News

SBIDA Update 2.0 for 2023

Hi everyone!
 
Sorry for the slightly longer than planned hiatus, but we’re buzzing to start back at class next week (Tuesday 28th and Wednesday 29th March). Before rushing off to book in (although we hope you do!) please read the following details about how the next block of classes will work.
 
As we mentioned at the end of our last run of classes, this block will follow the Grade Exam Syllabus.
 
What the heck is a Grade?
Great question! Grades are exams you can complete in Irish dancing (1 up to 10) that are intended to test and recognise your knowledge of different elements of Irish dancing; teams, light dancing, heavy dancing and a little bit of theory and Irish. Think of it like going up belts in martial arts.
 
Importantly, if you haven’t done a Grade before, you’ll be doing Grade 1. THIS IS INTENDED FOR BEGINNERS – so please don’t think that just because you’re relatively new to dancing you won’t be able to do it. You will and we’ll make sure you do.
 
So, this means things will work a little differently. Please note these changes are only for this block – everything goes back to how it was after this one.
 
Your options for this block are:
    1) Book onto this block and don’t do the exam
This is no problem to do and we’ll be delighted to have you join us. Just be aware that, particularly in the final weeks, the focus will really be in drilling this for the people who are going to do the exams. That said, this can be a good thing and some people prefer a more hyper focused class. You can also opt in to doing the exam if after five or six weeks you feel you are up for it!
 
2) Book onto this block and do the exam
Brilliant! This is a challenge but one we’ll guide you through (as we did with the 17 people who did it with us previously!). The exams will take place on Saturday 20th May in Morton Community Centre, with two Grade Examiners. If you have done Grade Exams before with a dancing teacher and would like to continue from where you left off, please let us know as soon as possible. More details on class set up a little further down.
 
3) Skip this block and join in for the next one
If you’d prefer to skip this block, our next one will be back to our usual slightly more relaxed classes as we then prefer for our summer céilí (date TBC). 
 
How will classes work?
Classes in this block will be 1 hour and 30 minutes long and there will be only one class on a Tuesday night and one on a Wednesday night. These classes will also be broken into the different Grades groupings, with Grades 1 and 4 on a Tuesday night and Grades 2, 3 and 5 on a Wednesday night. This is because covering all grades on all nights would be impossible so we sincerely apologise to anyone this rules out. If you miss your night as a once off you can come along and practise independently on the other night that week (we’ll do our best to help when we can!)
 
All of the content for all of the Grades has been recorded for home practise on our YouTube account on a private playlist. This was done across several nights of recording by us during the period we’ve been off and kindly uploaded by Clare (thanks Clare!)
 
Classes are also more expensive for this block (£9 per class, but it will go back to the usual £7 afterwards) – in part because the classes are longer, we expect fewer people and it requires a fair bit of pre planning. If anyone feels they genuinely can’t afford this block but would sincerely like to do it, please drop us a DM.
 
Grade 1 will require pumps if you are doing the exam. Grades 2 and up will require treble shoes; please contact us before going and buying any.
 
Finally, this block will run for 7 weeks, allowing plenty of time to get prepared for the Grades.
 
We think that’s everything! Grades really are a great opportunity to push yourself and to absorb some of the fundamentals of Irish dancing, whether you’re doing that as a beginner at Grade 1 or considering picking up again at Grade 5. Either way, thanks for being part of the SBIDA fam and we’ll hopefully see you all soon.
 

BOOK ON FOR YOUR GRADES HERE.

 
 

SBIDA Update 2023

Welcome back! Bookings are now open for our next block of classes 😊 This upcoming block we will be focusing on the hornpipe, beginner, intermediate and advanced, as well as plenty of new team dances.

You will find our (rough) plan for the entire year on our website soon, but the bullet points for the first few upcoming blocks are:

  • Block 1: Hornpipe and new team dance (17th Jan – 15th Feb). BOOK NOW LINK.
  • Block 2: GRADES (28th Feb – 23rd March, Exams on Sat 25th March) MESSAGE TO CONFIRM INTEREST ON FB OR EMAIL.
  • Block 3: Céilí Routine (Tues 28th March – 10th May, Céilí on Sat 13th May) Booking available from April.

 

Block 1: Hornpipe and teams

As always, we’ll be teaching beginner, intermediate and advanced routines for the hornpipe. Book on now via BookWhen.

 

Block 2: Grades. What the heck are they?

We’ll be offering the opportunity to do grade exams in our second block. There are 10 grades in Irish Dancing and everyone must start at Grade 1, unless you’ve done grades previously*. You also have the option of signing up for this block and learning all the grade material but not doing the exam.

Grades involve a series of solo and team performances in front of a grade examiner, as well as a short interview in which you will be questioned on some Irish. You do not need to be able to speak Irish, nor do you need to have been dancing for years. Grade 1 is designed for beginners. Speaking of which, we ran Grade exams in 2020 and were delighted to end up with around 24 people learning the grade routines and 17 doing exams, all of whom passed!

Where often we say you don’t need to practise at home for our class, grades we do. If you would like to consider doing grades, please message us and we’ll fill you in. If you are especially enthusiastic, you can do up to two grades at once.

*We cannot do grades for anyone still part of a competitive dancing school

 

Price Change

Class prices will be going up to £7 per class for the Belfast classes in 2023. This is due to a combination of an increase in insurance, hall and travel costs.

