Five students from a local dance studio have earned a spot in an international Irish dance championship and will travel to Sussex, England next year to compete.
Students from My Pulse, My Passion dance school competed in the IDC Championship in Smithville, New Jersey on Oct. 8., where all five qualified to move on to the next round of competition — the European Championships, which will be hosted in November 2017 by the Celtic Association of Irish Dance.
“They had to compete in three dances, and it was a tough competition — you could take first place and not necessarily qualify for the next round,” said teacher Kyleen Vernon. “They all scored high enough across the board to qualify. It was pretty outstanding.”
The five students, Victoria Alesi of Manorville, Maeve Bailey of Aquebogue, Naomi Cichanowicz of Southold, Katie O’Connor of Moriches and Hailey Brown of Moriches, have all been taking lessons with Vernon for years.
“They started dancing with me. Victoria’s been with me for 10 years, the rest of them have been doing it around five or so years,” Vernon said. “I can’t tell you how incredible it is to watch them grow and develop as dancers.”
Vernon says that, though competition in the dance world is tough, she tries to keep her students focused on the positives, providing a happy, healthy environment.
“People hear competitive Irish dancing and think they need to give up their first born but we keep it reasonable,” Vernon said. “I really do feel strongly about making sure the events these girls participate in are positive ones. Competition isn’t bad — there’s a lot of pros to competition — but my dancers know that with me, kindness and community and those kinds of moral values come first.”
