Folk dances are an exposition of the character of the people who dance them.   Through these dances we learn about the values and culture of a people.   Many European dances are performed erect with many upward movements to the Heavens while African dances are done closer to the Earth.   Irish dances are filled with energy while Japanese dances are performed with total control.   The elements of ones folk dance speaks a multitude about the people who do them, so what is clogging, where does it come from, and what does it say about us?

The oldest ancestor of step dancing is the Irish jig, dating back as early as the 1500s.   The jig is performed with the upper body completely erect and motionless, so as not to distract from the rapid display of the feet.   This was a social dance that was judged by how well the dancer was able to keep up with the music.   The importance of sound was introduced later on.   It is this impressive fast and fancy footwork of the Irish that you see in American clogging today that continues to captivate our audiences.

Although the Dutch have not been able to contribute much to world dance, it is from their culture that sounds of the feet, or specifically shoes, entered the world of dance.   Dancing in wooden shoes was no easy feat, so Dutch folk dances are not known for spectacular movement.   However, the rhythm produced by the shoes captured the minds of dancers elsewhere.   In England, clog dancing (termed “heel and toe”) was born in Lancashire.   Wearing wooden soled shoes, workers in the cotton mills would dance to the sound looms.   It was a dance that workers engaged in at work and on the streets.   Local miners would compete in clog dancing, but it was often the canal boat dancers (who danced to the sound of the single stroke bolinder engine) who won the competitions.   Charlie Chaplin, who danced with the Seven Lancashire Lads, learned to use his skills in movement and connecting with the audience to become an American icon.

American clogging was born around the Appalachian Mountains as people from all around the world shared each others folk dances and created a new one.   Dances from Europe were more choreographed and included defined steps, African dances were based on improvisation, and the dances of Native Americans were more simple and ritualistic.   The American tribe local to the Appalachians is the Cherokee.   Their most noted dance is called the stomp dance.   This is danced in a circle around a fire and consists of a stomp and drag motion.   This dragging step may be considered the most truly ethnic American step in clogging.   However, it is only one of the many evolutionary steps it took away from its English ancestor.

Second only to the Scotch-Irish, the Germans settled in the Appalachian region in great numbers.   The schuhplattle is a popular German folk dance where the male dancer’s movements consist of shoe slapping, hops, leaps, and stamps.   The leap-stamp combination is often the first step taught when learning the more advanced buck steps of clogging.   To the Germans, the dance was not about what the feet were doing, but more about the legs.   This contributed to the larger physical gestures in American clogging.

When Africans were brought to this country, they were forced to give up all the elements of their culture: language, spirituality, music, and especially dance.   Christians in Europe and North America considered dance in all forms to be sinful.   The waltz was denounced by the church since its inception in Austria to as recent as 1914.   Stripped of their drums and their dance, the Africans resorted to pattin’ juba to retain their energy and passion for syncopation.   Juba consists of claps, stomps, and patting on the thighs.   Africans emulated a lot of European dances as they were allowed to get away with it more than dancing their own, so they began copying the jiggers and cloggers.   One of the most famous American cloggers includes Master Juba (William Henry Lane).   Beating out the best white dancers of his time and receiving top billing in a white minstrel company in 1845!

Another African element to blend into American clogging is the posture.   African dancers keep their bodies close to the ground by either bending their torso forward or squatting down to a lower stance.   This created one of the most visible divisions in Appalachian clogging.   Along the coast, cloggers tend to dance with their torsos bent forward towards the ground instead of the traditional upright position from Europe.   As you go more inland, cloggers continued to dance in an upright position, however, dancers bounce up and down with the music maintaining their connection with the ground.   So both the syncopated rhythms and earth bound postures of the African people became a part of American clogging.   The use of the heel became increasingly popular in creating more complex improvised syncopations and soon split off to become the most commonly known form of step dance- tap.

These are the elements that have created America’s folk dance- clogging.   What does this say about the American spirit?   It shows that we have a historic openness to diversity and in the face of adversity (such as the opposition towards dance) we have managed to get together with people different from ourselves in a triumphant celebration of the spirit.   It is this spirit and energy that the Barbary Coast Cloggers would like to share with you.   Thank you for allowing us to keep this part of our heritage alive.