Please join us each Saturday from 9am - 10am for clogging classes, it is such a great activity. We would love to see you there.Click HERE for a flyer
Below is some information we think you might find interesting.
What is clogging?The best way to describe clogging is a cross between Tap Dancing, Line Dancing and "River Dance". Cloggers wear soft leather shoes with noisy taps on them, usually dance in lines and the rhythms generated often sound like those of Irish Dance. Unlike Irish, clogging is done with a relaxed upper body. Individual styling is encouraged so all ages and all fitness levels can dance together.Some cloggers dance only at their weekly clubs. Many take advantage of social events and clogging weekends away, and there are those that do public performances & demos.
Clogging is one of the two main folk dance forms that started early in the development of the USA as the new European settlers mixed their various traditions. There are now many thousands of clogging clubs in USA and around the world. In Australia Clogging is fairly new, but there are already over 80 clubs.What has clogging got for you?Clogging gives you the opportunity to get out and enjoy a great social activity and get fit at the same time. You legs will tone up very quickly. Clogging improves flexibility, coordination, endurance and strength. It increases lung capacity, relieves stress, and it's aerobic and burns fat.Clogging is usually danced in lines because there is a better social group feeling when you can see that your new friends are dancing the same routines as you. Clogging is never the less a singles dance so you do not need a partner.In Australia the instructors teach both the steps and the routines, but you do not need to remember the routines. At club and at social weekends, the instructors cue or call all routines every time they are danced. This means once you know the steps at a given level, you can quickly join in with routines you have never seen.You will find you dance many and varied routines to pretty much all types of music, although country and top 100 current tunes are the most popular. (For some demonstrations the participants do rehearse and learn the routines)Taps are a double jingle tap imported from the USA, and they are loud. The sound of all the taps beating to the music, gets everybody tapping to the rhythms. In clogging the heel tap is used to give a strong regular beat during most steps.At club you are encouraged to develop your own personal style. You are not meant to look exactly the same as the person next to you, we don't try to be a chorus line. Some people are very flamboyant and energetic, others are more sedate. Experienced dancers often add extra tap beats in between the normal steps. When you need a quiet night, steps can be done with your feet barely lifting off the floor. When you want to let off steam you can put in more energy and make a lot more noise.
Like other worthwhile sporting activities, to progress quickly you may need to practice more than once a week at class. The good news is you can practice anywhere - In a lift, pushing a shopping trolley, sitting at a desk, in the kitchen etc.Both Tap Dancing and Country and Western Line Dancing developed out of Clogging. Clogging continues to evolve from its roots 200 years ago.
| When the first European immigrants moved into the mountainous areas of the Eastern coastline of the USA (The Appalachian and Smoky Mountain areas) they began to share their cultures and dances with each other. Clogging is a blend of a number of different folk dance styles that were brought to the USA with these immigrants in the 1700,s. The strongest influences on the development of clogging were from the Irish, German, English, Dutch and French. However, later African American and Canadian Step dancing added to the percussive down beat typical of clogging. | |||
| Clogging started to the foot tapping beat of the traditional folk music of the mountains, which transformed itself into a new style of music called Bluegrass, played on banjos, guitars, fiddles etc. Clogging continues to evolve. About the time of the second world war, the more modern style of clogging started to develop, and about that time tap dancing developed. More recently cloggers added special double taps to their shoes, which emphasise the regular rhythmic sounds characteristic of the modern dance form. Cloggers dance to all kinds of music, including rock, pop, oldies, rap, bluegrass, country and gospel, in fact any music that has a good (and often fast) dance beat. |
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| Clogging has become so popular that it has spread throughout the USA as well as Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan. You may have even noticed a clogging segment in the opening ceremony of the Olympic games in Atlanta in 1996. Even though clogging continues to evolve, the reasons for doing it will stay the same; for people of all ages to get together with other people and have a great, fun, time dancing to wonderful music. | |||
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Clogging started in Australia in 1984/5.
There was Keith Lethbridge then Gina Zaragoza in (WA), then Edith
Sandy in Gympie (QLD), and Pauline Elliott in Adelaide (SA).
The first club in NSW was the Hillbillies
Cloggers, started in April 1988 in Sydney, and run continuously since then, by
Vickie Dean
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