Elsa Young, 16, a longtime Davis resident and a junior at Da Vinci High School, is competing in the North American Irish Dance Championships in Chicago this weekend.

She qualified by winning the requisite two separate first-place overall finishes in the preliminary champion category in Northern California events over the past year, and has earned the distinction of being an open champion, which is the highest level of competition in Irish dance and qualifies her to enter the North American Championships.

Young began her Irish dance training at age 7, after being enthralled by the Trinity Irish Dance Company at a Mondavi Center performance at UC Davis that she attended as a first-grade class field trip. She enrolled in recreational Irish dance classes at the Davis Art Center under teacher Shirleigh Brannon, which she continued for four years.

At age 11, she began working with Annie and Eileen McBride, a mother-daughter coaching team of the McBride School of Irish Dance, which has trained competitive Irish dancers in the Bay Area for 45 years. Shirleigh Brannon is a prior student of Annie McBride as well.

Young also has had intermittent ballet, tap dance and gymnastics training in Davis through the Davis Art Center, Julie Curry, Pamela Trokanski, Lisa Applegate and Davis Diamond Gymnastics. She gives a special thanks as well to longtime Irish fiddlers Sean O’Brien and Doug Lowder, affiliated with the Davis Art Center and the McBride School ,respectively.

The top 20 to 25 percent of dancers at the North American Championships will qualify to compete at the Irish Dance World Championships, scheduled for spring 2013 in Boston.

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Sixteen-year-old Elsa Young of Davis was inspired to learn Irish dancing after she saw the Trinity Irish Dance Company perform at the Mondavi Center during a first-grade class field trip. Courtesy photo

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