Students stepping up for college dance off

UCC Dance is delighted to be hosting the National Dance Intervarsities 2023 at Cork Opera House today.

The event will see up to 500 dancers from 12 third level institutes take the stage of Cork Opera House to compete in five competitions – contemporary, Irish, jazz, hip-hop and mixed piece.

“The club captains and their ‘Inters’ sub-committee have also worked tirelessly over the last few months to ensure that Dance Intervarsities 2023 is the biggest and best yet,” a spokesperson said. “This year’s mixed piece competition will see ATU Donegal compete for the very first time.”

Each category will be judged by a panel of three independent judges with first second and third prizes all up for grabs. There will also be a Best Performer award and Choreography award for each competition.

Contemporary will be the first competition of the day, kicking off at 10am. There are 10 colleges entered in this category who will perform in front of Meagan Hoare, Trish Roche and Aileen Coffey. The next competition of the morning is the Irish category which has eight colleges entered. Paul McCabe, Michelle Lawrence and Mary McCarthy, all renowned dancers and teachers in their own right, will judge these competitors.

The final competition before a brief interval will be the Jazz Category. Nine college teams will perform for Suzanne O’Leary, Ali Reville and Christina Murphy who will decide their favourites. The Hip-Hop competition is one of the highlights of the day with 11 colleges fighting it out for the coveted Hip-Hop shield. Tobi Omoteso, Oskarina O’Sullivan and Laura Keane will have the responsibility of picking the stand-out performers in this category. This will be followed by the mixed piece category which is the final competition of the day.

Meagan, Paul and Oskarina will return once again to judge this category, which will see six colleges combine different styles together for an energetic seven-minute performance.

This competition provides an opportunity for dancers of different styles to unite forces and perform to an arrangement of tracks which usually follow a set theme. The results of all categories will be announced shortly after the mixed piece competition.