Me either. Neatness? I've never seen a display where the dancers DIDN'T look neat. How can one team be any "neater" than the rest, when they're all impeccable? What about their dancing?

However, this may just be some local bod who is doing a bit of PR-writing and doesn't actually know anything about the event he/she is publicising. "The children hope to show there skills" ?      

There sure isn't any mention in those regulations of entrants having to specifically wear curls or stage paint - but then, there won't be, will there? That kind of stuff is always unwritten. The parents around here say the same as all the rest. They "have to" comply, official rule or not. And they're not happy about it. The stage mothers - which do exist, as they seem to everywhere - are vastly outnumbered by the ordinary mums who only want the best for their daughters but are sometimes unclear about what that actually is. The stage mothers are more forceful, more vocal, more in-your-face, so they tend to punch well above their weight. (Bound to: they're used to doing it.) But if the sheer numerical mass of others ever lined up in an organised way, they'd be outvoted. Not going to happen though. People are mostly scared to make waves.

If the judges do like to see bouncing curls, and each contestant is only competing for under a minute, in a line alongside several others, tell me lads - if they're looking at the "hair", how do they manage to actually see enough of the footwork to get a true impression of the dancer's abilities? What if, during the moment they happen to throw their passing glance at your feet, it chances to fall during an unshowy or momentarily ungraceful moment? You could be the next Michael or Michaelette Flatley and you'll be overlooked. I would have thought that under these conditions, yet one more visual distraction is exactly what they DON'T need.

Bill Kennedy, I wish those judges would listen to your radio show. Where do you broadcast? Ireland/USA/Britain? Online streaming? But even our naturally-curly red-headed colleens (which I was, once) don't have corkscrew ringlets like that! No one does, any more than girls are born with blue eyelids or shiny purple fingernails. It's a stereotype based on a phenomenon that doesn't even exist in real life.