SBIDA Hoodies

If anyone is still waiting on their SBIDA hoodie, they will be given out at the first week of the next block. If you have ordered a hoodie but won’t be in the next block please message us and we’ll arrange a meet up!

Trip in 2023

We love travelling! Here’s a SUPER short poll that will help us decide what to put our energies into organising, most likely for August time. You can also feedback on what you’d like to see different in class.

That’s all for now – we can’t wait to see what 2023 brings us 😊

Much love,

The Teaching Crew

Belfast Multi Cultural Association Presentation Céilí Night

Following our recent céilí in The Points Bar, Belfast, SBIDA presented £500 to Belfast Multi Cultural Association following a visit to their premises. Their new site has been victim to arson attacks on two occasions now, and the money is intended to go some way towards benefitting the BMCA’s food and furniture bank’s good work.

Special thank you to Ali for showing us all around!

 

Belfast Céilí Night – Friday 13th May 2022

We’re running our first official SBIDA céilí in over two years this Friday 13th May in the Points Bar, Belfast.

SBIDA céilís are a night all about fun, dancing and great music; all while meeting some lovely new people!

Money raised from the night will go towards the Belfast Multi-Cultural Association. Buy your tickets here and for more information on the event, see our Facebook event.

Ceili 2022

 

South Belfast Irish Dancing for Adults – March 2022 Update

It’s that time of the year!

Hi everyone!

A few exciting things to tell you about. As ever, we’re conscious of flooding WhatsApp of Facebook messenger with information, so this is a nice spot to be able to go into a little more detail. As always, you can message any of us individually if you have any queries or concerns.

Next Block of Classes

Classes resume the week beginning Monday 21st March andwill continue to run on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with class times being 7pm and 8:05pm on each night. The upcoming block will run for 6 weeks, with a week off in the middle for the Easter holidays;

  1. Week of 21st March
  2. Week of 28th March
  3. Week of 4th April | WEEK OF 11TH APRIL = EASTER HOLIDAY WEEK |
  4. Week of 18th April
  5. Week of 25th April
  6. Week of 2nd May

Class sizes will be increasing in all classes in line with Covid guidance, however they will still be kept well below pre-Covid sizes. There will also be the option of bounce classes; 2 places held in each class which people with shift work can drop into at any time.

Booking for a normal block of classes will now cost £6 per class for the 6 weeks and booking a bouncespot will cost £7. This is to factor in holding spots in classes that may not necessarily be taken. Payment must be made prior to the block beginning.

New to SBIDA?

Some of the SBIDA squad at Belfast Culture Night 2019

SBIDA is more than an Irish dancing class. We aspire to build an authentic and friendly community, that reaches out to benefit it’s own wider community, all while learning and creating exciting and fun opportunities. We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have the most amazing people come through our doors over the years and we’d love you to join us. To do so, please sign up here.

PLEASE NOTE – If you are new to SBIDA and have messaged or emailed, be sure to add ‘sbida16@gmail.com’ to your safe senders list and check back on Facebook to see if we have replied to your Facebook message. We often send replies which are then subsequently missed which makes everybody sad 😊

SBIDA’s Next Ceili

We are hoping to run our first ceili in over 2 years on, provisionally, Friday 13th May in the Points Bar. We’ll have more information about this soon, but allow yourself to get excited – our ceili nights are legendary!

She’s talking to you, you should probably get out and dance

Resumption of Teams

In this next block we’re really keen to start ceili team dancing again. Teams are a huge part of the SBIDA experience and one we’ve held off resuming again until we feel the moment is right. After consultation with medical experts, waiting until well after government guidance has changed and with a rigid hygiene procedure in place, we feel now is the right time to resume teams.

We hope to ease into teams, choosing those which don’t involve dancing with multiple partners; but equally we want to ensure you feel comfortable in class. We’d really appreciate if you could take this anonymous survey and let us know if you would feel comfortable dancing teams again – if a sizeable minority aren’t, then we’ll likely hold off for another block.

St. Patrick’s Day

We have a number of events coming up over next week with St. Patrick’s Day, including a ceili and performance with care home residents, an online lesson to children’s hospitals around the world and a few performances from ourselves that will be streamed on our Facebook page.

Speaking of St. Patrick’s Day, check out our video from last year!

Greece

Our dancers will be aware that we have ambitions of travelling to Greece at some stage over the next year to put on an Irish festival. Teachers Clare and Ethan are actually travelling over to Athens next week to be a part of the Irish Greek Society’s St. Patrick’s Day ball and hopefully planning things for the wider group’s arrival later in the year.

T-shirts order

We are running another t-shirt and hoodies order. T-shirts are £10 and come in green or blue (can see examples of both here). Hoodies can also be seen on our Facebook page, where you can see some of the SBIDA fam proudly wearing theirs.

If you would like one of either, please email sbida16@gmail.com for information on sizing.

Share the love

Been going to class and enjoying it? We’d love if you could give us some feedback! Drop us a review on our Facebook page and we’ll owe you a high five. Also, feel free to sign up to our newsletter if you haven’t already done so. Don’t worry, we promise not to spam your inbox – we only ever send around 4 newsletters per year.

Thanks for reading!

Clare, Donna, Ethan and Linda

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