tra la la TRALEE

Last night I saw my second show at Siamsa Tire. In answer to Mom's question, they do about four shows per season, some old, some new, which is why I had already seen San Am Fado. In any case, the show I saw last night was called Tearmann (rhymes with German). This one was about the great famine, that is to say, it's not quite as lively as a show as San Am Fado is. It was still a very good show, albeit a bit of a downer. It will be an interesting comparison for research purposes because the choreography in Tearmann is a lot more contemporary.

I was sitting next to a woman from Ohio who took intermission as an opportunity to tell me her life story. She also told me that I didn't look old enough to be in college and I have been panicking ever since.

Yesterday I also walked out to the Tralee Institute of Technology which is where the Dance Research Forum would be taking place. Turns out, it's not really walking distance...but I only found this out after I had walked all the way there for an hour in the rain...at least I found it.

I took a taxi there this morning for the conference. It might be the ugliest college campus I have ever seen and it's all under construction so it's impossible to tell which building is which. I was wandering around trying to figure which ugly building to go into when I ran into another lost American lady. We commiserated for a moment and then she goes "Oh, I should introduce myself, I'm Darah." to which I responded "OH MY GOD YOU'RE DARAH CARR!!! I've read all about your company!" I'm a bit of a dork at times. Darah Carr is the director of a very cool dance company in New York City. I have never seen one of the shows, but I have reason to assume it's a very cool company.

Soon we found our way into the conference and sure enough everyone there was someone cool. The name alphabetically above my own on the registration sheet was Dr. John Cullinane who is the author of Aspects of the History of Irish Dance among other things and whose work I have cited many times. The room was basically a walking, breathing version of my bibliography for this research project. Needless to say I was a little intimidated, first because I was really star-struck, second because I was probably one of the only people there without a PHD, and third because of the newly acquired knowledge that I don't even look old enough to be in college. I sat down for the first lecture of the day and the man in front of me looked really familiar then it struck me that he was the lead dancer from the show I had seen the previous night. omg.

I stayed around for about three quarters of the lectures today and they were all really really informative. I think I could basically write my research paper based on notes I took today so that's a big plus. At the second coffee break of the day I had calmed down enough to actually talk to some of the people there. I introduced myself to a woman named Maire Clerkin. I couldn't figure out where I recognized that name from then it occurred to me that she has been one of my judges at dance competitions many times. She lives in Los Angeles, and she knows my dance teacher from Portland really well, and her lecture was basically the same topic that I'm researching, so we had a lot to chat about. After that I met another woman who's a professor at the University of Georgia who knows my ballet teacher from Oxy, so I kept having small-world moments all day.

I accidentally drank some coffee (it looks just like tea) so I have been speaking and walking at about twice my normal speed, so I made the walk back to town after the conference and it was no problem at all...it also wasn't raining, so that was nice. Also, I typed this whole entry really really fast.