Julie Hynes and 40 of her dancers attended the CRN Regional Irish Dancing Championships in Port Talbot on Sunday, February 10, and once again achieved impressive results. The dancers from the Saundersfoot school attained numerous high placings in the individual dances, together with 16 first prizes.
The venue of the event was the Princess Royal Theatre, which provided ample space for four dance floors on which over 200 dancers performed, each hoping to qualify for the championship award competition, and the right to attend the Irish Open Dancing Championships to be held in Dublin in October, 2002.
At the end of the afternoon session, 23 of Julie's dancers had qualified and these all performed two further dances before a panel of three Irish adjudicators. Three dancers, Tess Burke, Kelly Russell and Jennifer Hynes, fulfilled their dreams by performing the intricate steps to perfection and were awarded the coveted Regional Champion titles in their age group/grade, and a further 12 dancers received placings between second and sixth.
Six dance schools were represented at the event, some travelling from Ireland and the Netherlands to compete.
"The children have worked so hard over the past months and their dedication has really paid off. I had hoped that I would possibly have 19 qualify, as we did last year, but to exceed this number is a tremendous achievement," said their delighted teacher, Julie.
The dancers are all under 16 years old and, for the first time Julie was able to enter a child in the under six years competition. Five-year-old Emily Lloyd qualified at her first attempt.
Amongst so many successes, the achievements of Kieran Bolger with three first prizes and Kelly Russell with six first prizes both deserve a mention, together with Jennifer Hynes and Sam Davies who both qualified in the fourth grade - which represents a very high degree of dance difficulty.