Irish dance takes centre stage at 2nd annual Peach City Feis
The adjudicator/judge was flown in all the way from New York State. The accordion player traveled from Edmonton. And the competitors, 50 skilled kids aged five to 15, came from as far away as Calgary and Vancouver Island.
All here in Penticton on a Saturday afternoon for a competition called a “feis.”
So what is a feis? If you were Irish, there’s a pretty good chance you’d know.
For those who aren’t, a feis is an Irish dance competition. Dancers and/or groups of dancers take the floor, one by one, in front of a judge or judges. And they’re graded on their performances.
The Saturday event, called the “Peach City Feis,” was likely the only feis in the Okanagan this year, and one of very few in the province. They’re that rare. And it was put together by registered Irish dance teacher Ciara Duignan, founder and owner of Penticton’s Castilla School of Irish Dance.
Duignan adores Irish dance. Her voice lifts when she describes it. Indeed, she’s the big reason Penticton is now a hotbed of sorts for the centuries-old discipline.
“I do love it,” she smiled to the Herald Saturday as dozens of nervous dancers and their families readied all around her for the challenges that lay ahead. “The music is magical. When you hear it, how can you not have these feelings?”
Duignan put together the very first Peach City Feis last year, primarily to give local kids some-thing important to shoot for that wasn’t on the other side of the mountains.
“Our kids usually have to travel six hours or so to go to a dance competition anywhere,” she said. “Vancouver, Seattle, Calgary, Wenatchee.
“The Okanagan just didn’t have anything like this for Okanagan dancers. It’s a really big commitment for families to travel. So this gives them a chance.”
Monitoring the proceedings and making the calls Saturday at the studio in the Cannery Trade Centre was event adjudicator Kerry Kelly-Oster. Kelly-Oster runs her own Irish dance studio in Somers, New York, and she’s a highly qualified judge.
That’s why Duignan brought her ‘cross-continent for the weekend feis.
“Ciara has another event tomorrow that’s called Grade Exams (where performers essentially compete against themselves),” said Kelly-Oster as she waited for the first dancer to appear. “And only those certified in Grade Exams can administer those exams, and I’m on that list.
“There’s not that many of us, so it was worthwhile to have two events in one weekend and pay the air fare for one person.”
The Brewster, New York resident was thrilled to be in Penticton, a town she’d never heard of ‘til Duignan reach out.
“I’ve been to Vancouver, to Calgary and Edmonton and to Banff,” she said, “I’ve done the tourist side of it, but this is my first time here and I’m just so excited about it.”
For the Herald, the big thrill was being in the middle of it all, adjacent to Kelly-Oster and mere feet from the dancers as they came out one by one and gave it their all.
It was wildly impressive. Irish dance is tough stuff. It’s a blend of precision, rhythm, art, and athleticism.
Dancers lock their arms at their side and express most everything through their lower body, which is often a blur of movement.
“In the 1800s the Gaelic League in Ireland made rules on carriage,” explained Duignan when we asked for a primer, “which is how you hold your upper body, the crossover points and your rhythm, and we still have those rules today.
“It’s arms down, no moving the upper body at all, cross your feet, cross your knees, lots of lifts and rhythm to the music.”
It’s worth noting that there was no cheering crowd or supportive parents in the studio. It was just a big empty space, adjudicator Kelly-Oster front and center, and two musicians expertly cranking out the tunes -- Meaghan MacNeil of Kelowna on fiddle and Merv Bell of Edmonton on accordion, both brought in specifically for the competition.
Spectators were confined to an adjacent room, separated from the dancers by a thick pane of glass. Cheering and applause was reserved for breaks between performances, when the dancers, so stoic throughout, could finally let go of some of the emotions they’d been keeping inside.
There were tears. But many of those tears were happy. And mostly there was intense satisfaction.
When it was all done, Ciara Duignan thanked the “amazing parent volunteers that made it all possible” and said she hoped the Peach City Feis would become a permanent part of the Penticton landscape.
“The kids just love it,” she said. “They’re so proud of it now. And we’ve broken even (financially), which is all I can ask for.”
For more info on the Castilla School of Irish Dance or to book a performance (the school’s chief source of fundraising), hit its website at castillairishdance.com, or call 250-718-4343.