Miners Coalition Party (April 2002) Albeit I have no idea what the name of this performance is, as I just learned of it two hours ago, it should prove to be fun.
Cait said we'll just do recital steps.

April 17, 2002:
Guess what? When the surgeons were taking out Deirdre's appendix, they saw something suspicious, and guess what? It was colon cancer! Yes, Deirdre has colon dancer. She got surgery, and most (if not all) of the cancer is removed (it was in it's earliest stages - luckily).
Anyway, we still had the go-ahead to go on with the recital. It turns out that the place we practiced at is the home of the newly formed Kelly School (I think that's the name) of Irish Dancing, which was started by some dancers with the Haran School - a lady and her sister, both very excellent dancers.
The studio was an old two-room schoolhouse with a little stage at one end. It was larger than the Kettle studio that the Haran school has (or so I thinnnk, it's been a while), and it was decorated in lovely Irish memorabilia! It was very cool.
The school was obviously new, because they didn't have that many dancers there (in fact, Alex and Johnathan are in one of their choreographies), and those that were there, weren't the most spectacular dancers - not to be mean or anything. They were all good, they new the steps, but their executions weren't the best thing I'd ever seen.
Anyway, it was a long drive up the studio, which was up in the country. We arrived at about the same time as everyone else, except for Cait, who was late (for obvious reasons). I noticed how many of the dancers were from the Kelly School, and I am plum assuming that they are going to be in it, too. None of their dancers are in our amazing hardshoe choreography (which I will talk more about later).
They had a dance that was one big "long reel" sort of deal, with a light jig in it, too. And they also had a slip jig, which had some very nifty steps in it.
We re-arranged our Opening Reel so that there are more dancers in it (from our school). Unfortunately, only five people from our class showed up (Krystal, Johnathan, Alex, Rebekah, and myself), the rest were Friday night and Saturday morning people. The new step I'm doing is 123 point kick back, and Down-Up-Up, for a change in steps.
We ran through it a few times to get it right, and then we re-arranged the Long Reel. I still do my three-hand, but we changed the order, and have a new 6-Hand. We basically combined the classes into one, instead of two individual classes. I took someone's place in the 8-Hand, and all the while the students of the Kelly School had to watch. I imagine it got rather boring after awhile.
When we finished practicing our performance steps, the Kelly School got to do theirs.
It was a long wait until we got to attempt our Opening and Long Reels again, but it gave us a break, as we were there from 6 PM to 9 PM.
We tried our show Reels a few more times, before we switched to the Treble Reel choreography.
We come in through an arch (my line), then after eight beats, we go around the person in front of us in the arch, then at the next eight beats, we slam into the Treble Reel with our hands on our hips, which the first row (mine) does the first part of the first step (slam step brush back hop back), then the second row does the second part (slam step brush back hop back), then the third row does the last part (slam step brush back hop back brush back hop back brush back hop back), then we all do the switch whip step, we drop our arms on the left foot and do the same steps, then Logan or Cait (or both) will do a solo hardshoe step, then we go into the right foot of the second step, join hands on the first slam, raise on second, then we do a cool finish by crossing our leg like they do in the ending of Riverdance.
After the rehearsal ended, I was invited to come on Friday nights as well as Saturdays, which I said yes, and then also on Mondays for extra classes as well. I'd really like to go to that one as well, but we live farther away from it, and my mother works, so it would be hard to do.

April 22, 2002:
We had another sponanteous rehearsal at the Grange. It was actually interferring with a class at the Kelly School.
We went over each dance in order with no help from Caitlin, other than filling in for missing people.
I was in every dance, except the Kelly School's Opening Reel, because I was substituting for this person and that person.
I loved the Slip Jig, but sadly I won't be dancing in it for the performance.
Anyway, this rehearsal wasn't nearly as long as the last one. Actually, it was only about an hour-and-a-half long.
I think we're somewhat ready.

Performance:
I arrived already dressed, except for my brock. My mom brought a video camera so she could send the performance to my grandma in Illinios.
Anywho, we filed into a large room below the area we would be performing, and ran through everything. It was really, really, hectic, as most of the moms were confuzzled about this and that, and the little kids have a tendency to not listen to anything at all, so that added to the confusion.
Anyway, as soon as we were ready, we filed upstairs and waited outside the doors. Our Opening Reel lined up along the wall. It was extremely stuffy and hoooottt! I was dying of heat stroke before we started dancing, but as soon as we did, it was a little bit better.
The "stage" area was really small, and we were kicking each other, and smashing into each other all of the time.
As soon as it was over, I was rather happy, as the audience was seemingly uninterested (except for a lady who clapped out of time...annoying!!!).