Interesting things – Comhaltas 2011 Saturday

I have no idea what time we got to bed Friday night but I have notes showing we started the plain set about 12:30am.

We got up early for breakfast and started the day with Susan teaching a ceili workshop including Harvest Time Jig, Fairy Reel, Rakes of Mallow, Haste to the Wedding and Siege of Carrick. There was a good sized crowd and smiles all around.

Next up was a Sean Nos workshop by Emma O’Sullivan. She did a wonderful job. Her dancing was clean, instructions were clear and easy to follow and we ended up with a number of easy but good looking steps to add to our dance toolbox.

Here’s Emma after the workshop, demonstrating the step one-on-one.

The rest of the day was reserved for set dancing.

Padraig and Roisin started off with the Boyne set and moved to the Moycullen. As usual the workshop was great fun.

An entertaining group from Albuquerque dazzled our eyes with both their dancing and their glow in the dark shirts!

Following the workshop we grabbed some beverages and headed off to the pool to cool our tired doggies.

Before the banquet there was a reception for a small group. One of which was Susan! I didn’t get a picture of the award she was given but I’ll update the post in a few days when it arrives from San Antonio. It was large enough that we had it shipped rather than trying to take it on the plane.

The banquet featured several performances by the military, Mulvihill girls, Emma O’Sullivan and speeches by various Comhaltas dignitaries. This is the 60th year since the founding of the Comhaltas and the convention was an important event in that history.

But really. This is all about the dancing (for us anyway).

After the banquet and a bit of time for changing and getting the band ready it was off to torture our feet and legs a bit more.

Loads of great dancing including the largest group doing the Seige of Carrick I’ve ever seen.

The final dance of the evening started at 1:37 and we were very tired and very happy by the end.

There are more pictures in the Comhaltas 2011 gallery, some videos on my YouTube channel and if you like you can see my twitter posts done live from the convention. I’ll be doing more tagging and linking of things after I finish the post for Sunday.

Here are links for the doings on Friday and Sunday

Technorati : ceili, comhaltas, dance, irish, music, san antonio
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Michael Harrison

Husband, Programmer, Irish dancer, tinkerer, astronomer, layabout (as much as possible)

5 thoughts on “Interesting things – Comhaltas 2011 Saturday”

  1. Nice recap. To stay young one should take up set dancing. Notice, there were no old people on the floor. . . at least no one ready for a nursing home. 🙂

    1. […] How bieutaful that Angie’s daughter broke out into an impromptu, absolutely lovely dance for her mom @ The Arthur Clan […]

  2. It was our first day of the 2011 North American Comhaltas convention and it was grand. For everyone else it was the second day and for many of the orginizers I think it was something like the 3045th day. I’m sure they’ll be wistfully sad/happy when the

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