Diary of a Dancer

July 17, 2014

So there we have it, another week done in the blink of an eye. This week I have been very busy. During some of my days before I go into The Gaiety I teach some international students Irish dancing. They come over to Ireland from all over the world but mainly Italy, Spain and Russia. They spend two weeks in Dublin and take part in workshops in dance, history, music and Irish culture as well as go on tours of Dublin and have one or two English exams. Everyone loves a bit of Irish dancing and it is great when they really get involved. Two groups even came in to watch the evening show on Sunday. I think they got a bit of a shock when they saw me on the stage so when I went in the next day they were so excited and loved the show!

This week we had a few celebrities in to watch the show, Irish actress and Hollywood star Saoirse Ronan and Martial Arts champion and DWTS contender Chuck Liddell dropped into The Gaiety. I didn’t get to meet either of them I’m afraid, although it was really cool knowing that big stars were out in the audience watching. Apparently Saoirse said in an interview one time that her first dream was to be in Riverdance! Imagine that!

This week myself and Katie took some time ( when it wasn’t raining this week) to walk around the grounds of Trinity college. I haven’t been in years and it was beautiful. The place was buzzing with life ( I can only imagine how busy it gets when college is back in full swing) with people from all over the world flocking in to the main library to see the famous Book of Kells. You can see why, the book is gorgeous and the amount of detail that went into it is out of this world! We took time then to join in on the people watching as we lay on the grass and got chatting to different people from all over about what brought them to Ireland and how they liked it.

In warm up this week, Padraic, our dance captain who always has something up his sleeve with regards to warm up had a bit of a challenge for us. This week he challenged us to do some pull ups. (I got out of doing it… But shhhhhh don’t tell anyone!) the girls had to do one and the boys 5! As Irish dancers having strong legs is a must but upper body kind of gets neglected a little bit so that was funny to see people try to life their own body weight.

On Thursday it was Lauren’s birthday! At half time we surprised her with some Bose Bluetooth speakers. Lauren is a great one for getting everyone else to pump the tunes out but never has anything to play them on herself, in fact on tour she didn’t even have great headphones either. She used to use the crappy yellow ones( the ones you get on the bus tours of different cities) as her way of hearing her music. For a big music lover she hadn’t got anything great to play it on. Now she is sorted and loves her new speakers and had a great night celebrating!

On Sunday Patrick had the day off, but for a very worthwhile cause. In June 2012 his cousin Mark Prendergast lost his battle with testicular cancer. There has been a walk set up to raise funds for testicular cancer awareness and last year raised a whopping €49,806.76. This year over 600 people took part, Patrick being one of them that completed the 22km walk. We hope they raise even more money this year.

The Gaiety staff where very good to us on Sunday. After our two shows they set up a big screen for us to watch the football. It was great to not have to rush anywhere to watch it and in a place where it wasn’t so packed with people that you couldn’t move or see the game. We all had a great evening. Most people were rooting for Germany. Brendan Dorris is a major, and I mean major fan of Germany so I think for all our sakes we wanted to Germany to win…he managed to remain calm for most of the match but got a bit more tense in the dying minutes of extra time, it all worked out well in the end for him and Germany!

This weekend coming up there is quite a lot happening with the Riverdance Masterclass taking place. I’m sure everyone will have a great time and are excited to meet some stars of the show. Stay tuned to her more about how it goes!