The Crew
The usual caveats apply. Unlike your normal feis family (1 or more dancers, 1 or more non-dancing parents, and sometimes a non-dancing sibling), just about everyone in the Seger family competes on Feis day. The crew this year consisted of:
- Ges - 39 year old dancing father (Adult Novice softshoe, Adult Beginner hardshoe, Adult 2-hand) and vocalist
- Devonna - %# year old dancing mother (Adult Novice softshoe, Adult Beginner hardshoe, Parent-Child, Adult 2-hand) and soda bread chef. Did Irish language/literature once last year and medaled.
- Rebekah - 7.5 year old dancer (started season in Advanced Beginner hard&soft shoe; Parent-Child, 3-hand figure)
- Rachel - 6.5 year old dancer (Beginner softshoe) and vocalist
- Luke - 4 year old non-competing son, equipment manager, and overall good guy?
In other words, things that impacted or concerned us might not be things that would impact or concern you.
Criteria
As usual, I graded each Feis in the following categories:
| Organization | How well did the committee handle things like entries, registration, getting information to competitors, getting enough musicians and ajudicators... |
|---|---|
| Scheduling | Are the individual competitions and stages scheduled in some form of logical order or are they scheduled more or less randomly? When you have to juggle multiple competitors and their schedules, this becomes a critical factor. |
| Facilities | Was the site accessible? If food vendors were there, could they keep up with demand? Were there enough toilets? Could dancers get to competitions without knocking people over? These are just some of the questions which determined this grade. |
| Operations | This category is for the actual day of competition. How well did things go? How well did the committee handle unforseen problems? How quickly were competition results posted? |
Grading system for each category is on an A, B, C, D, or F system, which should be familiar to anyone who has survived American public education for the past two generations. For purposes of these reviews, actual competition ajudication is not a factor in grading a feis. These are feis reviews, not ajudication reviews.
Changes from last year
Those of you who have seen last year's review site will notice changes between the 2000 and 2001 seasons. Here's what changed and why
| Akron | Same day as Dayton's A World A'Fair, which is as huge an event for the Celtic Academy as St. Patrick's Day |
|---|---|
| Youngstown | We weren't too impressed with the facility or how they handled adult competitions. Besides, we wanted to put some flexibility in our schedule if we either wanted to go to St. Louis or take a breather between Washington and Columbus. |
| Windsor | They dropped all adult competitions for no adequately explainable reason. We'd already done our Canada and feis-parent-only feisanna by this time, so saw no reason to go. |
| London, ON | Since we couldn't start our competition season in Akron |
|---|---|
| Detroit | We didn't go last year because it was the same weekend as the Glasgow Highland Games. We had heard nothing but good things from people who went last year, and the weekend was available this year. |
| Washington, DC | I've never been there -- with my family. The last time I *was* there, I was with about 2 million other men and didn't have much time for sightseeing |
| St. Louis (Gateway) | We had passed on this one last year because of the start of the school year. Since we passed on Milwaukee this year, we decided to enter this one |
| St. Paul | Devonna and I spent most of 1999 commuting between Dayton and the University of Minnesota (13 hours one way without kids, for those who are curious) for some surgery that restored the vision to her left eye. We're familiar with the area and how to get there. Hey, any excuse for Tony Roma beef ribs at the Mall of America :-) |
If a Feis Isn't On This List...
...it means Clan Seger didn't go to it! That doesn't mean there aren't reviews on it, though: this site contains reviews of various feisanna across North America which are submitted by the dancers who participated in them. The review format is different from mine, but as I sort of said above: things that impacted or concerned the Segers might not be things that would impact or concern others.
If you have attended a feis that isn't on either site, I urge you to participate. Many eyes make light work, and together we can all improve feisanna for everyone who goes.
ObCYA
The opinions and evaluations expressed in these reviews are solely those of this reviewer. They are NOT the opinions or official positions of either:
- the North American Feis Commission (NAFC),
- the Irish Dance Teacher's Association of North America (IDTANA) or any of its regional sub-entities,
- the Celtic Academy of Irish Dance, or
- any of the numerous people, committees, or facilities referenced in these reviews.
Any questions?