Caitlin placed 1st in U9 and Tomas placed 1st (his first Oireachtas) in U12 Boys category. Our 8-Hand Ceili Team in the Under 10 age group also won 1st place. Team members included: Jadyn, Morgan, Julia, Thea, Pixie, Megan, Sarah, and Caitlin.

This was a very exciting Oireachtas for the NPIDA dancers and their families. All these dancers worked so hard to prepare themselves for this qualifying event and it definitely paid off. Congratulations to ALL dancers! You ALL danced so beautifully at this year’s Oireachtas!! We are so proud of you!! Thanks to Nora and Courtney!!

1st Place for our U10 8-Hand Ceili Team!

NPIDA had 18 dancers recall (get into finals) and qualify for the North American Championships which will take place in July 2011 in Nashville Tennessee.  Of these dancers, 6 qualified for the World Championships which will take place in Dublin, Ireland in April 2011.

Our Under 13 dancers started things off with amazing determination and focus, which in turn produced some fantastic results!  We had 16  U13 dancers compete and 11 of them recalled and qualified for the North American Championships!  Of those 11 dancers, 3 qualified for the World Championships!  Congratulations!!

Our  U13 dancers that recalled and qualified for the North American Championships and Worlds are as follows:

Caitlin B. - U9 2nd place

Jadyn Mc. - U9 5th place  

Julia M. -U9 10th place

Morgan G. – U9 12th place

Macaela B. - U10 2nd place (World Qualifier)

Jessie H.- U10 5th place (World Qualifier)

Camryn C.- U10 6th place (World Qualifier)

Shannon G.- U11 8th place

Olivia A. -U11 11th place

Maya B. -  U12 15th place

Cara J.-U12 14th place

NPIDA had 25 Over 13 dancers and 7 of them recalled this year at the WCRO!  Their amazing dedication and committment to their training showed us that they have a true passion and love for dance.      

Our  O13 dancers that recalled and qualified for the North American Championships and Worlds are as follows:

O13 Recallers

Mackenzie C.- U14 6th place (World Qualifier)

Catalina G. -U14 18th place

Ellen D. -U16 7th place (World Qualifier)

Jessie B.-U16 13th place

Natalie S. – U17 20th place

Kelly D.- Ladies O20 11th place

Michael Y.- Mens U19 1st. place (World Qualifier)  

It is also with great admiration that Hanna S, Lisa Y, Natalie L, Jessica H. and Stephanie M. have also qualified to attend and participate in the 2011 North American Championships as Open Championship dancers.

The NPIDA dancers that qualified for the World Championships and will be competing in Dublin are Michael Y., Mackenzie C., Camryn C., Ellen D., Jessie H. and Macaela B.  Good luck dancers!

We would also like to announce that Shannon G. will be travelling to the All–Irelands Competition which will be held in Killarney Ireland in February 2011! Good luck Shannon!

We are all very proud of our NPIDA Dancers and families for their commitment and dedication to Irish Dance. We know how hard the dancers have trained to achieve these amazing goals!

Best of luck to all our NPIDA Dancers competing at the All-Irelands, Worlds and North American Championships in 2011 !

It is being held at the Westin Bayshore Hotel in Vancouver near our historic Stanley Park!  The panoramic views of the North Shore around the Bayshore Hotel will surely be enjoyed by many dancers and their families this weekend!

NPIDA will have 41 qualified dancers competing in the WCRO this year which makes our 2010 entry total another record breaking year for our dance school.  Our dancers range in age from 8 to 24 years from both our Richmond and North Vancouver  locations.  Our WCRO competitors are training very hard to reach their goals by attending classes and extra workshops which started on September 25th and they will continue until the day of the Oireachtas.

