The Mark of the Beast

Posted by:What The FeisonJune 23, 2013   3 Comments

For those of you who follow @whatthefeis on Twitter or on Facebook, you may recall my remarks about the dancer at the Indianapolis Feis who was dressed all in black, and whose number was 666. Now, I was raised Catholic, attended Catholic school, was an altar boy, etc… and am a practicing Christian now (not Catholic anymore, nuns scare me). Anyone who actually knows me knows I am not the most religious (at least outwardly) individual, but I have to say, I am surprised they use that number.

The Irish are a religious people, and I would assume using the mark of the beast would offend the Catholic sensitivities of the feiseanna crowd. I know that if TGC was given that number, we would ask for a different one. read more

Indianapolis Feis

Posted by:What The FeisonJune 20, 2013   1 Comment

indyLogoThe Indianapolis Feis was held on June 8th, 2013 at the Indianapolis Convention Center in Indianapolis, Indiana.

A NOTE OF THANKS! Some of you may have seen my tweets where we screwed up and failed to register for this feis. Realizing our mistake the Wednesday before the feis, I tweeted on Thursday what happened and that we would miss it. One of the moms from the school hosting the feis offered assistance and put me in touch with the registrar who gladly accepted our late registration, even though it was past the deadline. They turned a negative into a big positive. read more

Detroit International Feis

Posted by:What The FeisonJune 2, 2013   1 Comment

50ffc40156882c9af9bec82a2a2af9c1The Detroit International Feis was held on June 1st, 2013 at the Ultimate Soccer Arena in Pontiac, Michigan.

Venue – This is the first time I have attended the Detroit Feis and the first feis I have attended at the Ultimate Soccer Arena, and I thought it was excellent as a feis venue.

There were six stages for the feis and compared to recent feiseanna I have been to, these were huge. I did the mental math for the one we were on at it was 32 x 24, which seemed to be the standard for the four under-champ stages, and the 2 champ stages were as big or bigger. Didn’t really do the mental math for those two. read more

Cleveland Eats

Posted by:What The FeisonMay 28, 2013   0 Comments

I mentioned this place in the North Coast Feis Eats review back in February, but we hit it again this weekend and it seemed even better.

253360_10151632564931131_1454533932_nIf you have the opportunity to go to Grumpy’s Cafe  you have to take advantage of it. We went again last Sunday before the Cleveland Feis, got there shortly after 8 and were seated immediately. Good coffee in mis-matched mugs like the type you would find in your cupboard at home, and a homey yet eclectic feel make this a great place for a pre-feis breakfast. read more

Cleveland Feis

Posted by:What The FeisonMay 27, 2013   3 Comments

gcfsLogoThe Cleveland Feis was held on May 26th, 2013 at the Wolstein Center at Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio.

Venue – This is the first time I have attended the Cleveland Feis and the first feis I have attended at the Wolstein Center, and I thought it was just OK as feis a venue.

There were ten listed performance stages for the feis, but I only saw eight of them in the arena (3 – 10) so I am not sure where stages 1 and 2 were, and therefore cannot comment on those. I walked the entire upper area of the arena, and the awards and vendor area, so 1 & 2 must have been in a different section of the arena if they were set up. read more

Dancer Nicknames

Posted by:What The FeisonMay 19, 2013   10 Comments

I have a feis-free weekend so I decided to write that blog post I have had on the back-burner.

When my daughter started competing, she danced against the same people over and over again, and we began to recognize the girls (and an occasional boy) from feis to feis and year to year, but had no idea what their names were. We started to ‘label’ the other dancers so we could identify them. None of them mean spirited, although I guess some may sound that way if you didn’t know the story behind them, they were just a way for us to be able to talk about things like ”nickname has really nice kicks” or “nickname got a new dress” or whatever, until we eventually learned the dancers real names. read more

Bluegrass Feis

Posted by:What The FeisonMay 12, 2013   3 Comments

The 2nd Annual Bluegrass Feis was held on May 12th, 2013 at the Lexington Convention Center in Lexington, KY.

Read this whole review, starts a little negative but has its great points and finishes very strong!

Please add your feis rating for the Bluegrass Feis at the bottom of this review!

NOTE: If you are going to do two feisanna and write reviews in one weekend, take notes. Surprising how fast things overlap in the brain :)

Venue – This is the first feis I have attended at the Lexington Convention Center, and I liked the space for feis venue, but…There were seven performance stages in one large room but I do not think the space was used well for stage setup. read more

Queen City Feis

Posted by:What The FeisonMay 12, 2013   0 Comments

queencityThe 10th Annual Queen City Feis was held Saturday, May 11th, 2013 at the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati, OH.

Venue – This is the third or fourth feis I have attended at the Duke energy Center, and I like it as a feis venue. There were seven performance stages in one large room and like Buckeye, the stages were spaced out well, but not so far apart that getting back and forth between stages was difficult. Stages 6 and 7 were for OC and PC and were really big. They were in the same room, but sectioned off by a partition. The other 5 stages seemed a bit bigger than what I am use to seeing, and if I figured right, 24 x 24 feet, at least the stage we were on was. read more

Buckeye State Feis

Posted by:What The FeisonApril 21, 2013   0 Comments

The 5th Annual Buckeye Feis was held on April 20th, 2013 at the Franklin County Veterans Memorial in Columbus, OH.

Please add your feis rating for the Buckeye State Feis at the bottom of this review!

We did not attend the 4th Annual due to a school change, but you can see my other Buckeye State Feis reviews here.

NOTE: I did not arrive till after 11 so comments are about the afternoon session of dancing.

Venue – This is the fourth feis I have attended at Vets Memorial, and I like it as a feis venue. There were six performance stages in one large room and I felt the stages were spaced out well but not so far apart that getting back and forth between was difficult. Stages 1 and 2 were for OC and PC and I didn’t take note of the size of #1, but I saw #2 and it was big. The remaining stages were all good size. read more