It was bad luck that prompted little Anne-Marie Doyle to try on black dancing shoes for the first time.
But those shoes would put her on a path to international success.
Anne-Marie Doyle is now Anne-Marie Gallacher, a 43-year-old married mother of two and NHS accounts worker, living in Wheatley.
But she is best known as the owner of one of the country’s most popular Irish Dancing Schools, the Doyle Academy of Irish Dancing, based at Oxford’s Rose Hill Community Centre, and as the childhood dance champion who followed Michael Flatley on to the world stage.
She said: “This is my 20th year of teaching and it doesn’t seem possible. It seems like only yesterday that I was travelling the country with my mum and dad competing in as many as three feis (Irish dancing competitions) in one weekend.”
Anne-Marie has a clutch of titles under her belt but her life may have danced to a very different tune if it had not been for a light-fingered stranger.
She explained: “I started dancing at the local ballet school when I was four, but one day my pink ballet shoes were stolen.
“My mum took me to buy some new ones and while we were in the shop my mum started speaking to another woman who was buying black dance shoes. It was that lady who told my mum about Irish dancing lessons.
“As my mum and dad are both Irish, the rest, as they say, is history.”
Little Anne-Marie had no sooner put on her new black shoes than she started showing a talent for the ancient dancing of her forefathers.
She said: “It started in the early days as a hobby, but with extra classes and private lessons - and plenty of tears and blisters - I would progress through the grades to championship standard.”
Irish dancing is an unusual style, in that dancers are only permitted to move from the waist down when they are dancing alone. Their arms should be held loosely at each side.
As Anne-Marie’s talent developed, it meant a growing commitment from her parents Margaret and Chris.
She said: “When I moved to the McDonald Academy of Irish Dancing, the closest lessons were in Luton, where we travelled every Saturday for a couple of years.
“We went to school during the day and then did our dancing at night and it wasn’t unusual to attend two competitions on the same day, such as Manchester in the morning and Birmingham in the afternoon. On one occasion I even remember dancing at a third!”
Anne-Marie also managed to fit in other pastimes.
She said: “The majority of Irish dancers would take lessons until their early teens. Then came boyfriends and exams.
“From the age of 13 I had a Saturday job in the kitchen at the Head of the River pub. But Sundays were always kept free for the inevitable dancing competition.”
The highlight of her career came when she won the World Championship, in Dun Laoghaire, near Dublin, in 1981. In 1985, she began dancing with the Chieftains, taking over the solo dancing spot from Michael Flatley - the flamboyant star whose phenomenal show Riverdance would become a household name and who would ignite the world’s interest in Irish dance.
She added: “My dad and his mum were at school together in Ireland. Little did they know it then, but their children would both go on to win the world championships.”
In 1987, she made her performing swansong representing the South of England in the final of the Rose of Tralee competition, in Tralee itself.
But following the birth of her children Ryan, 17, and Georgia, now 15, she stopped touring with the Chieftains and decided to pass on her passion to a new generation.
The result was the Doyle Academy of Irish Dancing.
She said: “When I was young, I ate, slept and breathed Irish dancing, but my school is very different to that. I believe children have enough to test them while they’re growing up, so we concentrate on giving displays of their talents, rather than competing.”
“They make costumes, fundraise in all manner of ways (which pays for all our travel) and even photocopy, just to enable the school to run. I couldn’t do this without them.”
“I don’t dance much these days. I’m afraid things click in the wrong places. But I love to see others enjoy themselves. I suppose things probably would have been very different for me if someone hadn’t pinched my ballet shoes all those years ago - so I’m glad they did.”
Article - Oxford Mail
No Comments »
