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 - 41 year old dancing father (Adult Open/Prizewinner, Adult 2-hand) and vocalist
- Devonna - %# year old dancing mother (Adult Open except for her Novice reel, Parent-Child, Adult 2-hand) and soda bread chef. Occasionally known to do poetry or hammered dulcimer solos
- Rebekah - 9.5 year old dancer (Novice except for Open/PW Hornpipe, Parent-Child) and sometime soda bread mini-chef.
- Rachel - 8.5 year old dancer (Advanced Beginner except for Novice Reel) and vocalist
- Luke - 6 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? This is a critical factor when you have to juggle schedules for four competitors. |
| 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 2002 and 2003 seasons. Fourteen feisanna in one year was a bit too much in retrospect, and we're now starting to get picky about where we choose to compete.
| Dallas | Sixteen hours is a long way to drive for a two-level adult competition with no specials. We had been considering a return trip this year, what with the presence of a Tony Roma's close to the feis hotel and the feis being on the same weekend as the North Texas Irish Festival, but had serious second thoughts once the syllabus was released. |
|---|---|
| Akron | It's not a bad feis (and we've been to a few, so we should know), but there's not a whole lot here to encourage us to brave road construction on I-71 over Memorial Day weekend. |
| Dayton | This is our hometown feis, and we're on its committee this year instead of competing. I feel reviewing a feis on which I'm actively working would create far more problems than it would solve. |
| Milwaukee (Badger State) | This occupies the weekend after Indianapolis on our schedule this year. With Devonna just invited to compete at Nationals the week before Indy, we feel adding this feis this year would be a tad stressful. |
| Oakville | We may do this feis again someday, but only for the girls. Considering what's on our calendar for September this year, we'll give it a pass this time. |
| New Orleans (Feis Louisiane) | Cancelled :-( |
|---|---|
| Ryan Southern | Never answered our email inquiry. Turns out it was going to be cancelled anyway. |
| Little Rock | Dropped Adult comps in favor of enhanced age groups in youth categories. I don't care how much research their feis committee says they did on this issue, because it appears that they only researched NAFC rules on adult eligibility without researching the equivalent IDTANA rules. If my dance teachers tell me there's an IDTANA version of the 5-year rule, I believe them first. |
| Washington, DC (Nation's Capital) | Devonna and I really, really, really wanted to go this year. Unfortunately, they moved back a week on the schedule, which now conflicts with Dayton's Celtic Festival. The new timing's also a little too tight for our liking between it and Columbus. |
| Austin, TX (Lone Star) | A late addition to our schedule to take advantage of a free weekend in May and the impressive array of Adult comps they offer. We also need a dry run of a Two-Day-To-Feis plan for this September. |
|---|---|
| Lansing, MI (Great Lakes) | It's the Sunday after Windsor, and as a rule we try to avoid Sunday feisanna. The available competitions for both Rebekah and the Clan Seger adults, though, were just too good to pass up. We also didn't have an inaugaral feis on this year's schedule yet. :-) |
| Estes Park, CO (Longs Peak Scottish/Irish Festival) | This year's family vacation is a little less epic than last year's. We're starting it with this feis (which had good adult comps last year), and if we arrange our itinerary through the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, and Mount Rushmore correctly will arrive in St. Paul MN just in time for Feile Minnesota. |
Recommended
I'm trying something new this year. With the sizable number of repeats on the schedule, it wouldn't make sense to keep reviewing some of them -- especially the ones that consistently rate well with me year after year. Therefore, I've decided to not review certain feisanna that have consistently scored high marks, and instead put them on a recommended list. This year, these feisanna are:
| Indianapolis | Best feis of our year, three years running. Awesome organization, tight and predictable scheduling, and a budget that can afford the mammoth Indiana Convention Center downtown. |
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Honorable Mention: Columbus, Feile Minnesota. Barring unforseen catastrophe, they will probably get promoted next year.
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 Irish Dance Teachers Association of North America (IDTANA) or any of its regional sub-entities
- the North American Feis Commission (NAFC),
- the Celtic Academy of Irish Dance, or
- any of the numerous people, committees, or facilities referenced in these reviews.
Any questions?