Championship Irish Dancers In ‘Christmas Around The World’
Last week I was able to attend a remarkable celebration of dance. Every year Brigham Young University’s International Folk Dance Ensemble puts on a spectacular dance concert, Christmas Around the World featuring dance styles from multiple countries. This year they celebrated their 50th Anniversary. The show included of Irish, Ukrainian, Scottish, French, Indian, Japanese, Serbian dance and much more.
Two girls from The Shelley School of Irish Dance have joined the BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble this year. Taylor Jones and Alina Geslison are both Preliminary Championship Irish dancers. Alina is also an extremely talented violinist who performs regularly with The Geslison Family Folk Band.
Every year I’d always wanted to see this show, most especially since I started Irish Dancing. So this year, about 7 or 8 of us Shelley School dancers decided to go to the show together. We got excellent seats and were amazed at all the bright colorful costumes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a beautiful live display of cultural dance. It was a rare treat to experience so many different cultures in one night.
Taylor was featured along with four other Championship Irish dancers. Amy Clancy, a former Open Championship dancer from The Shelley School, and three other dancers who I quickly recognized from various Feiseanna I attended this year. Taylor also danced the Polish number beautifully. Alina was featured playing her violin multiple times and also performed with the Russian dance group.
We all enjoyed the show immensely and had an opportunity to congratulate Taylor on an amazing show afterwords. It was a great celebration of cultural dance and a perfect way to kick off the Christmas season. I’ll make sure to be there again next year. It could become a wonderful Christmas tradition!
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Christmas Around the World is a wonderful tradition. There are so many Irish Dancers that attend this university, and most choose to participate in the World Dance Program as performers, teaching assistants and even course instructors!
Big Shout Outs go to Kori Black from the Sharon Lynn Academy, Laura Bradley from McGing, Amy Clancy from Webber Academy, Brittney Leavitt from Martin Percival, Sarah Klopp from Leneghan and Karalyn Prestwich from Mulligan!
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