Irish Dance Globe’s managing editor and founder Colleen Falco is an all-round artistic trailblazer. She boasts good sense and perspective, as well an absolute gift for communicating, deep empathy, and clear goals. Irish dancing is just one of her many talents.
Colleen is 26 years old, living in Orlando, Florida and currently dances for Tir Na Greine. She received her BA in Studio Art at UCF, she also works as a COO of the fastest growing PR firm in the US, runs her own painting class, and teaches Lyra.
Colleen’s Start in Irish Dancing
Colleen’s introduction to Irish dancing was somewhat accidental as she originally hoped to find a Scottish highland dance class after watching it at a festival. Despite her Scottish roots, she had to settle for an Irish dance class, assuming they would be mostly similar. “We were wrong,” she says, “but I’m so grateful for the outcome, as it’s 20 years later and here I am still competing”.
The Artistic All-Rounder
Colleen has been artistic from as early as her school days when she used to sell her drawings to classmates. “I do remember in third grade I was selling drawings to my classmates to give to their girlfriends for 10 cents apiece… then getting sent to the principal’s office for conducting business at school,” she says. This entrepreneurial mindset would pay off when she sold her first painting for $450 in high school, and since then has continued to get a steady flow of commissions. “Art has always come naturally to me” she says.
She expresses her artistic identity in several different forms, one of the primary ways being through painting. She tells me that her initial paintings were centred around anxious feelings. “For me, it comes in waves. When I was in a pretty bad place, painting my emotions was pretty helpful. I got a lot of positive responses from people who were grateful for me sharing the work, telling me they related to them”. Since then, she has shifted her focus to what it means to be a woman today, and recently completed a project called ‘Unveiled’. “It’s about the battle for wanting to be admired for your beauty but not letting it define you”.
Colleen was also inspired to take up lyra after watching a performance of Circus 1903. “There was a Lyra performer, and she brought me to tears,” she says. “It was the most beautiful thing I have seen, and after that, I found a studio and started to go 5 days a week. I was in love”. She describes the escapism that lyra classes bring, she says “Lyra is so much more about emotions, and creating shapes with your body and the hoop, however you want to. There really is no right or wrong with it”.
While also boasting a string of other unique and generally cool former hobbies like competitive powerlifting, adult tumbling, and indoor rock climbing, Colleen also runs her own dress design company, Draco Designs. She removes the stress of liaising with dressmakers for her clients, by taking her designs to them directly and doing the crystalling herself. Oh and just to throw another fun skill into the mix, she also speaks Russian.
The Work-Life Balance
The biggest challenge for most senior dancers is the constant balance of work, life, study, and dance. But Colleen takes this in her stride. “I thrive off of being busy,” she tells me. “I schedule out my entire day and try to fill it with as much as I can. I love dancing and lyra and painting so I’ve made it so my jobs incorporate what I love doing.”
As dancers get older, there is often an unspoken pressure to retire from competition to free up more time for professional and personal development, but Colleen makes decisions with clarity and certainty about her passion for dance. “It’s my number one, so I never put myself in a position to have to give that up. I’ve always been honest with employers about the time commitment and tell them upfront, so it’s never a problem. They’ve all been very supportive and proud of what I do luckily”.
The Hard Work Complex
Colleen falls into a group where many dancers find themselves coming into the top of their game at an older age. She says “I didn’t place well growing up, I didn’t make it to Opens until I was Nineteen I think. And in my Sophomore year in college, I was like ‘I’m doing this’.” Along with renting studio space three times a week for additional practise, she took up yoga, pilates, and even spent most of her savings on a sport-specific trainer. She also researched tools to help with technique and invested in a Ballet Foot Stretcher, which she describes as “life-changing”, along with a Pilates disc to help strengthen turnout muscles. Undoubtedly the hard work paid off. “That was when I went from one year not even recalling at the Oireachtas to qualifying for the Worlds at Nationals, then placed top ten at the Oireachtas”.
When you’ve been in the game as long as Colleen, you find yourself with a lot of acquired knowledge but the feeling that there is still so much more to learn. “I’ve been dancing for 20 years, and I still haven’t mastered it,” she says. “I feel like Irish Dancing is so unbelievably complicated that you can never learn everything there is to know about it and how to execute it. It’s addicting. It’s like ‘Yes! I can finally point my toes’, then ‘Well, now that’s making me do weird things with my hands’, now ‘Turn-out then cross more’, then you need to do it more and now it’s too much…it’s an endless battle that I love fighting, thus I’m still here.”
For Colleen, the love of performance is her favourite thing about the sport. “The feeling of being on stage during a slip jig just can’t be replaced,” she says. “It’s like you’re flying and you’re beautiful and elegant. I feel like the love I have for that dance radiates out of me and I get to share it with the room”.
And that love for Irish dancing can be found when Colleen is at class just as much as at competitions. “I love all of my teachers so much. I can feel they want my success just as much as I do, they have all been so supportive. They have that energy where you just want to make them proud. They see the potential in every one of their students, and all you want is to prove them right. It’s such a wonderful environment to be in”.
The High Points
For any Irish dancer, the highs and the lows come in waves, and sometimes they can come when you least expect it. While placing top 10 at Nationals is an easy highlight for Colleen, recalling at the Worlds is what takes the cake for her. “I didn’t even know if I’d ever be good enough to qualify for the worlds, and I was just happy to be there, then managing a recall at my first worlds was just insane. I was sobbing. It was exciting too to see how high I was placing in some of the rounds. I was honestly just so proud of myself, it was beyond what I had ever even hoped for”.
Being a senior lady in Irish dancing is a truly unique experience compared to other age groups. It requires all of your own discipline, organisation, funds, balance, and it can be a real juggling act. But with it comes many special qualities. “I think as a senior lady, you start to support your competition more,” she says. “ I’ve known my competitors for ages, and yes you want success for yourself, but you see everyone grow and improve and you’re proud of them when they move up, and you hurt for them when they don’t place well”.
Colleen is also lucky in that she shares the rollercoaster of the Irish dance world with her sister, Allison. “I’ve never experienced being more proud of someone else over myself until my sister qualified for Worlds. And now she’s at Dartmouth, casual. She’s amazing and talented and deserves everything in the world. My sister is my heart and soul, I’ve cried in at least one of her rounds every major. Dance has been a pretty big part of what’s brought us so close I think”. Colleen’s special bond with her sister just about overtakes her love for her beloved cats, Draco Meowfoy, Khaleesi, and Isolde. But only just.
The Future
Despite Colleen feeling as though she has a “love-hate” relationship with costumes in Irish dancing, mostly the wigs, the retirement question isn’t a thought that she allows to enter her head. When I ask if she’s ever thought about quitting, the answer is a resounding no. “God forbid. I simply can’t even imagine it”.
Now Colleen continues to channel her love of dance and the arts as she invests energy in her new project that is Irish Dance Globe.
To see more of her art, dancing, and aerial performance, check her out on Instagram @cvfalco
