An Irish dance troupe brought some St. Patrick's day spirit to the Rotary Performing Arts Centre this weekend.

The Backbeat Irish dancers had two performances Saturday ahead of the Irish holiday.

Backbeat trains and performs through the Possak Hampshire Academy. Ali Hampshire, Artistic Director for the Okotoks academy, says the Backbeat dancers are the academy's most accomplished dancers.

"The troupe is made up of our elite, high-level competitors. All of these dancers are qualified to dance at the North American Irish Dance Championships, and two of them are also qualified to dance at the World championships," Hampshire said.

The funds raised from the performances will go towards travel expenses for the dancers to attend the competitions.

While the Possak Hampshire Academy focuses their training on competitions, they try to help their dancers develop a variety of skills.

Generally, Irish dance kind of has two streams. The competitive stream, and our dancers compete locally, nationally, and internationally. And then you have a performance stream as well. And so we try to balance both. Our primary focus tends to be on competition. But also creating well-rounded dancers so they're not just good competitors, they're also good performers," Hampshire said.

The North American Irish Dance Championships will take place in Vancouver in July. The World Irish Dance Championships will take place in Greensboro, North Carolina in April.

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