Irish Dance Petition

An Coimisiun has ruled that as of January 2009, all

dancers in Under 18 and over must wear black tights

in competition.

 In order to express to An Coimisiun and its regional bodies our disappointment with this new ruling, an internet based petition is being organised. In order to sign, please follow these simple steps:

1. Go to http://www.gopetition.com/online/16568.html and sign your name, age group, oireachtas region, country and email in the required spaces. You can choose to keep your email and name private from the public if you wish.

2. Encourage your friends from your dance studio and local competition to sign up too. Parents, teachers and friends may also sign. The more signatures, the better! Don't forget to give them the URL.

3. The last day for signatures is 31st March 2008. You can check our progress at the above website at any time.

6. Once this date has passed, Irish Dance Petition will email and print the petition and distribute it to the relevant bodies of An Coimisiun, including its head office in Dublin. If you would like a copy of the finished petition emailed to a particular regional director, please contact irishdancepetition(at)hotmail.com.

•  We love our poodle socks and feel that they identify us as Irish Dancers. We don't want to have to be different just because we're older. Our issue is that we have been singled out as a small group and have been given no choice, whilst everyone else can continue as they wish. We feel that this is unfair and that we should be able to choose what suits us best.

• We also wish to point out:

• Tights can be very hot and uncomfortable especially in warmer climates, can cause irritation and rashes on some dancers and would often need to be pulled up, a very unflattering picture with our dress style.
• • For health reasons tights are not designed to be worn during exercise. In fact it can be very bad for a dancer's health due to infections.
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  • Poodle Socks allow for better definition of the movements of the dancer's feet and legs.
  • Black tights simply do not go with most of our current dance costumes. Many of us senior dancers pay our own way through Irish dance, and being forced to buy a new costume whilst our current, perfectly good costumes will be unable to be sold could well be unaffordable for many.
  • Our shoes have been bought and stretched to fit with thick cotton socks. Dancers will need to replace shoes, another big and unnecessary cost to the senior dancer
  • As senior Irish dancers we feel that we are being targeted as needing to become more 'modest.' We view this ruling as disrespectful towards our ability to make appropriate costuming choices by ourselves.
  • We also feel that singling out Under 18 and over as 'too old to wear socks' also translates on some levels as 'getting too old to dance so competitively.' Any ruling regarding costuming should only be imposed on under a certain age category rather than over a certain age category.
  • Wearing tights with hardshoes is utterly impractical. The sharp fiberglass would cause ladders and snags extremely easily which would look unprofessional and untidy. Changing costume would also be made very difficult.
  • Tights are also very slippery in hardshoes, and make the feet sweat more. There could be reason to suggest unfair advantage for younger dancers dancing against older dancers affected by the ruling.
  • Having to wear tights will mark senior dancers as 'senior' in multi-age competitions.
  • An Coimisiun should focus on enforcing skirt length rather than trying to take away the problem.
  • As Senior dancers we would hope that An Coimisiun would respect us enough to simply give us a choice of what we wear on our legs.