Our NPIDA Dancers that are competing at the Orieachtas are the following:

Girls Under 9 - Caitlin , Jadyn, Morgan, Alannah and Julia

Girls Under 10 – Macaela, Camryn and Jessie H

Girls Under 11 – Anna, Olivia and Shannon

Girls Under 12 – Gemma, Maya, Cara and Raven

Girls Under 13 – Maria

Girls Under 14 – Mackenzie, Catalina, Laurel, Emma and Shelby

Girls Under 15 – Samantha

Girls Under 16 – Jessie B, Ellen, Keira and Nikki

Girls Under 17 – Alex W, Jessica, Natalie L, Natalie S and Paula

Ladies Under19 – Alex M and Hanna

Mens Under 19 – Michael

Under 20 Ladies -Rachel

Senior Ladies Over 20 – Kelly, Lisa, Margaret, Stephanie, Rebecca and Kate

If you would like to come and show your support for our wonderful dancers or any other competitors, please note that all groups that are Under 13 will compete on Friday, November 12th at 1:00pm and all the Over 13 groups will be competing on Saturday, November 13th from 8:30am onwards.

The Mini-Feis will take place on Sunday, November 14th for all of our other NPIDA dancers that range from Pre-beginner to Prizewinner.  The Mini-Feis will start at 9:00am.  

We would like to wish all the dancers taking part in the Orieachtas and Mini-Feis this year the best of luck!  We know that all your hard work and dedication to your Irish dancing will make us all so very proud!

What a month  for NPIDA ….we were featured in the Richmond Review Newspaper and not one but two Irish Dance Magazines. The Richmond Review’s September 18th 2010 issue is celebrating the Arts & Culture from coast to coast from Septmember 24-26.  The issue featured five of our U11 Nationals Dancers on the front page!  An article titled “Deep commitment, big rewards in Irish dance” recognizes NPIDA and how most dancers are introduced to Irish Dancing and the time committment some dancers have made to Irish Dance. It also features quotes from three of our Championships Dancers, Shannon Game and Macaela and Caitlin. Finally it talks about the birth of NPIDA in an interview with Nora. The article was well researched and put together, making this a very proud NPIDA moment for everyone.  Please note that the end of the article includes 2 major print errors stating:  ”Ultimately, Pickett says she would like to host a world championship.” and “I’d like to apply for the North American competition.  Nora would like to one day host a World or National Championship.”   This section should read:  “Nora plans to host a local Irish dance competition but has no plan or goal to host anything larger.”  

If you are interested in reading the Atricle you can view it online  at www.bclocalnews.com/richmond_southdelta/richmondreview/  in the entertainment section or you can read a copy of it at our North Vancouver dance studio.

Irish Dance Magazine and Feis America are the two leading Irish Dance Magazines available to the Irish dance community. We have a number of photographs of our dancers featured in the latest issues of both these magazines which were taken at the North American Championships in July 2010. Feis America is already well know to NPIDA since this is the magazine where Cheryl Galdert and Moira S. (NPIDA dance parents) have had their beautiful photographs featured. Cheryl has had her photographs featured from last years Western Canadian Oireachtas and both Moira and Cheryl’s photographs of Eire Born were featured from our Vancouver 2010 Olympics. We look forward to more magazine and newspaper issues featuring our NPIDA and Eire Born Dancers thanks to Cheryl and Moira’s hard work and many tireless hours taking photographs and supporting our dancers.

We hope you all enjoy the articles!

We had some fantastic opportunites to perform at more than 30 shows this Summer …Steveston Salmon Festival Parade, Lions Club Gala for Richmond Hospital, Kitsilano Showboat, Point Roberts Arts & Music Festival, Vancouver Chinatown Festival, Bantam Girls Provincial Championships at the Richmond Oval and our 2 shows at the 100th PNE Celebration.  As you can see it took a strong level of commitment from our Eire Born Dancers and Guest Dancers to make this Summer a huge success.

Our Amazing Steveston Docks Shows…..the weather cooperated every Sunday for us. How lucky were we?!?  We had an amazing turnout from all of our Eire Born Dancers and parents not to mention some of our up and coming little guest dancers.

