Wow! What an amazing two days the Northern Lights had! After months of practicing, we started our performances on Friday, March 16th. First stop was St. Ann’s School in Cadillac at (yawn) 8:30 AM. It took us a bit to wake up, but the students at St. Ann’s were not disappointed and enjoyed our new dances and old ones. We had 3 new young dancers join us this year, so this was their first performance ever! At only ages 5-6, they performed the jig all through the day!
Next stop was Franklin Elementary in Cadillac at 10:00! We came to this school because three of my outside students go to school there and two of them got to dance with the company. It was an almost flawless show and the dancers were amazing in front of over 400 students. They loved them! It was another first for performing for the new students and they did fantastic.
Very quickly, we went over to Kenwood Elementary in Cadillac to share our love of Irish dance with them. Though we only had about 20 minutes before our stage turned into a lunchroom! The dancers were in great form and continued to wow their audience.
Now, a break for lunch. Graciously, the Autumn Wood Nursing Home gave us a room to eat our lunch and then we performed to the residents! After dancing in 3 gyms that morning, it was good practice dancing in a smaller place. The residents enjoyed them so much; we will definitely come back.
Last show of the day was the biggest and the dancers were up for the challenge of over 600 excited faces ready to really celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. With a bleacher full of faces and a big empty gym floor, the dancers stepped in Irish fashion as never before! Even the wee little ones got in front of that crowd and just did their jiggidy jig! My favorite part of the day was seeing the energetic smiles of my dancers who had already been dancing since 8:30. They really gave a performance that was worthy of such a huge venue. Awesome!
We ended our day with a traditional ice-cream store stop. Everyone was thrilled about such a great day and ready for the next day of events!
Off to Clare to march in the Clare Irish Festival parade and for the first time, we had our own float. So, instead of just dancing in the streets, we had a beautiful green laden float to ride on and dance behind! Boy did they show the onlookers some real
At the end of the parade it was off to the Clare Castle to dance for a local fundraising event to support a local soup kitchen. This was a nice way to spend St. Patrick’s Day for a good cause. The dancers gave their last SPD show and did super! We love being able to spend SPD at an Irish Festival; it makes it all so fun!