Saorsa Studio takes on Kamloops, BC for the ScotDance Canada Championship Series
The ScotDance Canada Championship Series is something highland dancers from around the world look forward to every year. It always takes place at the beginning of July, and starting in June, the excitement starts to build within the studio as the countdown creeps closer and closer to the finish line.
The series, otherwise known as SDCCS, is a jam-packed 5 days of highland dance competition, and features the prestigious Canadian Championships, where the selected representatives from each province that were selected for their provincial teams compete for the title of Canadian Champion.
But beyond that, there are opportunities for all ages to join in on the competition and enjoy the festivities and celebrations throughout the week!
We had 11 dancers from Saorsa Studio attending the series this year, and making the trek across the country to represent our studio & New Brunswick. Let’s dive into the week!
July 6: Arrival Day
I rolled in at 5PM on July 6th, and took a taxi straight from the airport to the venue. Myself and my best friend/business partner own For Reel Apparel, an apparel company for highland dancers. Since 2022, we’ve had a booth open during the event, and this year was no exception.
As soon as I landed in Kamloops, it was straight to work for FRA, as Cindy and Kate (Saorsa Studio manager) had already been at the venue for a couple hours setting up and counting clothing inventory.
Arriving at the venue and taking a look at all the stages invoked some immediate nostalgia. This is truly one of my favourite highland dance events every year, and walking into a huge arena with the 9 dance stages lined up reminded me of the nerves and excitement I would feel travelling as a competitive dancer for this event. I used to be so excited to get onto the stage and be able to showcase everything I worked so hard on all year.
Now I attend with a different kind of excitement! As a business owner, I love getting to meet up with my best friend every year and run the booth and meet everyone who buys clothing from us all year in person. It makes for VERY long days, but they’re filled with laughs.
As a dance instructor, I feel so much excitement for all our dancers who will get to experience the event (some for the first time), and look forward to seeing them up on the boards alongside some of the best dancing in Canada.
But before all this excitement… back to counting inventory lol.
July 7: Early morning choreo rehearsals, stage time to rehearse choreo, large group choreography competition, Opening Ceremonies & Young Professionals Development Session
The first official day of the series started off with a bang. The bang being: a 7AM choreography rehearsal for Saorsa Studio dancers.
As a vendor, I wanted to be at the venue for 8:30AM at the latest to open the booth and kick off that aspect of the week. So that meant our dancers had an early rise so we could run through the large group choreography we were competing later that afternoon.
A fun fact about our large group choreography. We were never intending on submitting one!! Typically for choreography at SDCCS, you have to register within minutes THE DAY registration opens for it. There are limited spots and they fill up quickly.
Because of this, we had planned back in March for 2 small group choreographies. One with our junior dancers and one with our senior dancers. So they’d been working on these numbers for months! These were dancers who decided to commit to going to Kamloops early on.
But then…
Provincials happened in May, and we had more dancers make the team than expected. PLUS there were some dancers who said if we added a large group choreography, they’d be willing to travel for it. AND there was still space in the choreography competition… Meant to be?
Queue frantic music searching. Hours of watching videos of other styles of dance for formation / visuals inspo. I might have cried at one point from the stress of trying to force choreography out of my brain BUT we did it.
The dancers learned the choreography in one practice, and then we had 3 more practices dedicated to refining the technique. Then all that was left was to hit the stage.
Getting back to July 7! We ran the early morning rehearsal and it went well! It was also our first time trying our costumes out (watch the video below for why this was so important)… Then I headed to the venue to start the booth.
The event organizers had also planned stage time for all of the groups. This is always so helpful, as the stage dimensions are provided ahead of time, but getting on the actual stage to run the dance helps the dancers better conceptualize what they’re about to do. I think our stage time was around 9AM – so the dancers met me there, we ran it twice and took 2 videos, then analyzed the videos to give them some last-minute things to think about.
From there, dance moms were on hair and makeup duty, and we were all meeting backstage just before the choreography competition was set to start.
