International+Festival+2015

Irish Dancing

At the International Festival many different activities and performances were going on. Me and a couple other friends watched girls Irish dance on the stage where all of the food was. There was a group of a couple girls and they wore dark greenish blueish dresses and had on santa hats with a little bell on top. The music was on a computer and the bagpipes are what were played for the music with a little jingle of Christmas music. For this performance no one went up it was just a couple of Irish dancers on stage at once. For some performances the people performing wanted others to come up and dance with them or play an instrument with them. For Irish dancing people couldn't really go up and dance because that specific performance just wasn't for everyone to do.

When I watched this performance I sat with Tia because she is an Irish dancer and she could tell me what kind of Irish dancing it is. What she told me was that there are many different types of Irish dancing. The girls that danced were great and the clothing they wore was perfect for Irish dancing. A question I would ask some of the performers is did they get picked to come and dance at the International Festival or were they chosen? I once did an Irish dancing camp with my friend from another school and it was a lot of fun, I thought that I was going to Irish dance for a hobby but decided that Irish dancing wasn't my thing.

Heather Morris dances from Highland, Irish, & Cape Breton Dance came to the International Festival at The Fairgrounds in Essex Vermont. This Irish dance group is from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. I'm not quite sure why some Irish dance group would come to Vermont from Canada when Vermont has Irish dance academy's that I'm sure would love to come and perform at the International Festival. Irish dancing has two different types of shoes that they wear, one pair are soft and one pair are hard. Both shoes have totally different sounds that they make. When they dance not all of the music is bagpipes and Irish music, it could be anything. Some Irish dancers are competitive, some are not. Studios are more likely to be competitive, and others may just do Irish dancing for fun.

Belly Dancing

Belly dancing at the International Festival was a great performance to watch. This was a type of performance where some of the people in the audience gets up on stage and gets to participate. Last year and this year when our team went to the International Festival the belly dancing was really popular and a lot of the kids on our team went up and belly danced with the performers. I did not participate in belly dancing because being on stage and doing something totally new is not my thing, but some people that did go up were, Grace, Haris, Dasha, Layla and and a bunch more people went and did belly dancing. The two ladies that instructed all of the volunteers were very confident in what they were doing. I thought that this type of belly dancing was something else, but it was something totally different. You had to have a lot of guts to go up on the stage and do something that most of them had never done before. After a little bit of belly dancing a lot of the people on the stage got the hang of it felt confident and stepped out of the box, they did something they might not have even thought about doing when they first walked through the doors of the building.

While I watched this performance I laughed and enjoyed it. I thought to myself that I probably wouldn't have the confidence or the guts to get up on that stage and do what other people did. I learned that not all belly dancing is the same, for example this kind of belly dancing was not really belly dancing, it was king of moving your hips instead of your belly. When I first heard about the belly dancing at the International Festival I thought performers would have their belly showing and like do movements with it, because some people can do that. When I was watching the belly dancers I was standing in line with Mary and Emma. I think that they were thinking the same things that I were thinking in my head. We were all laughing but in the end we thought that was actually really great! So many of the volunteers up on the stage were really shy and by the end they were literally shaking their butts! Overall this was a great performance and a great learning experience for the people up on the stage.

The belly dancing was with Naomi Tatro and another lady. On the schedule Shimmy On was what was the performer name. These two girls performed more than once on Friday. A couple facts about belly dancing are that belly dancing is part of some people's religion. It doesn't matter what shape, size, or age you are. Some types of belly dancing are Egyptian, Folkloric, Tribal, Cabaret and fusion. I never knew that there were so many different types of belly dancing. Most of the times when people belly dance they do it barefoot. Apparently In the 19th and 20th centuries show in paintings that belly dancers were wearing shoes. I wonder why belly dancers dance barefoot. Whether or not it has to do with religion or just liking to be barefoot while belly dancing! I'm curious if belly dancing was apart of these two ladies religion or they learned belly dancing and just like to share with others what belly dancing is and how to do it? Over all watching these two ladies was great, I really enjoyed watching some of the people on my team get up and learn new things!

Written By Hannah