Payton Scudder, 12, of Aquebogue started dancing at the Vernon Academy of Irish Dance when she was 4 1/2 because she loved dancing and wanted to honor her heritage.
“Most people who Irish step dance, you’re doing it for a couple of reasons,” said Payton’s mother, Virginia. “Payton got into it for cultural reasons. My husband’s dad and his mom they’re Irish.”
Her dedication to dance paid off two weeks ago when Payton and three other peers from the Mattituck-based dance academy won big at the World Championships of Irish Step Dancing in Athlone, Ireland.
Noelle Stevenson, 13, and Kate Foley, 18 also participated along with Evan Huber, 13,
The three girls placed second in the world in their categories. Payton participated in the 12 and under category, Noelle in the 15 and under group and Kate in the 15 and over group.
“My face lit up when I heard,” Payton said. “I wasn’t going to look at the scores. I was going to hide my face until I got up on stage and figure it out, but it was amazing.”
Kyleen Vernon Lademann, the owner of the academy, said the dancers prepared for the competition through a lot of practicing, including two extra three-to-four-hour practices on Sundays prior to the competition.
“They’ve been at it for years,” Ms. Vernon Lademann said. “Really, I mean, these kids are dancing in the kitchen, and they’re dancing in the supermarket, they’re dancing everywhere, so they’re in constant preparation.”
She added the team was the only one from this area and one of only a few from the United States.
Apart from making the North Fork proud, they represented all of the United States in a big way.
“It was just a really exciting time,” she said. “I’m so proud of them, and they had a great time, which is what means the most to me and then to top it off, they came home winning,”
The competition took place Oct. 22-23. The academy only started competing in 2016, Ms. Vernon Lademann said. They first participated in the world championships in 2018 and this was their first trip back to Ireland since 2019.
Evan, who placed fifth, participated in the world championships in Dublin in 2019 and liked going back to see different parts of the country.
“It’s a really fun thing to do,” the Riverhead teen said. “It helps you just see another part of the country.”
For Noelle, it was the first time participating in the competition.
“We’re such a small dance studio,” she said. “We’re going all this way and it’s a huge competition, so it means a lot. Especially with world honors.”
The group, minus Kate, who was away at college, and other students from the academy danced for the first time since their return from the competition at the North Fork Country Kids Rescue’s Pawloween costume ball and awards ceremony at Jamesport Farm Brewery on Saturday night. They delighted the audience with an Irish step dance twist on Micheal Jackson’s “Thriller.”
Ms. Vernon Lademann said since the academy is an open platform school and she is open to participating in any competition the students want to.
“So whatever they want to do that we’re eligible for they can do,” she said. “We just keep training for the next thing, as well as performances like this, where we go out to the community and do recreational Irish dancing just for the fun of it and the culture and art of it.”
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