Since we registered SO LATE, and it’s first to enter last to dance, we were first on stage (since we were dead last to register lol). But we were actually excited about this because it meant we were the first dancers on the stage for the whole event and we got to open the series ahead of opening ceremonies!
The dancers totally rocked it and earned themselves 6th overall in CANADA! A huge accomplishment, and so proud of all the work they put in to get this dance stage ready.
From there, we had 2 afternoon rehearsal slots for the small group choreographies to dance on the stage. Each slot was 3 minutes each, so it was one run through with a video where I recorded myself saying feedback as I recorded so they had something to review. The small group choreographies weren’t until later in the week, but this was the only time the stage would be available the remainder of the event.
Our reps then had opening ceremonies at 4PM (if I’m remembering the time correctly), followed by actual opening ceremonies that started at 5PM. We stayed to watch and cheer on the NB reps.
But my night wasn’t over yet!
I’m the chair of the ScotDance Canada Young Professionals Committee, and this was the evening of our development session for our YP’s across Canada. I grabbed a quick bite to eat, then it was over to the dedicated conference room to hear from experienced professional, Sheryl Joyner, where we got to ask her all the questions about running a studio, training competitive dancers, and what we can do as up and coming professionals to grow highland dance.
July 8: Restricted Premier Nationals, Premier Premiership & Pre-Premier Competition + Adeline Duncan Seann Triubhas Challenge + Continuing Professional Development Session (are you as exhausted reading that as I was living it?)
The second day of the event had a bright and early start for our dancers competing in the Premiership. If you need more info on the difference between Restricted Premier and Premier – check out this blog!
We had 11 dancers competing on this day, so it was busy! I was running back and forth between backstage and the For Reel Apparel booth. One thing I was thankful I did this year was create an itinerary with the time that I would be doing group warm ups. Otherwise, it’s truly impossible to run between the two AND try and watch the dancers on stage. It means I’m sure to miss someone.
But having our group warm up and stretch before the start of each event helped bring us all together before hitting the stage, and then everyone knew where to find me between dances at the booth!
One thing I LOVED about the venue this year was that it was an area. As a vendor, we were set up along the top, which meant I could see the stage the whole time! SO much easier to watch the dancing from this point of view, compared to a convention centre where vendors are out in the hallway.
Our studio results:
- Charlotte – 6th in lilt
- Rhaya premiership – 5th hornpipe, 2nd lilt, 3rd earl, 6th laddie and 3rd runner up in the Premiership + Adeline Duncan ST Challenge call back
- Kate – championship points in lilt and earl, 6th in laddie
- Christina – 11th in hornpipe
- Sophie – 4th laddie, 2nd lilt, 5th earl, 7th hornpipe
- Edie – 3rd laddie, 7th lilt, 4th hornpipe
- Rachel – 2nd laddie, 1st lilt, 1st earl, 2nd hornpipe, 1stoverall
- Hannah – 7th laddie, 6th earl, 4th hornpipe
- Lauren – 6th lilt, 3rd earl, 2nd hornpipe
- Sarah – 4th lilt, 2nd earl, 2nd hornpipe
- Alyssa – 9th laddie, 5th earl
After all the dancing events, it was time to grab another quick bite to eat before heading to a continuing professional development session on choreography. As a judge, I need to have 5 hours of approved CPD like this, so it was top of my list to make sure I made it! Plus, I was really interested to hear from the speakers, Sheryl Joyner and Aileen Robertson, about what they had to say on the topic of choreography.
Following this, Cindy and I caught up with two of our teaching friends from Calgary before calling it a night!
SDCCS is SO jam packed as an instructor – between being there for your dancers, attending sessions and then catching up with friends we sometimes only get to see once a year… It’s a tiring few days but something I look forward to every year <3
July 9: Canadian Championships, studio pizza party & ice cream social celebration
Historically for New Brunswick, there have only been a handful of dancers who have received top 6 medals and overall finishes in this championship. It’s still a BIG deal for any of our NB dancers to get a judges placing (where one judge places them in the top 6 in their marks), or a medal or a top 6 finish.
