Curriculum Vitae

Máire Clerkin is a performer, choreographer, teacher, coach, storyteller and writer. Living in Los Angeles, California, she is from London, of Irish parents. Since the 1980s, Máire produced and toured in Irish dance theatre and comedy with her companies The Hairy Marys and Clerkinworks; taught and adjudicated Irish Dancing; and presented on BBC radio & TV as a choreographer and broadcast journalist before emigrating to California in 2003. Since then Máire has trained in California arts education and is a master teaching artist in multiple school districts with L.A. Arts Group, The Music Center, and Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Máire founded A Gaelic Gathering – Irish Music & Dance ensemble, touring schools for 15 years. She has lectured in Irish Dance residencies at Loyola Marymount University, Santa Monica College, and University of Limerick, where she is external examiner on the MA Irish Dance Performance program. Máire judged at major Irish Dance competitions worldwide for over thirty years and choreographed many dance drama winners. She recently launched her ‘3 Irish Dance Programs’ – Dance Drama, Choreodrama & StageCoach. Maire’s award-winning solo show, The Bad Arm: Confessions of a Dodgy Irish Dancer made its mark in London’s West End, in Dublin and at the Edinburgh Festival. She also performed it in New York, L.A, Chicago, Atlanta, Vancouver and many more places, culminating at the World Irish Dancing Championships in North Carolina, 2019. Máire is director of the Summer Youth Program in San Francisco’s United Irish Cultural Center, and is currently a popular storyteller in schools, libraries and online as Story Maura with Once Upon a Time in Ireland. Máire’s screenplay The Jig is Up won Best First Time Feature with Golden Pen Awards and is now in development.