I did get to see my cousins' daughters compete, which was great - I had never seen them on stage before! It also gave me people to hang out with while waiting, as it is incredibly boring standing around at a feis by yourself for hours on end.
Eventually, my competitions came up, during which I had a great time talking to my (only) fellow competitor from Rochester, who also had a great post-dancing Irish dancing stormtrooper t-shirt on! (Kate, if you happen to find this blog, where did you get that shirt?!)
I thought the reel, slip jig, treble jig, and hornpipe all went pretty well. Everything except the light jig. Oh, light jig. You are supposed to be the easy dance, why were you the worst one of all that day?
For some reason, however the musician was playing the light jig was just totally confusing (it actually kind of sounded like a slip jig, which was definitely weird and threw me off). So I started way before I was supposed to. The adjudicator, being gracious, allowed us to restart. Which is when my competitor false started. Reset, go again. The third time we both started dancing at completely the wrong time! They finally had to count us in, which was possibly the most mortifying experience I've ever had at a feis. The upside of it is that it has turned into a great story to tell others when they get down on themselves for starting at the wrong time, etc. It's always, yeah, that happened, but at least you didn't screw up the light jig! And we did it multiple times!
I was glad when that experience was over, and went to change and wait around for scores. For only having 2 dancers in our competition, it took a ridiculously long time for those to be posted (over an hour, if I'm remembering correctly). I understand that things can get backed up, and also that this is a very large feis, but seriously? That was definitely borderline ridiculous.
Overall, the feis was about the same as I remember from my childhood (being one of the only feiseanna that my mom would actually take me to). Camping seems slightly better than back in the 90s, but still pretty crowded. I also need to remember to bring a camping chair with me to these things, because sitting on a cement floor or standing around for hours are not great options.
I would definitely like to come back to this feis next year, but I would also like to see more adults. Even though I had a great conversation with my fellow competitor, it's always better to have a broader field. I also would love for them to add trad set for adults; especially with the low registration numbers it wouldn't take too much additional time, and would add some good variety for the adults.
I definitely was not having a great day the day of the feis - right before I left my parents' house for the fairgrounds, I found out about the earthquake in Nepal. Due to my (albeit brief) time doing field work in Kathmandu, I have a number of friends who still live there and who I was naturally very worried about. Naturally, most of the time my attention was focused on worry (and constantly checking Facebook for updates on people - their Safety Check feature is amazing and also let those of us Stateside know very quickly who was safe). Thankfully, later that weekend I was able to confirm that all of my friends were safe, if not yet feeling totally secure.
My panic did not help the time pass, seeing as how in checking the schedule and only seeing two competitions before mine, I did not factor in that they were championship competitions, which dragged on for what felt like forever. Needless to say I got into my dress much too early (I may have also been a little excited about wearing my new solo dress for the first time!), realized I couldn't sit down in it and didn't want to put my sweatpants on because they already got a ton of grey fuzzies on my black tights, so I did a lot of pacing and walking around the building. Thankfully it wasn't too cold so I also paced a bit outside as well. I will certainly say it is very odd walking around the state fairgrounds when nobody's there!
The long wait meant I did get to see my cousins' daughters compete, which was great - I had never seen them on stage before! It also gave me people to hang out with while waiting, as it is incredibly boring standing around at a feis by yourself for hours on end.
Eventually, my competitions came up, during which I had a great time talking to my (only) fellow competitor from Rochester, who also had a great post-dancing Irish dancing stormtrooper t-shirt on! (Kate, if you happen to find this blog, where did you get that shirt?!)
I thought the reel, slip jig, treble jig, and hornpipe all went pretty well. Everything except the light jig. Oh, light jig. You are supposed to be the easy dance, why were you the worst one of all that day?
For some reason, however the musician was playing the light jig was just totally confusing (it actually kind of sounded like a slip jig, which was definitely weird and threw me off). So I started way before I was supposed to. The adjudicator, being gracious, allowed us to restart. Which is when my competitor false started. Reset, go again. The third time we both started dancing at completely the wrong time! They finally had to count us in, which was possibly the most mortifying experience I've ever had at a feis. The upside of it is that it has turned into a great story to tell others when they get down on themselves for starting at the wrong time, etc. It's always, yeah, that happened, but at least you didn't screw up the light jig! And we did it multiple times!
I was glad when that experience was over, and went to change and wait around for scores. For only having 2 dancers in our competition, it took a ridiculously long time for those to be posted (over an hour, if I'm remembering correctly). I understand that things can get backed up, and also that this is a very large feis, but seriously? That was definitely borderline ridiculous.
Overall, the feis was about the same as I remember from my childhood (being one of the only feiseanna that my mom would actually take me to). Camping seems slightly better than back in the 90s, but still pretty crowded. I also need to remember to bring a camping chair with me to these things, because sitting on a cement floor or standing around for hours are not great options.
I would definitely like to come back to this feis next year, but I would also like to see more adults. Even though I had a great conversation with my fellow competitor, it's always better to have a broader field. I also would love for them to add trad set for adults; especially with the low registration numbers it wouldn't take too much additional time, and would add some good variety for the adults.
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