Catherine Hoare: “I Have Always Danced Best When I Dance From My Heart”

When I first spoke to Catherine Hoare, she indulged me as we hiked across the sprawling grounds of the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center — in peak DC July heat, no less — to get a picturesque backdrop of the National Harbor for her social media interview with The Irish Dance Globe. She had just been crowned the 2025 Ladies U22 North American National champion, her fourth National title earned on the Fourth of July. We chatted about her pre-competition routine, the buzz of the awards ceremony, and advice for other dancers at the major. The 20 minutes we spent together were only a snapshot of her grace, spirit, and modesty. 

A little over a month later, she joins me on Zoom, bashfully moving her cat, Bella, from the room to better concentrate. We catch up on everything she’s been up to since her Four-on-the-Fourth. “July 4th was a good day to become a 4x North American Champion,” as she cheekily put it on Instagram. 

When I ask Catherine how it feels to hold that honour, all that I remembered about her comes flooding back. “With how much I have given to and sacrificed for dance, that I have a tangible thing to accompany that is so special to me,” she beams.

Catherine was set on her path to Irish dance quite literally from the cradle. Just after she was born, her older sister Rachel started dancing and Catherine was brought along to the studio. “Eventually I decided to dance because I wanted to be like my older sister. Thankfully I loved it and still love it, and it’s actually the only sport I’ve ever done,” she says.

Catherine formally began lessons when she was four years old at the Graham School of Irish Dance in her hometown of Toronto, where she learned the basics and first fostered her love for Irish dance. She later transferred to the Goggin-Stewart School of Irish Dance — formerly Goggin-Carroll, also based in Toronto — where she quickly learned the recipe for her not-so-secret sauce. The special ingredient, she tells me, is simple: “I was always a kid who just worked really hard and tried really hard.”

Because of this, Catherine explains she didn’t experience a sudden jump in her results as she progressed through the competitive levels. Rather, she remembers this period as a gradual incline. In addition to being a seven-time Eastern Canadian Regional Oireachtas champion, she has also landed on several international podiums. This past February, she placed second at the All Irelands, and also placed second at the 2024 Great Britain Championships last October. She even picked up her first globe after coming in fifth place at the 2024 CLRG World Championships in Glasgow. 

However, the major that holds the most special place in Catherine’s heart is the North American National Championships. Aside from its prime summertime slot in the competition calendar — and the ability to sit poolside after rounds, she says with a laugh — it’s the first Major of a grander scale that she’s won. 

At her first Nationals in 2016 she came in third, but dropped down to 27th place in 2017. Though disappointed that she couldn’t compete in 2018 due to her teachers judging that year, Catherine entered 2019 with a mentality to show up every single day at the studio and do her very best. “All I could ask of myself was to keep trying and keep working and just take it one Major at a time and take it one dance class at a time,” she says.

When July of that year rolled around, Catherine clinched her first National champion title in Vancouver. “I didn’t only have a dream, I set a goal,” she wrote on Instagram following her victory. The smile on her face says it all. With a little rince and repeat, she continued to climb back to the top in 2022, 2023, and again this summer 2025.

Competing at such a high level comes with its fair share of challenges, including Catherine’s journey to her latest Nationals win. “I very much hold hard work close to my heart, and I attribute everything to that,” she says. As we know too well, hard work takes many forms — especially for dancers, who push their bodies to the limit, training tirelessly to prepare their legs and feet for those fleeting moments on stage. But what happens when you’re forced off your feet?

In the lead-up to Nationals, Catherine strained a few ligaments in the bottom of her foot after mis-landing a jump during dance class. Up until two weeks before Nationals she was in a boot, clunking around summer lectures and sidelined from dancing in the studio. While she was nursing her foot back to health, Catherine used the time to focus on what she could control — strengthening her mental game.

“It was a lot of mental preparation, for sure, because I couldn’t physically dance — a lot of visualisation and walking through my steps and just doing what I could do,” she says. When competition day finally arrived, Catherine simply put on her headphones and tapped back into her calm headspace, listening to ‘Go the Distance’ from Disney’s Hercules on repeat. She was grateful for dancing as well as she could and delivering three stellar rounds without her foot hurting onstage. “Everything that I could have done, I did, and luckily I got a win on top of that and it was absolutely amazing,” she says in earnest. 

This mantra has defined her dance career. In such a subjective sport, focusing on hard work and what’s in her control has been key to Catherine’s success, beyond the results: “Pretty much our entire careers are training and in the studio, and I have very much fallen in love with that side of dancing and trying my best to see how far I can push myself.” Bringing the passion of the studio to the stage is her greatest labour of love.

She continues: “I have always danced the best when I dance from my heart — when I’m able to let go, fall into the music and genuinely enjoy dancing. I try to do this as much as possible, both in the studio and on the stage.” 

She feels especially alive during her set, Planxty Davis, an exemplar of her masterful rhythms. The choreography blends artistry and athleticism, and in every tuck jump, heel click, and toe stand, you can see the flame designs on her dress radiate as she blazes across the stage.

When she’s up there, all thoughts turn to her dance family. For Catherine, dancing from the heart means channelling the love and adoration for those who have worked tirelessly to help get her there. You can see the pride wash all over her face. “It’s a state I put myself in to not only dance better, but for the feeling I get when I am in that zone. In those moments on stage, it’s only me, the music, my teachers, and the judges.”

When those golden minutes are up and she steps off stage, dress unzipped and wig unpinned, Catherine can’t wait to run it all back at the studio with her teachers and fellow dancemates. Shoulder to shoulder, doing drills together, Catherine has forged close relationships with her dance family that have made her not only a better dancer, but a better person as well. Her biggest supporters truly are her greatest influences. “As many hours as I put into the studio, they are beside me putting in the same time, and I will never be able to thank them enough for that,” she says.

She tries to give back by helping out at dance camp in the summers, assisting her teachers with younger dancers. Not only does it help her settle down before the fall competition season starts up again, but it also gives her space to reflect on when she was just starting to lace up her ghillies for the first time. To her younger self, Catherine would say to take the good weeks with the bad weeks and just be present. I’m sure she would agree with her favourite hype song: “I know every mile will be worth my while.”

“The important thing is that you’re showing up and you’re trying,” she concludes, “because all of that will accumulate to being better and it will show in not only results, but in yourself.”

Follow Catherine Hoare on Instagram.

Photography: Courtesy of Catherine Hoare
Design: Colleen Falco
Words: Siobhan Cooney
Editor-In-Chief: Hollie Geraghty
Social Media and Editorial Assistant: Caitlin Clarke