SOL 15 of 31 -- Irish Dancing & Hair

4 girls in "team" dresses, wearing soft shoes

This evening we had dinner with the great grandparents.  It turned out that immediately following dinner was an Irish dancing performance in the front lobby/lounge.  Eight girls, ages 9-17, entertained an audience of 80- and 90-year-olds plus us and our 3 1/2 year old.  The music was loud, the girls were extremely primped, happy and energetic.  They danced a couple of songs in their soft shoes, and then did several dances in hard shoes.  Their feet banged on the wooden floor along with the beat of the fiddle music, their legs were synchronized with each other.  At first I was astonished at how they could remember the choreography: all the music sounded pretty much the same to me, yet they all knew when to cross the floor diagonally, or kick a leg up high in front of them, or jump around a partner.


But then I was astonished at their hair.  Yes, they all had great hair.  The four most advanced dancers were at a level of competition in which they were allowed to wear "solo" dresses--which means their dresses were custom made to help them catch the judge's eye in competitions.  Not only were their dresses incredibly bright and decorated, their make-up and hair were quite remarkable.  The girls in solo dresses all wore wigs that were huge clusters of tight ringlets that bounced up and down as the girls hopped and jumped around the stage.

The girl in the middle is wearing a "team" dress; the two on the outsides are wearing "solo" dresses and wigs.

But even the team girls, who wore their natural hair, all had these incredibly beautiful braided buns.  I realized that I could have never been an Irish dancer simply because I do not have the hair for it. No, even when my hair was long and I could pull it back into a braid, it would wrap into such a tiny bun that any hair decoration would cover it entirely. And my hair is so silky that I could rarely find a hair band to hold my bun or pony tail securely for very long.  I have extremely fine hair.  It's like I never got past the baby hair.  My hair stylists always tell me that my hair is thick (meaning: I have a lot of it) but it is very fine (meaning: each strand is thin).  I don't care about technical terms. I only care that I would have needed a wig the moment I started Irish dancing if I were ever going to look like I belonged there.

These 4 girls are wearing "team" dresses and "hard" shoes.   All of them have way more hair than I do!

Three Irish dancing girls photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/atbaker/133687803/">AlphaTangoBravo / Adam Baker</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">cc</a>

4 Irish dancing girls photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/billburris/1176285511/">wburris</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">cc</a>

Irish dancing skirts photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ronnie44052/607113954/">ronnie44052</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">cc</a>