Louisville Feis

On the road again. Sigh. Don't you hate all these car trips?



But this time, instead of only having our family for entertainment, we have friends to keep us company:





We stayed overnight at a Holiday Inn Express south of Louisville Not the swankiest hotel ever, not the worst. Clean, nice breakfast in the morning, skimpy on the towels. Eh, pretty neutral rating in my mind.



The feis is held at the Kentucky Fair and Expo Center, which looks like this when filled with Irish dancers:




Six Flags is next door, and there was much discussion about running over to ride a rollercoaster before/during/after the feis. The weather was gorgeous, and it was really tempting. Great venue. The feis info said parking would cost $5, but it was free.

We arrived at the feis early Saturday morning and settled in to put on wigs and makeup.



Our "camp" (blanket where we dumped all of our stuff) looked puny and disorganized compared to the one right next to ours.




Check it out -- camp chairs, ground cloths, all sorts of wheeled luggage, a fold out picnic table. At one point there was a reclining camp chair in the mix, complete with a reclining feis dad.

We saw a lot of the same people we saw a few days ago in Memphis. This is something that fascinates me about feis culture -- we travel all over the place to see the same people over and over again, sort of like a roving reunion. Instead of driving all of the way to Louisville to hang out with someone who lives right down the street and we see practically every day



you'd think we could all stay home, right?

But,no, we must slog all over competing.

This was a well run feis from our stand point. Love how they posted results -- the bright green papers listing the various dances gradually replaced by the white results sheets -- very easy to keep track of which results had been posted so far. I wish every feis did this. And the stages were pretty equitably divided insofar as number of competitions and competitors. Last year at every single feis we attended it seemed like Annabeth was constantly on the Stage From Hell that dragged on and on and on. This time Annabeth was finished and changed back into street clothes way before Thalia was done.





Thalia's stage started dragging in the afternoon. They were using one musician for 2 stages, so her stage had to wait for the other stage to complete each competition before changing to a new dance. So, that was a hitch. We finally got out of there around 4:30, which was about when Treble Reel started.

Our travelling companion got a great photo of the 3 dancers in their coveted pink Louisville Feis "Showhorse" t-shirts (sold out by afternoon), wearing their various medals. (The feis volunteers had t-shirts that said "Workhorse". Clever.) She said she'd try to send it to me, and I'll add it to this post. Thalia and Annabeth didn't get any 1st place medals, but got 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th in practically everything they danced. Not bad for a larger feis with 20+ competitors in most dances. We were all satisfied. (Well, okay, we would have been more satisfied with a 1st place medal ... or 2 or 3 1st place medals ... but you know what I mean.)

The trip home was like a rolling slumber party. Have you ever been stuck in a van for several hours with a bunch of tired girls set on "giggle" mode? A memorable experience.

We plan to be back to this feis next year!

UPDATE

The results were sent out via email a week later. I'm impressed with the amount and type of judges comments! The Memphis feis gave us practically no comments, but this time we've got comments on every single dance. And they're things like "lovely but time is inconsistent" -- something you can work with to improve for the next feis.