Irish Dance Camp

Chapter four

All in all, everyone was really good. We did sets one at a time, and we all helped critique after each girl had gone. When Julie went, the room went completely silent. She did Planxty Davis at 76, and somehow, she managed to not lose any amount of stamina by the end of it. When she had finished, she had hardly broken a sweat."So...." She said. "What do you guys think I need to work on?"
We were all quiet, we had nothing to critique.
"That was like, perfect," I said. Everyone nodded in agreement. Julie smiled widely.
"Thanks, guys," she said. "I really appreciate it!"
When it was my turn to go, I was really nervous. Everyone here was amazing, and incredibly intimidating. But as soon as Kate turned on Vanishing Lake at 68, I suddenly felt better and remembered how much I loved my set. My teacher had choreographed it just for me, and it fit my strengths perfectly. There were lots of cool rhythms and pointe work but it wasn't too hard that I lost stamina. I pointed my toe confidently and started my right foot step.
When I finished, all the girls clapped.
"I would just say to make sure you look confident and attack throughout the entire dance. Your technique is perfect, but you have to own it." Grace said, and the other girls all agreed. I nodded and mustered a "Thank you," and panting profusely walked back to my bag to grab my notebook where I write out all my corrections.
"That's everyone. Should we switch to softshoe?" Julie asked. Everyone headed back to their bags, but as we started changing shoes, Kate yelled- "Guys! Dinner starts at 6:30 and it's 6:25! We have to go!"
We all made a mad dash for the cafeteria, but it was raining, so by the time we got in we were all covered in mud and sweat. One of the volunteers noticed us.
"Girls, what happened to you guys? Were you rolling around in the mud?" She asked.
"No, we lost track of time while we were practicing and we had to run to get here in time but it's raining a lot so there was a lot of mud in the grass and it was splashing us so yeah." Claire said, hardly breathing in between words. The volunteer looked at us suspiciously then walked away.
I was starving, but I was disappointed to see there weren't many vegetarian options for me. I remembered that Julie, who was standing next to me, had mentioned that she had come to this camp last year, so I asked her- "Do you know if there's a vegetarian option here?"
"I'm actually a vegetarian too!" Julie said. " That's so funny, hardly any of my friends are,"
"Oh my gosh none of mine are either!" I said, laughing. We found food,  then talked all the way back to our table, where we sat next to each other. We hardly ate anything because we were so busy talking! I asked Julie what her favorite major was:
"It's so hard to choose, I love them all, really.... But I think I'd have to say All Irelands. You dance basically the entire day instead of just sitting around waiting like at most majors." Julie said.
"Probably made it even better that you won..." Marie mumbled. Julie rolled her eyes. I decided to just keep talking.
"I've always wanted to go to All Irelands! Everyone says its so fun, but we've never been able to go. I think I'm gonna try to save up for this year." I said. Julie nodded.
"It's a shame you live in Connecticut and I live in California, we'll probably only get to see each other at majors...." Julie said sadly.
"Yeah, I was just thinking about that. It really stinks." I notice that Maire seemed to be eyeing me weird. At that moment, a volunteer came up to our table and said it was time to leave. It was time for the beach bonfire! We all headed up to the dormitories to take quick showers and change clothes.
Carly and I put on matching rompers, hers was pink and mine was light blue. I put on pink flip flops and pulled my hair in a messy bun.
We had a little extra time before we had to head downstairs, so I decided it would be a good time to talk to Carly about how she seemed to be feeling.
"Wanna talk?" I decided this was the gentlest way to start.
" 'bout what?"
"You seem upset."
"I'm not...." Carly sighed.
"Yeah, you are. You're my best friend, I can tell."
Carly bit her lip. "It's stupid, really. I don't want to make you feel bad."
Yep, I thought to myself, it's about worlds.
"Is this about worlds?" I asked.
"No, I mean, not really, I just feel like-" And then someone knocked on the door.
"Girls, it's time to come downstairs." A voice said outside the door. Carly sighed, and we headed out the door, down the stairs, out the main doors, and into the bus that took us to the beach. Carly didn't say a word.