Stepping Up and Stepping Out<\/h4>\n

Maureen Rossi<\/a><\/p>\n

Cara Hallahan is a St. James native who will be stepping up to Canada \u2013 well she\u2019ll actually be flying but she will be stepping out onto the stage to compete in the World Irish Step dancing competition in Montreal Canada this spring.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u201cI recently competed at the Regionals and came in 14^{th<\/sup> qualifying me for the world,\u201d said the vibrant twenty-two year old.<\/p>\n}

A recent graduate of Geneseo, she is presently an education in the Terryville Elementary School in Port Jefferson.\u00a0 She says right now it\u2019s only a substitute position but the adores the school and kids and would love to work there permanently.\u00a0 \u201cI push into the classroom, but I am extremely open and supportive of the push-in concept,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

Hallahan is one of three children, however, her siblings don\u2019t share her love of Irish dance.\u00a0 \u201cMy sister took it for one year but it didn\u2019t capture her interest, she\u2019s and artist and very musical,\u201d she continued.\u00a0 The young dancer said the entire family is enormously proud of her work.\u00a0 \u201cMy mom was sobbing tears of joy in the audience when I qualified for the World Competition,\u201d she shared.<\/p>\n

The dancer said this was a life-long dream come true.\u00a0 She has been dancing from the age of six and she says it was a dream come true for the whole family.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cEveryone was thrilled to pieces, they watched me work for it, training four day a week two hours a day and then practicing on my own,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

Irish Step Dancing has long roots and gained enormous popularity here in the states when the Riverdance team galvanized Americans of all backgrounds with sold out shows around the country and then the world.<\/p>\n

Irish step dance is a style of dance with its roots in traditional Irish dance<\/a>. It can be performed solo or by troupes. Two types of shoes are worn; hard shoes, which make sounds similar to tap shoes, and soft shoes, which are similar to ballet slippers. Dancers stiffen their upper bodies while performing quick, intricate footwork. Costumes are considered important for stage presence in competitive Irish step dance. There are several levels of competition available for both individuals and groups.<\/p>\n

An Irish step dancing competition is called a Feis (but pronounced FESH).\u00a0 There are old tales that date\u00a0 Irish step-dancing\u00a0 back to Pre-Christian Ireland.<\/p>\n

Dancers are known for their intricate hair styles, however, because of the enormous time and cost of getting a girl\u2019s hair done in customary fashion, most purchase the traditional style wigs.\u00a0 The costumes are equally festive and costly.<\/p>\n

Irish step dancing began to become popular in the states as Irish immigrants arrived and it is said the first classes were given in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

Hallahan is over the moon excited about the World Competition but is very committed to her rigorous training until April.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201c It\u2019s all ability, doesn\u2019t matter where you are from just bring your best competition,\u201d she added.\u00a0\u00a0 She said there are competitors from Africa England, Scotland, Canada and of course Ireland.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m going to do my best, be my best; really I\u2019m just so honored to be in the Worlds,\u201d she laughed.<\/p>\n

Hallahan says this event is like the Olympics for her and her whole family will be attending including her boyfriend and two best friend from college.\u00a0\u00a0 From the Smithtown Today News we say Good Luck or depending on the dialect of your region of Ireland we say:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stepping Up and Stepping Out Maureen Rossi Cara Hallahan is a St. James native who will be stepping up to Canada \u2013 well she\u2019ll actually be flying but she will be stepping out onto the stage to compete in the World Irish Step dancing competition in Montreal Canada this spring. \u201cI recently competed at the Regionals and came in 14th qualifying me for the world,\u201d said the vibrant twenty-two year old. A recent graduate of Geneseo, she is presently an education in the Terryville Elementary School in Port Jefferson.\u00a0 She says right now it\u2019s only a substitute position but the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1365,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33,340,44,341],"tags":[383,957,439,440],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-town","category-communityspotlight","category-diy-inspiration","category-in-the-know","tag-community-spotlight","tag-entertainment","tag-st-james","tag-world-championship"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/smithtowntodaynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/stepdancing.jpg?fit=1024%2C732&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6dZB9-lZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smithtowntodaynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smithtowntodaynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smithtowntodaynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithtowntodaynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithtowntodaynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/smithtowntodaynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1366,"href":"https:\/\/smithtowntodaynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions\/1366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithtowntodaynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smithtowntodaynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithtowntodaynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithtowntodaynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1363"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithtowntodaynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}