Report from a Maggie Gallagher Workshop in the town of Lillestrøm, Norway

Hello. My name is Christine …… . I’m 16 years old and I love to line dance. I had the privilege of interviewing Maggie during our workshop.

Maggie has been involved in many forms of dance throughout her career including tap, ballet and modern. She began to Line Dance for over seven years ago in Coventry and, true to form, Maggie has been very successful in this field and has become one of the top line dance instructors in England. Maggie has seen a large number of her own choreographed line dances hit the "Line Dance Charts", with for example dances like "Just a Memory", "Hot Love" and “Na Mara", all huge hits which are still filling the floor at most socials in the UK and abroad. Her dance "Mony Mony" was the first ever line dance to enter the charts at No 1.

We were visited by Maggie Gallagher the 3. and 4. of September. The workshop was organized by Cato Larsen of Western Entertainment here in Norway. We had a great workshop that weekend. Maggie was (as she always is, I've been told) a happy, joyful lady who did everything to make us “average” dancers relax. She ran around like crazy, laughed and sung (she actually couldn't keep herself from singing when she danced on the stage).

When I asked Maggie Gallagher what she thought about us Norwegian dancers, she was quick to say that we were really great, and that we learned fast. I thought she was kidding me, but she looked at me and said “ But it is really true!” And suddenly I understood why Maggie is such a great teacher. She encourages, approves and makes the dancers feel that they actually are good.

I have seen so many people that like to show what they can do, but does that really gives me something? Does a World Championship winner necessarily give me the ability to get the best out of myself, make myself a better dancer? I don’t think so. I think that, with Maggie’s great ability to hearten and encourage us dancers, she does a lot more for me and hopefully for many others.

Maggie travels the world extensively hosting workshops. She taught in Texas at the World Line Dancing Championships a couple of years ago and at the Tarheel Festival in USA in September 2000. Maggie has also arranged and performed an Irish Dance Display at the Country and Western Chicagoland event through the organisation of Scott Blevins and Carol Waite. Subsequent trips across Europe and to Japan, Singapore and Australia have confirmed Maggie's firm foothold in Linedance across the Globe.

I've seen Maggie dance the “Irish way” and I must say I was impressed. The way she just loves to dance (as she said all the time she was with us in Norway) is expressed so well that you can see the light shining from her. I was curious to know what made her so fascinated by dancing but she couldn't give me an answer. She had always danced, she said, and was never sick of it. I have, myself, sometimes got tired of always learning new dances, but Maggie and people like her are little miracles.

Written by
Christina Simonsen