The entertainment factor was high as usual which kept a constrant crowd of onlookers on their toes throughout every performance. New friendships were formed and old ones strengthened as amazing teamwork continued to developed between our parent volunteers every week with our stage preparations.

As always our summer Steveston dock shows are the highlight of August for so many of our dancers and families.  Thank you to everyone who got involved and  participated in making our 2010 Steveston dock shows such a great success!

Eire Born Set the Stage on Fire at the Lonsdale Quay…..a new tradition started this Summer, Eire Born performed on alternate Saturdays giving the North Shore some new excitement!

The backdrop was so amazing with the ocean and downtown Vancouver!  It highlighted our fabulous dancers perfectly. Ever Saturday was a great day and a great way to feature our Eire Born Dancers at the Lonsdale Quay. Our dancers were able to spend time together making new memories that they will remember always.

Thank you to all the dancers and parents for making the Quay shows such a huge success and a new Eire Born tradition!

Summer 2010…..what a great Summer it was….look for our new photos in the Gallery highlighting these memorable Shows!

Disney World, Orlando Florida was definitely the “Greatest Place on Earth” this July when 18 out of our 29 National qualifiers from NPIDA competed in the 2010 North American Championships! 

This was a first Nationals experience for 8 of our NPIDA Dancers … Jadyn, Jessie, Jayne, Camryn, Jessica, Alex, Cara and Stephanie and what an amazing experience they all had! Dancers who also attended were Courtney, Michael, Natalie S., Catalina, Mackenzie, Nicole, Lauren, Shannon, Macaela and Caitlin.

NPIDA recieved 6 recalls (Nationals finalists) during the competition and we also had 3 of our Dancers qualify for the World Championships in 2011 based on their Nationals results.    

U8 Girls- Caitlin placed 6th. and Jadyn placed 37th.

U10 Girls- Macaela placed 13th ( World Qualifier) and Camryn placed 25th.

U20 Men’s- Michael placed 17th.( World Qualifier)

Senior Ladies – Courtney placed 23rd. (World Qualifier)  

There was lots of excitment and some disappointment but in all, the dancers were able to enjoy their experience of competing at the North American National level and will remember it always.

We are so proud of all 29 of our dancers who qualified for the Nationals and we are even more proud of our 18 dancers that competed at this very prestigious event!   We know how hard they all worked throughout the year training and competing at local and international competitions.  

Congratulations to everyone!  We are so very proud of all of you!!

Eire Born is about to finish up nine great shows during the Olympic festivities in Vancouver this month!  They impressed audience members from all over the world and set a few stages on fire with a record number of dancers!  Congratulations Eire Born for performing so well & enjoy the rest of your shows!  On Wednesday, February 24th they will perform at Robson Square in Vancouver at 7:00pm.  They will also showcase their talent at the West Vancouver Community Centre this Saturday, February 27th at 2:00pm.  Good luck Eire Born!

Nora has recently confirmed that our 11th annual NPIDA Ceili and year-end show will take place on Sunday April 18th 2010. After several consecutive years at the Squamish Nation Recreation Centre in North Vancouver, the Ceili will take place at a new venue in 2010: Centennial Theatre in North Vancouver. Stay tuned for further details from Nora in the new year!

Also to note on your 2010 calendars: The Comerford Seattle school has recently confirmed a new date for their spring feis: it will take place on March 6-7/10 at the Sea-Tac Hilton Hotel.

Photo: Senior Richmond girls at the 2008 Ceili: Margaret, Devon, Alex, Kali, Natalie P, Lisa, Paige, Kelly, Hanna, and Natalie S.
(Photo taken by Michael, I think…)

Macaela has come a very long way during her few short years of dancing! She and her mom are leaving on Monday for Killarney, where Macaela will be competing at the 2010 All-Ireland Championships on February 13. Congratulations and what an amazing experience you will have! 

Good luck to Macaela and enjoy your trip!