Shock-rockin’ routines

Maggie Cahalan has a rare mix of talents.

As director and choreographer for the Spokane Shock dance team, she designs programs that can rock the Spokane Arena right down to its foundations.

And as a graduate from Washington State University with a degree in architectural studies, she’s fully able to repair any damage that might ensue.

It’s not a new combination for the West Valley High graduate. While earning her college degree, with honors, in four years at Pullman, she was s four-year member of the Crimson Girls dance team and captain her senior year – earning Cheerleader of the Week honors from Sports Illustrated magazine. In her spare time, she’s choreographed state championship routines for the Eagles’ dance-drill team.

“Architectural studies is not an easy degree,” Cahalan said. “People were always asking me how I could keep up with my studies and still have time to train and dance. But the truth is, I don’t think I could have done it without dancing.”

And she has no intention of giving up either.

Dance has been almost a lifelong passion, starting out early. Longtime area dance instructor Janet Wilder, recently retired as executive director of Ballet Spokane, fanned that passion into a flame by taking the young Cahalan to an international dance convention, Dance Excellence.

“She really showed me what was possible with dance,” she said. “She encouraged me to choreograph.”

Wilder’s daughter, Tonia, taught jazz dance classes at The Academy of Dance.

“She’s was my mentor when it came to teaching dance,” Cahalan said. “Throughout all of high-school I assisted her with her beginning and intermediate jazz classes and she also gave me many opportunities to choreograph routines for the studio.”

Cahalan was called upon to help choreograph routines as soon as she got to West Valley.

“Oh, man – talk about tough!” Cahalan recalls. “I was asked to choreograph a 30-second routine. A half-minute. I spent weeks agonizing over that little bit of a routine.”

Cahalan’s mother, Jodee, took over directing the West Valley dance-drill team her sophomore year and her choreographing responsibilities grew. But not without growing pains between mother and daughter.

“I wouldn’t call it the easiest relationship we have,” Jodee Cahalan laughs. “Maggie does her choreography in her head. She sees it all in her mind – the whole thing. She’s really gifted in math, and in a lot of ways, she sees numbers the same way. It can be hard to put it all into words. Sometimes we have trouble communicating.

“But we’ve worked it out. In the last three years she’s choreographed four programs for us that have won state championships and another that earned a second-place trophy.”

“I have to admit that I don’t make it easy,” Maggie Cahalan said. “I like to let things percolate in my head for a while and, usually, it doesn’t all come together until the last minute.

“But it works.”

While dancing full time with the Crimson Girls at WSU and studying full time to earn her degree, Cahalan still found time to choreograph routines for both the dance-drill team and cheer squad at West Valley and still branch out. She’s choreographed for high school squads at Shadle Park and Mt. Spokane.

“I do get paid to choreograph,” she said. “Mom does get the home discount, though. But I love doing it. Especially for the West Valley squads because I know them so well. I help with tryouts so I have a really good idea of what everyone can do and what they’re all capable of doing.”

That can sometimes lead to trouble as Cahalan has learned and grown in her work.

“I do get a little carried away sometimes,” she laughed. “I’ll come up with some really sophisticated things and bring it back to the dancers and, when I see my little 14-year-old cousin doing it, I realize that it’s not the appropriate place for that routine.”

The job directing the Spokane Shock dance team took a lot of coaxing.

“When the director they had last year left to take a job in Seattle, one of my friends on the team called and asked me if I would take over and be their coach,” she said. “I couldn’t do it and still go to school.”

But the longer the team went without finding a director, they more they asked Cahalan. When they agreed to accommodate her schedule at WSU, she agreed.

“We made it work,” she said. “And it’s been a lot of fun. I’ve been able to do a lot of new things and really expand what I can do.”

The expansion continues.

Cahalan and friend and fellow dance instructor Marcy Ray are deep into plans to open their own dance studio in Spokane.

“It’s going to happen,” she promised. “We haven’t found a place yet, but it’s going to happen.”

She can see it in her head.