Aramco Irish Dancers Perform in Qatar's Bid for 2016 Olympics
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Author: Fiona Melia
Released 2 November 2007
DesertDance, a group of Irish dancers, all working for Saudi Aramco, traveled to Doha on October 24 to perform in Qatar’s spectacular opening ceremony to its bid for the 2016 Olympic Games. After their stunning success in hosting last year’s Asian Games, Qatar hopes to defeat 6 rival countries for the right to host the Olympics after the London Games.
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, Crown Prince of the tiny Gulf state and head of its Olympic committee, presided over the cultural extravaganza on Doha’s corniche, where groups of dancers and musicians from 8 nations performed on 5 stages located at various points along the seafront. Fireworks completed the spectacle, which compared to the opening of the Asian Games last December.
DesertDance was formed in 1999 by Pat Caulfield, a Saudi Aramco teacher, who has been an avid Irish dancer and musician throughout his youth. The rest of the group, all female (Irish male dancers are few and far between here in Arabia!), come from different parts of the Emerald Isle and UK. DesertDance made their debut in 1999 at the Abu Dhabi Irish Oyster Festival, and since then, have performed at various events in countless locations here in the Kingdom and in Bahrain.
The highlights for DesertDance in 2007 were; performing at the long established Bahrain Irish Society’s St. Patrick’s Day Ball to an audience of 650 people, and in Qatar’s 2016 Olympic Bid.
Members of DesertDance are as follows; Pat Caulfield, Thereze Ward, Fiona Melia, Fiona Myers, Deirdre Lynch, Roisin O’Donovan, Colette Maguire, Teresa Wilson, Connie Flynn, Christine Cullen and Patricia Banville.