Six of our students from The Royal School Dungannon travelled alongside a troupe of forty-seven other dancers from the Jamie-Lee Meneely School of Dance, to Disneyland Paris, to compete in an annual UK wide dance festival held by The International Festival of Dance and Performing Arts (IFDPA). This competition is now in its 9th year with over thirty dance schools from across the United Kingdom taking part in this prestigious event, with literally hundreds of performers. The Co. Tyrone based dance school had both past and present students of RSD representing the group; Katie Chambers (Year 9), Aoife Haggan (Year 12), Sorcha Haggan (Year 11), Bethany Hewitt (Year 10), Leah Kerr (Year 8), Emma McCarley (Year 13), Neve McCarley (Year 9) and Joanna Little (a past RSD pupil).
Overall, the dance school achieved four 1st places, one 2nd place and three 3rd places out of the eleven dances they performed, ranking them as the 3rd highest awarded dance school in the competition. Katie Chambers also competed individually in the Musical Theatre & Dance section and achieved 3rd place. The Jamie-Lee Meneely School of Dance was one of the smallest dance schools competing and therefore their success is all the more marked. This success afforded them a prime position at the front of the parade section; the girls celebrated and danced alongside the professionals, through the streets in the official Disneyland Street Parade.
We would like to offer our congratulations to these students for their success and dedication to practice. Our thanks also go to Jamie-Lee Meneely (also a past pupil of RSD) who is currently choreographing our school musical for this year, “Hello Dolly”. Jamie-Lee has also choreographed past musicals such as “Fiddler on the Roof”.
