COVID-19 Advisory

Friday 7th January 2022

Updated information

All teachers at Pacific Irish Dance are fully vaccinated.
It is a requirement of any dancer aged 18 and over to be fully vaccinated to attend our dance studios in Sunbury and North Melbourne and will be required to show proof of vaccination upon entry.
Please do not attend any class if a dancer or a person in their household tests positive to Covid-19 or displays any flu-like symptoms including coughs, aches and pains, shortness of breath. Dancers may join via our class Zoom link.
Please familiarise yourself with our full Covid-19 Dance Safe Guide here

Sunday 1st November 2020

Updated Information

Subject to Victorian Government announcements, Pacific Irish Dance plans to return to face-to-face classes from 9th November 2020
Class schedules will be available once conditions of the next stage have been announced.
Subject to class capacity and in line with any restrictions, we will be accepting new dancer enquiries from 9th November 2020.

Sunday 22nd March 2020

Updated Information

All classes will be suspended from and including Tuesday 24th March 2020.
Sunfest performance is cancelled
The AIDA Victoria March Feis has been cancelled
We will provide updates regarding competitions as they come to hand.

Many of you would now be aware that the Victorian Government has introduced new measures to deter the spread of Covid-19 including bringing forward the school holidays and the implementation of a shutdown to all non-essential businesses. This is something that Jared, Samarah and I have been monitoring closely. We understand that this will be a challenging time for many of our dancing families and we hope to be able to provide support in a number of ways during this time.

Irish Dancing has been fundamental to our lives for 25 years so you can be confident that we will be keeping it alive, even if it is in a virtual environment. What we do know is that our school aged dancers are going to have a lot of time on their hands and we are in a position to offer activities that can help keep them training and occupied during this time.

Classes are suspended from Tuesday, 24th March onwards. We will advise when classes will resume. At this time, not before Tuesday, 14th April 2020.

VIRTUAL LEARNING

We have given much thought to the virtual learning environment that we would like to provide our dancers of all levels. Essentially, we will be preparing online content exclusively for our dancers targeting their specific level and experience. We will need a little time to get this organised, however, we are clear with a way forward. Including:

Pre-recorded classes of 30-40 minute duration dancers will be able to do in their own time
Set practice plans for all levels with incentives
Irish dancing related activities - this may include colour-in competitions, research tasks and choreography challenges
Weekly training plans
Set exercise tasks for each level
Virtual hours to provide feedback

AT HOME PRACTICE SPACE

Now more than ever it is essential that your dancer has an area they can practice. The bigger the space you can set aside the more your dancer can do - a garage is great. However, a lounge room normally does the job as well!

Hard shoe dancers will need at least a ply-wood board to practice on.

To create a space more permanently you will need the all/some of the following items:

Eva 50 x 50cm interlock foam mats - enough to cover the area you want to make a dance floor. This provides some cushioning to a concrete or hard floor.
Plywood Floor - enough to cover the area you want to make a dance floor. Should be 12mm - 17mm thickness.
Double sided tape and Duct tape to secure to floor and tape down plywood.
Pond Liner - This works in the same way as lino to create a non-slip surface and dulls the sound. This can also be purchased to place over existing floor boards you may have inside your home.

TECHNOLOGY

Our virtual learning environment will be delivered in private Facebook Groups targeted to each level and our video link will be Google Meet.

PARENT INFORMATION SESSION

We will host our first video conference information session for parents on Wednesday, 25th March at 6pm. Please join via the link email to you or contact us to get this resetn.

Wednesday 18th March 2020

Updated Information

Precautionary guidelines remain in place for all dancers and families as per advisory on 13th March 2020
Wednesday classes at North Melbourne will not run until further notice
Monday, Tuesday and Saturday class will continue as scheduled
Sunfest performance is cancelled
The AIDA Victoria March Feis has been cancelled
All other competitions will continue as scheduled at this stage

AIDA Victoria has made the decision to cancel the March Feis originally scheduled for 29th March 2020:

Given the current global health situation, the health and safety of our dancers and families are of the utmost importance to us and we do not want to risk the well-being of anybody attending a competition.

The decision to cancel the March Feis was not an easy one and was made with all of our students, teachers and spectators in mind.

The organisation will be refunding all entry fees in full. It may take us a few days to process all of these for those dancers that were entered, but you can expect to see this back in your account that was used to pay for the entry in the coming week.

