Norman Maen

Norman Maen (born Norman Maternaghan, 1932, Ballymena, Northern Ireland; died 22 April 2008) was a dancer, director, and choreographer whose career spanned Broadway, television, and theatrical productions across multiple countries. He received his early education at Ballymena Academy and Stranmillis College, Belfast, where he qualified as a teacher, and began his performing career as a dancer at Patricia Mulholland's Irish dancing school.

Maen relocated to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where he danced with the Alan Lund Dancers on a weekly television series featuring Robert Goulet. He subsequently moved to New York, where he appeared on Broadway in 1961 as a principal dancer for Jack Cole, with credits including Donnybrook! Following his Broadway work, he returned to Ireland and served for three years as station choreographer for RTÉ.

In 1963, Maen assembled a group of eight performers known as The Norman Maen Dancers and staged an audition in London for television and theatre producers, receiving four separate offers of work. Among the projects that followed was four series of the television program This Is Tom Jones, on which he collaborated with performers including Liza Minnelli, Juliet Prowse, Julie Andrews, Gene Kelly, and Ethel Merman, and for which he won an Emmy Award. He also choreographed sequences for The Muppet Show, most notably the Swine Lake number featuring Rudolf Nureyev.

Maen choreographed the 1967 French film Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, directed by Jacques Demy with music by Michel Legrand, working alongside Kelly, Catherine Deneuve, George Chakiris, Françoise Dorléac, and Grover Dale. He also created a choreographic interpretation of Claude Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune for Olympic champion figure skater John Curry. His stage work included productions in Dublin such as Finian's Rainbow and The Fantasticks, and West End productions including Houdini, Thomas and The King, Irene, and The Travelling Music Show, as well as the OEEC Gala at Drury Lane. He served as choreographer for the Royal Variety Performance across twelve years.