REGINA - Irish dancing is not a common form of dance people tend to learn, but Megan Beach, has loved performing the ancient Celtic dance since she was little.
Beach, a local resident who runs the Blakey School of Irish Dance Regina, started dancing when she was a 5-year-old. The reason Beach took up Irish dancing was seeing her cousin perform for a year-end recital. In that moment, Beach said, "that's how it started."
After dancing for a while, Beach wanted to compete, and the school she was originally at didn't offer competitions. So, Beach moved to another school, which was the Blakey School.
She went on to learn Irish dancing for fun and competitively. Irish dancing requires the dancer to always have their arms by their sides unless they’re performing a certain dance. So, dancers will use their legs to perform techniques like crossing over their feet, jumping and clicking their heels in the air.
There are also two different types of shoes dancers can wear. "There are soft shoes and hard shoes. The soft shoes are like Highland dancing shoes, so they don't make noise or anything. And then the hard shoes would be the ones that make noise, which people think they're kind of like tap shoes, but they're a little different," said Beach
Beach mentioned it was hard learning the technique for competitive dancing at the beginning because it was more strict compared to recreational dancing.
She also noted competitive dancers wear custom dresses, wigs and have a fake tan. She called it "a whole different world [from recreational dancing]."
While learning dancing in Regina, eventually, the teacher at the Blakey School moved away. This meant Beach had to travel to their sister school in Saskatoon once a month to see an accredited teacher. In order to enter an Irish dancing competition, a dancer needs to see said teacher at least once a month, said Beach. That went on for a while before the Blakey School in Regina became big enough to where the teacher from Saskatoon would come down to Regina to teach classes.
During that time, Beach started entering competitions throughout Canada and the world. She explained how the rules of Irish dancing worked during a regular competition.
"So we dance by age group. So you're always dancing with people [within] your own age, usually. You dance one dance at a time, but it will be two or three people dancing at the same time to the same music. So you have to be doing your own dances, be performing for the judge, but also be watching for where the other people are on stage with you."
One challenge during competitions is the constant jumping you do in a approximately one minute performance, said Beach.
She elaborated that "you are always supposed to be up on your toes. And then you're doing these big jumps and leaping in the air, and you always have to keep a good technique. And on top of that, you can't use your arms. So your power is coming from your legs and your core. You can't use your arms to help you with any momentum."
In order to work on their core and leg strength, Beach said, "dancers do a lot of cross training to help [with] that and [they] like even [do] weight lifting."
Beach herself worked on her technique and competed in the North America Irish Dance Championships at least five times.
While she never got close to winning her respective age group, she did enjoy competing in a venue with 3,000 to 5,000 other dancers in attendance as well.
Later in her life, Beach decided to retire from competitive dancing because she worried it could take a toll on her body.
Even though Beach retired from competitive dancing, she was still doing it for fun. Around 2023, the teacher who visited the Blakley School in Regina told Beach she wanted to pull back.
Considering she was already basically running the Blakley School in Regina at that point, Beach decided, "I was going to take it over and basically take it over as my own business."
She mentioned dancing since she was five, so she couldn't see herself living without Irish dance.
After taking over, Beach said, "It was a little hard. I lost some dancers, not because I was taking over. They were just going to stop dancing anyway, unfortunately."
Although there were hardships, Beach was committed to building the school back up. Currently, there are 13 dancers at the school in different types of classes. Beach said she is happy with those numbers but would like to see the school grow a bit.
She noted Irish dancing is "something that people don't consider or even maybe know about [it] because sometimes I will meet people and I'll tell them, 'I'm an Irish dancer,' and they don't even know what that is."
Beach is hoping people check out Irish dancing during St. Patrick's Day and at Riverdance 2025 in May to get a better look at what it’s all about because, in her eyes, "It’s very, very fun."
