On Thanksgiving weekend, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Competition, or Oireachtas, for Irish dancing will take place in Chicago, Ill. Many different schools, ranging from Western Pennsylvania to Illinois, will be participating with approximately 200 dancers in each age group of the competition and thousands altogether. The Bell School, in Wexford and Greensburg, is one that will be attending.

The Bell School was started ten years ago by Ms. Julia Bell. GS junior Emily Etling was one of the very first students. She said that she heard about Irish dancing through a flyer and her grandpa was always interested in it, so she decided to begin taking lessons.

“[Another girl and I] started taking lessons in the basement of a church by Julia Bell until she started her dance school,” Etling said. “We were her first students.”

Etling said that she participates in 20 competitions every summer. Past competitions have taken place in cities like Columbus, Ohio, Indianapolis, Ind., New York, N.Y., Niagara Falls and Washington, D.C.

The different levels of dance are, in order from first level to last: beginner, beginner II, novice, open, preliminary and championship. To qualify for regionals, each dancer must place in the top half of the scoring in any of the competitions at the preliminary level.

Sophomore Cliodhna Graven will be attending regionals as well. Graven has been dancing since she was five for the Burke School in Squirrel Hill. Although Graven has been dancing for over ten years, she is not quite as involved as she once was.

“I’m still involved and [I] practice three times a week and work out on my own time, but now that I’m older I have other things to do too,” Graven explained.

Etling said that her training for regionals is continuous but more work when it comes close. She has started to have “solo classes” every Sunday at the Bell School and, while normally she has two to three classes each week, she now has three to four.

“I lift every other day and run on the days I’m not lifting,” Etling said. “And I practice [my dancing] every night.”

But the Oireachtas competition does not work like a standard competition. Etling explained that each dancer goes on the stage with a different dancer and each performs a different dance, one soft shoe and one hard shoe. There are three judges who determine the dancers’ scores, then the results are given.

Etling said that her goal for the competition is to place in the top half of all the dancer’s scores.