Dancer qualifies for world competition

Like many other world-class athletes, Aileen Laughlin trains nearly every day of the week, lifts weights, does intensive cardio workouts, and teases with her teammates about whose calf muscles are bigger. Unlike other global competitors, however, she also wears wigs for her competitions, wigs with copious corkscrew curls at that.

Laughlin, 21, is a competitive Irish dancer from Spokane Valley who recently qualified for the World Irish Dance Championships, to be held in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in March. A member of the local An Daire dance school, qualifying for Worlds has been a long-held goal of Laughlin’s. Her instructor, Portland-based Jim Mueller, says, “This was really the culmination of years of hard work on her part.”

Laughlin also describes the achievement as climatic. Hearing that she was one of 13 dancers from the Western region to qualify for the international competition was, she says, “probably one of my favorite moments of all time.”

Mueller says she is not only particularly talented, but consistent as well, due largely to a stellar work ethic. “Aileen’s one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met. She’s wonderfully focused. She’s really not afraid to go for what she wants and to work for it.”

At Worlds, Laughlin will be one of 4,000 dancers from 15 different countries, including places as far flung as South Africa and New Zealand. There, she’ll compete against 150 others in the 20-and-over age group at the Open level, the highest level of competition. Local dancer Allie Lewis will also join her at World’s in the 18 and under competition.

At the competition, all dancers will perform one hard-shoe routine followed by one soft-shoe routine alongside one other competitor to the same pre-determined piece of music, but with different choreography. Then, program judges recall a fraction of the dancers to dance a third and final round, always a hard-shoe routine which the dancer performs by her or himself to self-selected music. After that third round, judges announce the final placements.

For most Americans, knowledge of Irish dancing doesn’t go much beyond an image of the incessantly bobbing fawn-like Michael Flatley. While she appreciates the exposure Riverdance has given to the sport, Laughlin says the performance show can be a bit repetitive.

Competitive Irish dancing, on the other hand, she says is “very athletic,” stressing precise dancing to the rhythms and sounds of the music and involving much more height, kicking and leaps. In the soft-shoe competition, for example, Laughlin says she and other dancers jump so high that their legs are extended a full four feet above and in a horizontal parallel to the floor.

Now that she’s reached her goal of qualifying for Worlds, Laughlin says she’ll focus on getting recalled at Worlds and landing in the top five at next year’s regional competition.

In Belfast, Laughlin will be dancing at the highest levels of competition. “It’s an enormous honor,” for Laughlin to dance at World’s, says Mueller. “I definitely think Aileen’s up to the task.”

Wig and all.