Twenty-five young dancers from Drogheda’s Starlight Academy, travelled to Braga in Portugal recently to compete in the Dance World Cup and have returned as local heroes one and all.
Altogether there were 7,500 dancers from 53 countries competing in Braga, with more than 60 contestants in each category.
The Drogheda girls did their club, their town and their country so proud. They all placed in the top 14 so there are now 25 Dance World Cup champions in Starlight.
The highest score was achieved by the youngest finalist, Caitlyn Thornton (6) who placed an amazing 6th with her acro solo ‘The Snake.’
She was so good that Caitlyn’s new nickname is “the Irish Snake!”
The second highest scoring soloist was Emily Rock, who placed 10th in her acro solo.
Starlight’s acro teams ‘Aladdin’ ‘Snow White’ and ‘The Wizard of Oz’ placed 8th, 11th and 14th respectively.
Starlight Dance Academy, which is based in Aston Village, was established two years ago by mother and daughter team Linda and Shelly O’Connor who between them have 50 years of dance teaching experience.
In January they put out an appeal for sponsorship from local businesses to help cover the costs of travelling to and staying in Braga for the Dance World Cup.
Today they expressed their sincere thank to the Starlight families and friends and the local businesses who came on board with sponsorship us to get the dancers there.
Starlight Academy are now registering dancers for our new term. Please contact Linda on 086 2646 777 for more information.