Monday 16th March 2020

Updated Information

Precautionary guidelines remain in place for all dancers and families as per advisory on 13th March 2020
Wednesday classes at North Melbourne will not run until further notice
Monday, Tuesday and Saturday class will continue as scheduled
All St Patrick’s Day performances are cancelled
Sunfest performance is cancelled
Competitions will continue as scheduled

We have been informed that the management team at Ministry of Dance have made the decision to close all studios in their North Melbourne facility, effective Tuesday 17th March 2020, for two weeks. After this period they will further evaluate the situation and make any required decisions.

As a result of this, we will be ceasing Wednesday evening classes normally scheduled at Ministry of Dance for the next two weeks. This includes a Championship and Adult class. We will also make a decision regarding the status of these classes after this period.

Friday 13th March 2020

Key Information

We are advising a number of precautionary guidelines that all dancers and families should apply immediately
Classes will continue as scheduled
All St Patrick’s Day performances are cancelled
Sunfest performance is cancelled
Competitions will continue as scheduled

The health and safety of all dancers and families of Pacific Irish Dance are of the utmost importance to us as a teaching group and we felt it was important to put in place a number of precautionary measures and scheduling updates relating to the activities of the school in light of the recent developments in the global response to the Corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Scheduled Classes

At this time, classes will continue as scheduled.

It is important to keep in mind that our class locations are both operated by third parties that may be impacted at any time. At short notice, one or both of our locations may decide to close to external hire. If for any reason our locations become unavailable, we will provide an immediate update in relation to relocating or ceasing classes as may be necessary.

To reduce the risk to dancers, families and to us as teachers, we would ask all of you to review and implement the following guidelines immediately:

Dancers, parents and teachers attending any class should remain vigilant and follow proper hygiene practices at all times including regularly washing hands before, during and after any classes for 30 seconds or more and avoid touching door handles and other hard surfaces after hand washing.
Please do not attend any class if you have any flu-like symptoms including coughs, aches and pains, shortness of breath, sneezing etc.
Please do not attend any class if you have recently been in contact with any person displaying flu-like symptoms or who has been formally diagnosed with COVID-19.
Please do not attend any class if a dancer’s school, sibling’s school or parent’s workplace has been closed in response to a reported case of COVID-19.
Please do not attend any class for a period of 14 days after return from any overseas travel to any country.
We will be temporarily suspending parents observing classes with the exception of our beginner classes on Tuesday and Saturday where only an immediate family member may stay.
In the unlikely event a dancer or family member that has attended a class is diagnosed or suspected to have COVID-19 or has come in contact with a person diagnosed with COVID-19, please notify teachers immediately at office@pacificirishdance.com.
Dancers are asked to limit any physical contact with other dancers while in class and also to ensure they are covering their mouth if sneezing or coughing with a tissue or the crook of their elbow.
Please follow the advisory directions from any Australian or Victorian government authority or the World Health Organisation (WHO) on this matter.

St Patrick’s Day and Sunfest Performances

We have decided that it is in the best interests of the dancers, families and teachers of Pacific Irish Dance to cancel all scheduled public performances for St Patrick’s Day in 2020. There will be no performances on Tuesday, 17th March 2020.

We did not come to this decision lightly, but we recognised that the locations of many of the performances we had on the agenda posed an increased risk to those in attendance (both from the school and in the audience).

In addition, the Sunfest performance scheduled for the 21st March 2020 has been cancelled by the organisers.

Please note: There was a scheduled rehearsal for these performances scheduled for Sunday, 15th March 2020 10:30am - 12:30pm. At this stage, we will proceed with these classes but with a modified schedule. We will advise on the update as soon as possible.

Competitions

We ask all dancers and families to follow the same guidelines outlined above for classes when attending any competition. This includes not attending if exposed to or displaying flu-like symptoms or have recently travelled. We would also recommend arriving at the venue only at the advised times and limiting the time spent in the venue as much as possible.

At this stage, all competitions scheduled for the coming month are proceeding. We will inform all competing dancers and their families of any notified changes or cancellations.

It is important that we come together as a community to reduce the risk to all of us. It is also important that we take care of each other as we enter a very unusual time. Many families may be impacted with major changes to schools, workplaces and public life in general and might need some additional support. Please do not hesitate to reach out to each other or us if there is anything you need.

We will provide further updates if the situation develops or if any of the above information changes.