Last week I had an audition for the Company B in my Irish Step group. Company B is the junior performance group for the Solas an lae Irish step company. I have been doing Irish step since last summer and I am absolutely addicted to it.

I was so nervous on the day of the audition. I woke up at about 7:30 and I had to find a way to make my hair stay in a high pony tail. Finally I got it to stay using hairspray and a ton of hair pins. Then I tried to eat breakfast, but I was having trouble because I was so nervous and excited. Then my mom drove me to the dance studio. Once I got inside I saw my friend who was also auditioning. Seeing my friend eased my nerves a little bit, but I was having trouble doing the warm ups because I couldn’t feel my legs. My friend is already in Company B, but you have to re-audition every year. As the audition went on I got more nervous by the second.

Next we started doing drills across the floor. That is one of my favorite things to do, so I had a lot of fun during that part of the audition. We did cut-two-threes and overs. Cut-two-threes and overs are classic Irish step moves.  Then we did prances and grapevines across the floor.

In Irish step it is really important to be to get really good lift on your jumps. So the company directors asked us to show them what we could bring to the company for height. I did cut-two-threes because they are one of my strongest moves. Then they wanted to see our “steps”. Steps are small fast routines that are done across the floor. I was doing the bridges step. It was really embarrassing because I had to do the step by myself with everyone watching. The worst part was that I messed up the beginning of the step and had to start over.

After the drills and steps we started doing some choreography. I had some trouble with that because I had never done or seen any of the moves that we were expected to do. Also we only got to go over it three times and then we had to do the choreography to fast music.

Then the audition was over. I went outside and got into the car, worried that because I didn’t know the choreography I wouldn’t get in. Then a couple of days later I got a letter in the mail, saying that I was accepted into Company B. I was thrilled. My mom and I were jumping all around my house because we were so excited. This weekend I had my first rehearsal and I loved it!