Clan Seger Feis Reviews. Now and forever.
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), everyone in Clan Seger competes on Feis day. The crew this year consisted of:
| Name | Age | Dances in | Non-Dance Comps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ges | 45 | Adult Open/Prizewinner Adult 2-hand Parent/Child |
Singing |
| Devonna | %# | Adult Open/Prizewinner Parent/Child Adult 2-hand |
Soda Bread Photography |
| Rebekah | 13.5 | Preliminary Champion Parent/Child |
Soda Bread |
| Rachel | 12.5 | Novice (except for Open/PW Reel) | Singing Soda Bread |
| Luke | 10 | Novice (except for Open/PW Hornpipe) Parent/Child |
Family Equipment Manager Soda Bread |
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 up to five 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
There are a lot more subtractions for this year, partly because Rebekah shouldn't need that many feisanna anymore to qualify for the Oireachtas and partly because the kids are getting more involved in things outside Irish Dance as they get older.
| Houston (New Years) | Wanted to try something different to start the feis season. This is a good feis; it's just so far away from us... |
|---|---|
| Crescent City | We would have had to do this coming back from Houston, just like last year. The post-Christmas vacation went to Florida, instead. |
| Little Rock | An East Coast swing is much more useful to Rebekah, thanks to IDTANA-Midwest's "suggestions" on where to compete. |
| Detroit | The family would either like an open weekend or the Buffalo Feis (!?) |
| Somerset, NJ (Peter Smith) | This feis moved to Sunday for 2007. If we have to attend a feis on Sunday, Cincinnati is 12 hours closer and offers an Adult Treble Reel. Maybe another year. |
| Syracuse (Bob Gabor) | We almost pulled the trigger on entering this one until the Staten Island Feis was announced for the weekend before it. |
|---|---|
| Emmittsburg, MD (Comhaltas Irish Festival) | The Nash Gerard Memorial Trophy is being offered to the winner of the Adult Open Treble Reel. Nash was one of the best dancers Devonna and I had ever faced in the Southern Region. Unfortunately, it's not in a region in which Midwestern dancers have been encouraged to compete. |
| Indianapolis | We wanted to avoid a repeat of last year's hell month (a feis a weekend for at least five weeks). With the Midwest Region schedule this year, we had to make a tough choice between this feis and Louisville, and had originally chosen this one. A combination of St. Patrick's Day shows and a nasty 24-hour bug meant that when I finally got around to attempting to enter the family, Indy had capped for Prelims. |
| Columbus | This one got taken away from us piece by piece. First, Devonna's sisters scheduled a birthday party for their mother the night of the Adult part of the feis without talking to us beforehand. Then, Luke put his arm through a glass door the week before. Then, Rebekah had a 4-H project qualify for State Fair and it had to be presented at the Fairgrounds the same day she was supposed to dance. Rachel took a look at everything happening to us and scratched before something bad could happen to her. It's only the second time in 8 years we've ever had to eat an entry fee. |
| Binghamton, NY (Southern Tier) | Intended as a late-season contingency feis for Rebekah if she hadn't qualified for the Oireachtas yet. We didn't need it this year. |
| Feis Nua Eabhrac ar Oileain Staten (Staten Island) | Four levels plus Adult Set Specials plus an Adult Championship plus it's an Oireachtas qualifier for Rebekah. |
|---|
| Nashville (Music City) | We're praying we don't get a repeat of the medical problems and weather that prevented us from going last year. The grade exams being offered that weekend are certainly a powerful incentive. |
|---|---|
| Cincinnati | 3 levels plus an Adult Treble Reel plus only an hour from Clan Seger World HQ |
Recommended
I've discovered over the years that certain feisanna consistently rate well every time we've gone to them. Since it doesn't make sense to repeatedly cut and paste from the previous year's review, I've set up a list of feisanna which I can recommend you consider for attendance. This year, they are:
- Indianapolis
- Louisville
- Columbus
- Minnesota
Honorable Mention: Cincinnati, Houston (New Years). Barring unforseen catastrophe, they should be promoted next year.
If a Feis Isn't On This List...
...it means we didn't go to it! If you're looking for information on feisanna not visited by Clan Seger, consider the following alternate sources of feis info:
- Parents at your school are a valuable source of feis-related intelligence, especially if your family is just starting. Their info will usually cover feisanna local to you.
- Feisworx. For feisanna they manage, they provide a feedback form for dancers and parents to fill out on a particular feis. It's not as public as a feis review site, but the comments still head straight to the target committe. Think of it as a way of providing your comments online without the potential excitement that happens when it's posted online in public.
- People in the last few years are tending to be rather, uh, freer with their comments about feisanna on various Irish Dance message boards. Be warned that message boards (especially those covering Irish Dancing) tend to emphasise emotion over rational analysis, so your mileage may vary. Some boards also have the additional problems of heavy traffic and no long-term archives, which often results in the messages you might find useful getting deleted before you are even aware they exist.
- I know of two people who blog their feis experiences (a dancer against whom I used to compete until she jumped to the oldest youth age group, and a parent from our dance school). There may be others. Blogging may be superior to message boards in that there is long-term archiving of entries. Bloggers also seem to update a lot quicker than certain computer hackers with delusions of dexterous adequacy you might know :-).
Clan Seger can't go to every feis out there (even though it seems we do). Many eyes, however, lighten the workload across the continent for all. Together, we can improve feisanna for everyone.
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?