| When: | September 11-12, 2004 |
|---|---|
| Where: | Stanley Park Fairgrounds Estes Park, CO |
| Competitors: |
Ges (dancing) Devonna (dancing) Rebekah (dancing) Rachel (dancing/music) Luke (dancing) |
| Why We Went: | A late-season addition when the Harvest Time Feis in San Diego was cancelled. |
| Previously Reviewed: | 2003 |
ORGANIZATION
WHAT WENT RIGHT
- As with most Front Range feisanna, Feisworx handled registration duties.
WHAT WENT WRONG
- This feis requires getting your teachers to sign their entry forms. This wouldn't have been a problem except for the slight fact our school's teachers wouldn't sign them until we could assure them that an adjudicator who had just taught a workshop for our youth dancers would not be there. Between the lateness of our deciding to attend and the vacation schedules of the appropriate people on the feis committee, we didn't get that assurance until the Columbus Feis weekend. When you get right down to it, though, what we had to go through wasn't really the committee's fault.
- It was not explained that this year we didn't need to purchase festival tickets for non-dancers each day we went. By the time we found out, it was too late to get our money back -- and with competitions both days, we had no time to (in the finest capitalistic tradition) scalp them.
GRADE
B.
SCHEDULING
WHAT WENT RIGHT
- Same age group on same stage scheduling.
- Adult Beginners were split at age 40.
- Adult Trophy competition in non-traditional set.
- Youth non-championship dancers had a Traditional Hornpipe special competition instead of a Treble Reel special. Different.
- Devonna and I danced Saturday morning, while all three Clan Seger kids danced on Sunday. It did simplify both days, even though it cut into things like time at the Highland Games on Saturday (not that much) or drive time to Colorado Springs on Sunday (more of an annoyance, because it meant we arrived after sunset and I'm not that familiar with C Springs)
WHAT WENT WRONG
- No adults were allowed to compete in Music competitions
- There were enough Adults to have split Novice and Open/PW competitions by age.
GRADE
B+.
FACILITIES
WHAT WENT RIGHT
- Four stages arranged on two elevated and levelled platforms in line across one side of the feis tent.
- A second tent with two more stages was set up between the entry gate and the main Feis tent.
- The check-in area for dancers was behind the stages, sheltered from the front by a curtain.
- The musician area in the main feis tent was located between the two middle stages, with monitor speakers arranged at all stages.
- The benches backstage for competitors were useful and appreciated.
- The tennis courts right behind the main feis tent made a nice, roomy practice area between competitions.
- A dressing area was provided for females down in the Awards/Results shelter.
WHAT WENT WRONG
- Most of Saturday morning, Devonna couldn't feel her toes. Is there some way heaters could be provided backstage?
- Small stages -- approximately 16 feet square
- Some sort of welcome mat or towels would be a good idea for dancers to wipe their feet off, especially for those wandering between the tents and the porta-johns.
- It was nice that water was provided for the volunteers backstage. Competitors were much less fortunate, having to leave the tent and enter the festival grounds to get drinks if they had not brought any.
- It was more crowded in the Feis tent Sunday than it was Saturday. It was still an improvement over last year
- The Awards/Results shelter could only be accessed by descending a steep hill with a lot of rocks on it. At least it wasn't raining this year...
GRADE
B.
OPERATIONS
WHAT WENT RIGHT
- The feis committee insisted that all competitors in the main feis tent stay backstage. This is a "What Went Right" because of the crowding elsewhere in the tent.
- Results posting had name of dancer and school, eliminating the ambiguity one usually runs into at other feisanna about whether the number was recorded correctly.
- While on that subject, speed of results posting (with one exception) was nothing short of breathtaking both days.
- In a correction of a "What Went Wrong" from last year, music and Adult Trophy announcements took place in the main feis tent.
- The feis committee apparently leaned hard on the festival after last year, for there were at least four porta-potties in close proximity to the feis tents.
- The feis was paused on Saturday at the exact moment the South Tower of the World Trade Center was hit three years previously.
WHAT WENT WRONG
- There was a lot of confusion on Saturday about how the placements in the Adult Trophy competition would be announced. A scoresheet had originally been done up for posting but had been held while the committee apparently argued among themselves on how best to do this. Finally, they decided to announce it after they had run some of the initial Prelim competitions early Saturday afternoon. We could have been out of the Feis tent over an hour earlier except for that. We only found this out after talking to a local area dancer.
- The Adult competitions were late in starting on Saturday morning. This had drastic consequences when Championship competitions started on time in the other tent. The adjudicators there wanted real musicians for the Champion-level dancers, and unceremoniously pulled Kathleen and Dom Lavin from the main tent after our reels danced.
-
This left the other musicians the committee had retained to play for the adults, a fiddle and flute duet from out of town. Afterwards, we were told (to our horror) that this was their first feis. The adult competitions rapidly degenerated from a dance contest to one based on whoever could best stay with wildly-varying and incorrect music rhythm. Here are just a few of the reasons Devonna and I tried to file an official protest concerning them:
- Only once before in a five-year competitive dance career has there been a time where I simply could not lock onto the beat of the music being played for a competition. Sitting by the side of the stage to watch Devonna's Slip Jig, it happened again. Neither of us (either competing or watching) could discern the beat to their slip jig music.
- For both Treble Jig and Hornpipe, a local teacher had to take her best guess at the beat being played and clap it out for the competitors as they were attempting to start
- I explicitly stated several times before starting the Trophy competition that my set dance (Hurry the Jug) was to be played at a tempo of 72. I danced it at a tempo in the low- to mid-80's. To compensate, they played the same piece for Devonna at a tempo noticeably below 70.
- The NAFC has a standard syllabus rule stating that adjudicators were responsible for the quality of music on their stage. I was going to ding all the adjudicators on this point until I realized that the ones in the Championship tent on Saturday had followed that rule by grabbing the Lavins when they did.
- Given the fact that both Lavins had their respective instruments, we thought it was curious they weren't split up so an experienced musician could work with the new musicians.
- One stage monitor we talked to after Devonna's slip jig suggested she try practicing to different music cuts next time. Can I sue this monitor for plagarism? On a related note, I get frustrated when people who have been living for less years than either Devonna or I have been practicing musicians try to tell us we don't know what we're talking about.
- In a break from official NAFC procedure on handling an official complaint, the feis committee immediately lateraled our complaint about the music in the main feis tent to one of the local teachers. We may have only done this once before in our dance careers, but that particular instance was traumatic enough to engrave on both our memories exactly what needed to be done, and how. Keeping on schedule was more important than replacing the musicians and re-dancing the slip jig in a manner where purely dancing factors would decide the competition.
- Competition check-in for the secondary tent stage on which Luke danced Sunday was accomplished in a rather ad-hoc fashion. A committee member stood outside the tent with a folder and screamed the competition number out at the top of their lungs. They not only needed a microphone, they could have used some fixed landmark (such as a table) so first-time parents would know where to drop off their dancers.
- All figure teams that placed got small medals that looked suspicously like pins. Why dance a figure if that's how you're going to be rewarded for a good job?
- The shelter used for Results and Music competitions was a very noisy place on Sunday. Rachel had to compete unsuccessfully with a jet flyover of the festival, and another musician was forced to contend with Highland Bagpipes playing nearby.
- The medals seemed flimsier than last year
GRADE
D+. . This easily would have been two full letter grade higher with last year's musicians. Or the Lavins.