Perspective. For the first time in 23 years, I was able to watch myself dance all three rounds on stage. Wow, how far we have come to have a video stream from a competition!
As long as I’ve been around, it’s been against the rules to video record at a competition. Sure, people have snuck video recordings, and starting in 2017 at the World Championships recalled dancers could purchase a video of their set dance, but there has been no official way for dancers to see how they performed on stage otherwise. Apart from the “livecomm” from Worlds provided before, which included video streaming for ceili competitions, there was nothing for solos. I only have copies of a couple of set dances from 2018 and 2019. The rest of my competitive performances are gone, only to be remembered by those who were physically present when I danced. I can possibly recall how I felt on stage, but nothing about what I looked like or what the audience would have experienced.
The feedback dancers can get from video recordings is important. Since the majority of my practices are on my own, I rely on videos to help me assess myself from an outside perspective. Mirrors, too, give us valuable visuals to help us improve. Being able to have a copy of myself dancing on stage at a major championship, for me, is life-changing for my training (not to mention great for the next generation of dancers). Although we can try to replicate the nerves, adrenaline, and experience of being on a stage, we can’t actually replicate dancing at a major. Though I may try, I just don’t perform quite the same in practice or in my head as I do on stage.
Perspective. For my adult competitive life I’ve been working on what being a dancer means in light of scores. I’ve already talked on here about how it’s important for dancers to find their identity in something other than solely Irish dancing, and for now I feel it’s important to mention the importance of finding worth separate from your scores. I’ve been working for more than a decade on that, and while I’m not perfect, I felt that my results this Oireachtas were finally divorced from my feelings of worth and success.
I’ve been disappointed by more results than I’ve been satisfied with. That’s probably true for most people, when you think about it. Looking back at my competitive history, you could say I have found great success competitively. I wouldn’t really argue. But that’s not the whole picture. I have had high hopes for a dozen Oireachtas years, and fallen short every single time. What I see now, with a revised perspective, is that my final regional placement is one of the worst ways to assess my progress and skill as a dancer. However, this does not negate feelings of disappointment or failure. Both can be true. When we “fail”, we also have the opportunity to learn and grow. This year was no different – in that I was disappointed. But do you know what I have this year that I haven’t had in the past? A 2019 Worlds qualification. Ok, I kid, I kid (although that’s true, and I’m very grateful for the chance to compete in Belfast on past merit).
But what I am really talking about is the perspective that my worth as a dancer and my progress as a person is not tied to my results. I could be tempted to say that a tenth place finish means I’m not the dancer I thought, that my hard work didn’t pay off, or that I am lousy and worthless. Past versions of myself might try to make excuses for my performance (which I now have video proof of) or blame politics or adjudicators that “don’t like me”. While I’ve yet to meet a truly unbiased judge (after all, everyone is influenced by bias whether they know it or not), the main takeaway is that my scores on one single day of competition, by five random adjudicators picked out of a hat, cannot possibly exemplify who I am as a dancer or reflect the sum of the hard work and time that I put into becoming better.
Because, the thing is, comparing yourself to slightly varied groups of dancers, on different days, with different adjudicators, on different stage set ups cannot objectively assign you a placement. Year after year, I have competed against pretty different groups of ladies (with new people moving up to seniors every year), in a handful of different regions, in front of numerous different adjudicators. And each year, everyone improves. Y’all, your dance performance can vary day to day, just as the whim of a judge will not be completely consistent from one judging gig to the next. Throw in all of the other factors and you have a mess – meaning results inevitably do not accurately reflect how you’ve progressed or where you stand. A placement is simply how you stacked up on that day, against those people, in the opinion of a few other people. Once you can see it for what it is, the weight it holds over you and the value you place on it begins to disappear.
I’m thankful this year for continued growth in perspective. For the first time in a decade, I left Oireachtas awards with a sense of contentment along with the completely reasonable disappointment. Both. And. Moreover, I left with a visual archive of my performance. These things are tools in my kit: help for my training moving forward. See you in 2022.