Our dancers put some of their best dancing on the stage that day! I was so proud to watch all of them displaying so many personal bests, and corrections fixed that we’ve worked on for months and months.
A highlight for our studio was Rhaya receiving two top 6 medals (a 5th and a 6th), as well as judges placings in both of the other dances. Points wise, this put her 7th overall, although awards are only given out to 6th overall. It was a big day for our studio and for New Brunswick!
After the awards presentation, we all gathered around the FRA booth for a pizza party. This year was a bit different than usual, and instead of having a sit down banquet for the reps, dancers & dance families, there was an ice cream social, which meant dessert only. I figured the time between the awards presentation and the ice cream social could be used to get us all together to enjoy some pizza before they went to get ready for the evening!
Then our dancers headed off to get ready for the ice cream social. Now typically I attend the banquet every year, but as someone who may be semi-lactose intolerant, I didn’t figure this would be the event for me (especially after some pizza lol). So I gave everyone hugs and told them to HAVE FUN!
The ice cream social featured a parade in of all the provincial representatives, different desserts for the dancers, a dance, and everyone’s favourite: a 360 camera.
Overall, this was an amazing day, and I was so happy to see all the dancers enjoying their time together after a day of very hard work.
July 10: Pre-Premier Competition, Seann Truibhas Special Event Final, Small Group Choreography Competition
This day was a bit slower for our studio, but still an early rise! The first event of the day started at 8AM, and we had one Pre-Premier dancer there competing, so I got to the venue early for her warm up. Overall, she did great! She did a new dance for the first time, and fared pretty well so that was a win in our books.
Results: Charlotte – 7th Fling
This event was followed by the finals for the special event: the Adeline Duncan Seann Triubhas. The qualifier had happened earlier that week, and we had one dancer moving ahead into the final. Life is a bit easier when you only have a couple dancers to worry about at a time!!
Results: Rhaya – Adeline Duncan final – 5th overall
Then it was time for small group choreographies! I wasn’t the choregrapher of either of these, so I was mostly just excited to enjoy their performance and cheer them on. Plus, the dancers had been working so hard on these for months and months, and I knew that would shine through on stage.
… and it did!
Both groups achieved 3rd overall in Canada for their performances. Watch them below!
July 11: Canada Open Championship & Pre-Championship
LAST DAY!
At this point, Kate had to leave the series early to catch her flight to Switzerland as she is performing in the Basel Tattoo again this year! Talk about a truly jam-packed week, trying to compete but also getting ready to leave for a month!!!
The rest of our dancers were competing in either the pre-championship or open championship. Not sure of the difference? Check it out here!
Studio results:
Open Championship
- Rhaya – Fling 4th, Sword 5th, ST 3rd, Reel 5th. 4th runner up!
- Sarah – 6th sword, championship points ST
Pre-championship
- Christina – 10th fling, 12th sword, 11th ST,
- Sophie – 8th fling, 5th ST, 2nd reel
- Edie – 10th ST, 5th Reel
- Rachel – 1st fling, 3rd ST, 3rd Reel
- Hannah – 7th sword,
- Alyssa – 6th Fling, 9th sword, 9th reel
That’s a wrap
Another year at SDCCS is done and dusted! The countdown is ALREADY on to Ottawa 2025. These events get planned so far in advance because of the scale (800-1000 dancers from around the world!!).
Our dancers had so much fun at the series this year. They made new friends from across the country and around the world. They jumped in to every social opportunity the event had to offer. They supported each other and cheered each other on. They achieved their goals and then some.
This event always re-inspires me each year, as I get to watch the best dancing in Canada and day dream about all we can accomplish in the upcoming year.
This is just ONE of the opportunities that is available to our dancers throughout the year. For those that are driven by competitive goals, this is THE event for them!
Get started highland dancing with us today to open up amazing opportunities for your child through highland dance. Your first class is free!
