Stage Fire performs in front of thousands. (pic: Horst Kurz)

On August 1st, an enormous crowd cheered enthusiastically as the Stage Fire Show reached the crescendo of its final encore. The dance troupe had traveled to the Polish Woodstock Music Festival to outside the town of Kostrzyn on the Oder. All were ready for the performance of their lives having spent a grueling week perfecting their act at the Stage Fire Summer Camp – an ambitious idea involving a blend of workshops and the production of a complete stage show.

Dorota Czajkowska, the driving force behind the project says, “originally Stage Fire was meant to be just the 10 days long Irish dance summer camp all dedicated to creating a full length Irish dance show to live music. Gradually the idea expanded into the whole big festival entirely dedicated to the culture of Ireland with a wide variety of Irish focused events open for both dancers and a general audience.”

Day 1: Working on the core steps

Irish dancers all around the world know the benefit and cherish the fun of attending a summer camp or workshop away with their friends.  These events usually involve a serious amount of technique exercises and no small amount of fun. I have heard that most leave with sore limbs and big smiles.  Colin Dunne, of Riverdance fame, traveled to the Stage Fire training camp in Krakow, Poland and helped the dancers there reach new heights with their dancing. And Shane McAvinchey and David Bellwood (both TCRGs and Riverdance performers) were joined by Michael Piotrowski as the lead choreographers with the huge task of organising an eager bunch from all over the world into a cohesive unit capable of performing a number of set pieces.

“The first edition was pretty challenging; mostly because the whole idea of the project was unique and there was no previous experience we could base the work on. It was extremely difficult to predict even simple and basic things like how many dancers would participate, into how many groups we should split them in, how the timetable should look like,” Dorota explains of the challenge that awaited them. “Now we seem to know exactly what we aim for plus with the whole lot of experience and the bunch of new contacts and new ideas we can’t really wait for Stage Fire 2010 edition.”

Dancers taking a well deserved break

Thankfully, Stage Fire was a success – an exciting 10 days of dance accumulating with a performance in Krakow and then a trip to the Polish Woodstock festival appearing with the band Carrantuohill.  Dorota had many highlights including, “standing ovations after our first performance in Krakow and the crowd roaring for more after our last Woodstock encore. What I personally cherish most of all is a feeling of being part of one team. It was amazing how fast dancers became integrated and how they are still in touch even though the project is over. Everyday Stage Fire participants upload new pictures and videos taken during the project, final performance and at Woodstock festival. This never-ending buzz is the best proof Stage Fire was a massive success and the best motivation for us, the organizers to keep the work up.”

Shane McAvinchey documented some of his experiences right here on Diddlyi. You can check out the Videos here and his Journal here for an inside view on how Stage Fire went down.

So, what’s next for Stage Fire? Dorota obviously seems excited about the possibilities saying, “we already have started organizing the Stage Fire 2010 edition. For the next year, we aim to double the amount of teachers and choreographers involved in the project as well as work on organizing the small Stage Fire tour to give the dancers the opportunity to perform even more and travel a bit around Poland. Every year Stage Fire is going to be a bigger and more exciting project so stay tuned!”

Image sources: 1 & 2, 3

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