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It all started on December 29, 1979 when Gillian Norris was born to two proud parents Mary and Desmond Norris, in Kilmacthomas County, Waterford, Ireland. Gillian is the youngest of five children. Mr. Norris works as a carpenter and a well-known tenor. Gillian has 3 brothers: Michael, PJ, and Steven also 2 sisters; Anne Marie and Claire. Would you believe this "sexpot" was a tomboy growing up? "I never wore any make-up before I joined the show, except a bit of foundation and lip gloss" she admits in an interview with Irish dancing magazine.
Being a tom boy, Gillian initially had no interest in irish dance. Like Michael Flately, Gillian started irish dance rather late, at the age of 10. Her parents signed her up for dance lessons at the Higgins School of Irish dance in Waterford. Gillian didn't like Irish Dancing, she perfered to play soccer and other types of Irish games. So purposely she would miss her ride home after-school, and miss her dance classes. Her parents werent too happy about that and they really wanted her to do Irish Dancing, so they enrolled her into a later class so she wouldnt miss it. Finally, they started doing new dance moves in the class that she liked, so that gave her a boost to go more often. 'All Irish parents want their children to try Irish dancing,' she said. What if she never went? Who would be our Temptress that would set the standards for other Temptress to come?
What became of all this dancing and years of hard-work? Dancing the All-Ireland, Great Britain, and British National titles and 3rd in the Worlds! So exactly when did she join Lord of the Dance? "Three years ago, after the All-Irelands, my teacher received a phone call asking if I would like to go for an audition. There were hundreds of dancers there, but I was picked to do the Royal Gala performance. After only a couple of weeks, rehearsals for the show started. I never really sat down and thought about it, it all happened so quickly."
"Michael has such charisma, and he is tremendous to dance with" a comment from Ms. Norris about her fellow dancer, Michael Flatley. "My dancing teachers; Phil and Michelle Higgins were contacted for me to go to auditions around the time of last year's All-Ireland Dancing Championships and I went to Dublin for the audition. I had been at the Riverdance auditions 2 weeks before and got an offer from Michael Flatley. As I'd always admired his work I thought he was the one to go with." she said.
Gillian danced with Michael Flatley in the original LOTD for a year, and then in late 1997 was tapped to go to the second touring company (Troupe 2) of LOTD in the U.S. In July 1998 she retured to Troupe 1 and danced the lead in Feet of Flames in Hyde Park. After that, she rejoined Troupe 1 and toured Europe until she left the show sometime in 2000.
After Gillian left LOTD, she retured to Ireland and tried a modeling and singing career. In the summer of 2001 she briefly danced in the show "Ragus" in Dublin. Eventually, she enrolled in beauty theraphy school, where she was a top student. In June 2005 she opened her own beauty salon/spa in Kilmacthomas, Ireland.
