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Harriet Susan Swayne was born in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, India on 16 February 1826 to Major Stephen Swayne of the 5th Native Infantry and Harriet Maria née Johnstone. She married Dr Robert George Marshall, an army surgeon, on 13 May 1840 at the exceptionally young age of 14. The couple had two children, Robert George Swayne Marshall (1841-1915) and Harriett Susan Marshall (1842-1926). She and her husband lived at Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, where Robert died on 23 March 1857. Harriet subsequently moved to England and died on 4 December 1909 at Iron Acton, Gloucestershire.

A New York-based internationally renowned modern dance group founded by Mark Morris in 1980.

One of the world's leading ballet companies. Originally founded as the Imperial Russian Ballet some years after 1738, it was renamed Kirov Ballet in 1935. Since 1992, the company is known by the name Mariinsky Ballet, but its Soviet-era name Kirov continues in common use.

Maiden Voyage Dance Company was established in 2001 by dancer Nicola Curry (now the company’s Artistic Director) to bring the best of contemporary dance performance to audiences across Northern Ireland and beyond. In addition to producing touring commissions, the company offers a range of tailor-made education and outreach opportunities in the form of masterclasses, residencies, workshops, and lectures, including the Leap Forward initiative to promote positive mental health. The company is also dedicated to developing dance skills through various mentoring initiatives and professional development courses. Maiden Voyage remains Belfast’s only professional contemporary dance company.

Norman Maen was born Norman Maternaghan in Ballymena, County Antrim in 1932. He began his dance tuition at an early age by attending Irish dancing classes on Saturday mornings at the Protestant Hall in Ballymena. He was a member of Patricia Mulholland’s Irish Ballet Company and for many years an All-Ireland champion Irish dancer. Maen’s career plans initially led him to Ballymena Academy and Stranmillis College, Belfast, where he gained teaching qualifications, but within a year of his graduation he decided to follow his dream of appearing on stage. He moved first to Vancouver and then to Toronto, where Canadian Broadcasting Corporation chose him as one of their elite six-member television dance team, Alan Lund Dancers, who appeared on a weekly television series, Camelot, starring Robert Goulet. He later moved to New York to work on Broadway as the principal dancer for Jack Cole. In 1961, Maen returned to Ireland to work as station choreographer for Telefís Éireann for three years. In 1963, he moved to London, where he set up his own dance company, The Norman Maen Dancers. In a daring move to gain commissions, he invited theatre and television producers to an audition showcasing the skills of his dance troupe. The gamble paid off, resulting in four offers.

Maen’s superbly choreographed work is perhaps best remembered from the primetime television series This is Tom Jones (1969-1971) which gained him an Emmy for outstanding achievement in choreography in 1970. He arranged dance routines for stars like Liza Minnelli, Julie Andrews, and Juliet Prowse, and was the creator of a number of dance routines for the Muppet Show, including the unforgettable Swine Lake sequence featuring Rudolf Nureyev and Miss Piggy. Maen’s other notable contributions to the world of entertainment include several years as director of the Royal Variety Performance, choreographic work created for musical theatre in Dublin (including Finian’s Rainbow and The Fantasticks) and the West End (such as Man of Magic and Irene), and choreography for the musical The Young Ladies of Rochefort (1967), starring Gene Kelly and Catherine Deneuve.