Irish dance competition in Philadelphia will send qualifiers to championships

When your great-granduncle is the man many consider a godfather of Irish dance in the United States, a sloppy slip-jig is out of the question.

So 11-year-old Olivia Tuma of Merion Station twirled, kicked, and tapped Sunday on a stage at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown with such precision that even a bump from a high-stepping competitor couldn't break her concentration.

"I didn't run into her, she ran into me," Tuma said as she bent down to kiss her uncle, Peter Smith, the 80-something cofounder of the Irish Dance Teachers Association of North America.

Tuma was one of thousands of young people who vied for the top spots Friday through Sunday in the annual dance competition sponsored by the Mid-Atlantic chapter of the national group.

Qualifiers - who had yet to be fully announced Sunday evening - will represent the United States in the World Irish Dancing Championships, to be held in April in Dublin, Ireland.

About 3,000 dancers ages 5 to 25 from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York competed in the regional championships.

Boys in black pants with neon-colored vests and girls wearing the customary ringlet hairpieces and brightly colored costumes performed dances perfected after years of lessons.

The stiff position of the arms and upper body contrasted with the furious movement of the legs and feet.

Riley Dolan, 11, of Broomall, has been dancing since she jumped on stage to join a group of cousins performing at family party. She was 31/2 years old.

Like many families, the Dolans passed down the tradition of Irish dancing long before the theatrical show Riverdance made the style popular in the mid-1990s.

Olivia Tuma's father, Gary; brother; grandmother; great-grandmother; and great-granduncle have all danced.

"The reality for us is that this is about family and heritage," said Gary Tuma, a plastic surgeon who began dancing when he was 4.

Olivia travels three or four times a week to take lessons at her great-granduncle's dance school in South Amboy, N.J. She has danced in the world championships and at international competitions in Scotland and England. The family spends close to $20,000 annually on costumes, lessons, traveling, and competitions, Gary Tuma said.

Irish dancing also runs in the family of another competitor, Nicholas Paulson, but his mother had to bribe him with a $5 bill to get him to try a class when he was 6.

"It stuck," said Paulson, 17, who lives in Wilmington and studies at the Broesler School of Irish Dance in Haddonfield.

Paulson, who has won national and international competitions, said there is much pressure.

"Everyone is counting on you to do as well as you usually do," he said. "It's hard to deal with that."

Parents try to shield their children from the politics and squabbles that they say are more characteristic of the grown-ups off stage than the young dancers.

Paulson focuses on the competition. His dream is a world championship, but his mother, Eileen, a teacher and former competitive dancer, believes the long list of victories will eventually become secondary.

"He's going to realize that the journey was the most important thing," Eileen Paulson said. "That's the true trophy."