The next dance we learned was Antics. Another simple dance that was a crowd pleaser. This one unlike the majority of the others however had both senior and new members interacting throughout the whole dance. Because of this Antics was often used as an opening number so the audience could see everyone at once in a fun dance then get to see us individually and in different groups as we did the other harder numbers.

Antics is essentially two groups, the tall group, mostly made of the senior members due to being taller because of age, and the short group which was mostly made of new members. The tall groups become an archway for the small group to go through. It has many weaving movements including a figure eight before splitting off into a reel step about. (in the video above I can be seen doing the first step of the prelim reel, it was my first time doing it outside of practice.) Then the dance finishes with everyone in sync again. This is one of the few dances that has a bow with everyone holding hands.

This dance actually put a lot of stress on everyone learning it because of the shapes we were to make. Figure eights are a lot more complicated than they look. Everything had to be timed perfectly right or else it ended in a collision of human dominos. One wrong move during it, being one second too late or too early, and the entire dance turned from graceful to a mess! Everyone had to be aware of everyone. It was like our vision had to turn from human to barreleye fish.

This dance also proved to put a lot of stress on my feet. The constant spins and circular movements put a lot of pressure on my ankles that normally wasn't there. This caused me to be the reason for the human dominoes on more than one occasion as I was forced to stop moving due to my feet giving out from under me.

After a few times of this happening Lauren pulled me aside and asked why I wasn't walking it. After expressing her exasperation due to my not knowing what "walking it" meant she explained. I would do the dance with my hands and walk in my place instead of dancing it. Thus taking away the pressure from my feet. So I could still learn my position in the dance and the steps without injuring myself and possibly others.

After that I started walking dances a lot more. Because of that I was no longer leaving every dance class limping and I was learning the dances much faster as I was no longer focused on ignoring the pain. Ironically focusing on ignoring the pain is actually more painful than focusing on the pain. Because of this I was able to take care of myself better and support the team better as I wasn't forced to be side lined every few dances.

Dutta, Sanjib, director. Beoga - Antics St. Patrick's Day Irish Dance in North Vancouver, Canada. Youtube, 17 Mar. 2018, youtu.be/T5EkmymPIos.

(while this is not the right year the dance never changed, only the amount of people doing it at one time did)