Members of the 4-hand team are (from left): Jackson Kelly, junior; Makayla Mohrman, junior; Ally Mohrman, junior; and Holly Adamski, first-year.
Rince: Fredonia Irish Dance Club high-stepped its way to an impressive debut in Collegiate Irish Dance Association National regional competition.
The SUNY Fredonia troupe’s 4-Hand Reel team – performing a “céili,” a traditional Irish group dance – placed 12th overall out of 36 teams. Members of the 4-Hand Reel team are Jackson Kelly, a junior majoring in Music Education and Music Performance, from Buffalo, NY; Makayla Mohrman, a junior majoring in Social Work, with minors in Psychology and Sociology, from Webster, NY; Ally Mohrman, a junior majoring in Childhood Inclusive Education, from Webster; and Holly Adamski, first-year student with majors in Music Education and Music Performance, from Manlius, NY.
Two dancers – Ms. Adamski and Mr. Kelly – placed sixth in their respective solo competitions.
We were really going with the mindset to get experience and were not expecting to have any placements. Most of the other schools competing there had full teams that go through auditions … and are more experience.” – Makayla Mohrman
It was the group’s inaugural appearance at the Mid-Atlantic region competition held on April 5 at the University of Dayton [Ohio]. There are 11 schools in the Mid-Atlantic.
“It was super fun, and it was super cool for the members who had never been to any kind of a dance competition before,” explained Makayla Mohrman, who is Rince vice president. “Overall, it went very well.”
About half of the members who joined the club during the last several semesters had no prior Irish dance experience, Mohrman added, “so it was cool to be able to get the team together to compete for the first time.”
Not only was Rince the lone SUNY school at the Mid-Atlantic regional, but it was also the only dance group from all of New York state.
An impressive overall performance, no doubt, by a dance troupe that increased its size last to qualify for membership in the Collegiate Irish Dance Association, thus enabling it to enter association competitions. It didn’t matter that they were up against behemoths like the State University at Buffalo, University of Rochester, Penn State and Rutgers at the regional competition.
Rince didn’t have high expectations but rather wanted to learn about the overall dance competition experience.
“We were really going with the mindset to get experience and were not expecting to have any placements. Most of the other schools competing there had full teams that go through auditions…and are more experienced,” Makayla Mohrman noted.
Their competition fielded teams of 10 to 25 members who had Irish dance experience and had gone through team auditions, so they had considerably more know-how with traditional Irish dance. The SUNY Fredonia contingent at the competition numbered 11.
Rince intends to enter regional competition every year going forward. The team held fundraisers and received financial support from Student Association, and members also contributed money to help cover travel expenses to the competition.
