Joe O'Donnell Bitter wins the world Irish dance championship
16 Apr 2008
For the second consecutive year 14 year old Catherine de Barnes resident, Joe O'Donnell Bitter won the world Irish dance championship March 24 2008 at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast.
To retain his world title, Joe practiced year round for up to 18 hours per week at dance class and at home. With the pressure on to retain his world title and come close to the perfect score of 700 points in 2007 he again gave an outstanding performance gaining a total score of 625 points out of 700 possible points from judges from Chicago, Ireland, UK and Australia. He beat out 44 boys from UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada and America. All boys need first qualify in their regional championships to dance at the world championships. In addition to his solo championship win, Joe's 16 hand figure choreography also clinched the world title the following day.
Originating from San Francisco CA, Joe began dancing at age 7 and moved to Solihull 4 years ago where he is currently year 9 at Solihull School. Joe studies dance with one of the world's best known dancers, John Carey. John, an 8 time world champion and former lead of Lord of the Dance took over the Danny Doherty Academy last year to continue his dancer's success such as he achieved at a young age whilst under the direction of Danny.
To date, Joe has won 22 National titles from around the globe. Competing with boys in his age group from around the world he continues to retain most if not all national and world titles since the tender age of 8 when he won his first championship, The Great Britain's.
Joe's sister, Caroline a former Solihull School student and now attending St. Andrews University, inspired Joe at a young age to begin dancing when she too became a championship dancer and retained the world title in the Senior girls figure choreography in 2006.
Back to News Headlines