Clogging Traditions

The following is an excerpt from the International Encyclopedia of Dance, ISBN: 019509462X, March 1998, Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated.

CLOGGING is an energetic American folk dance that involves beating out rhythms on the floor by tapping, stamping, shuffling, and sliding the feet to lively reels or "hoedowns" played on the fiddle (violin) or banjo. Contemporary clogging is most often performed in leather-soled shoes, with two-piece metal "jingle" or "jiggle" taps. Clogging is descended from a number of styles of solo step dancing called variously clog dance, buck dance, flatfoot, jigging, and hoedown. The names for these styles and the styles themselves vary from region to region, and even from dancer to dancer.

Although fancy footwork often played a part in the social dances of eighteenth-century America, the history of solo step dances is largely undocumented. Even the relationship of American clogging to its ancestor the English clog dance, is unclear. Clogs (wooden-soled shoes with leather uppers) were worn in Europe but were not commonly worn in England until the nineteenth century, and only in the last half of that century did the so-called Lancashire Clog, a stage dance, come to America. It mingled with older solo dance forms from the English, Scottish, Irish and African traditions to give birth to such American dances as hoofing and tap, as well as clogging.

Although clogging's solo-dance roots are poorly documented, its beginnings as a team exhibition dance can be traced to Pack Square, Asheville, North Carolina, on 6 June 1928. On that evening Bascom Lamar Lunsford, a local lawyer, editor, and folk musician, produced a square dance contest as part of Asheville's Rhododendron Festival and invited groups of dancers and musicians from the surrounding mountain communities. Here, exhibition clogging was first demonstrated. The event drew an enthusiastic audience of five thousand and has continued as the annual Mountain Dance and Folk Festival.

The history of Lunsford's festival provides many clues to the development of clogging and its relationship to Appalachian square dance. In the early years of the festival, square dance teams performed the traditional mountain figures almost exactly as they had at social dances in their own communities. Some teams used more of a shuffle or scuff in their steps than others, but the only clog dancers mentioned in press reports were solo dancers who entertained the audience during the intervals between square dance team performances. Because winners of the square dance competition were decided largely on the basis of audience reaction, teams gradually danced faster and arranged or embellished the traditional figures for visual effect. Some of them came to rely on the heavily accented clog style of stepping to excite the spectators. In the early 1950s matching costumes began to appear, over the objections of critics who complained that the result looked more like a ballet than a square dance.

At the 1958 festival, a major change took place. The Asheville Citizen reported that "a new trophy, equal in value to the Pless Cup [first prize in the square dance competition] will be given to the team Judged best in the clogging style of dancing." Henceforth the square dance competition was in effect divided into two categories: clog and smooth. Lunsford himself sponsored the new prize, giving the clog division added prestige.

Two further developments took place in the 1950s: throughout the Southeast, television stations began to broadcast segments of The Grand Ole Opry, which featured some excellent clogging teams, and precision clogging first appeared. Until this time individual dancers on a team were free to use steps of their choice as long as everyone kept the basic rhythm. In precision clogging, all dancers were required to perform exactly the same step at the same time. Many clogging contests began to include both precision and freestyle divisions.

Although team clogging became a well-defined activity during the 1950s, it was mostly confined to the Appalachian region. It began to spread to the rest of the nation in the mid-1970s through two different channels. The first was a folk-music revival that focused on rural music styles. Many young people in towns and cities across the country became proficient folk dance musicians and developed an attendant interest in traditional square dancing and clogging to live music. Folk festivals in both the United Slates and Canada featured clogging groups that not only performed but also offered instruction in basic technique. The 1970s also witnessed the formation of clogging clubs modeled after and loosely associated with the modern western square dance movement. Like their square dance counterparts, most members of these clubs danced exclusively to phonograph records of contemporary popular music and sought to standardize the terminology and performance of steps through various regional and national associations.

By the mid-1980s, performing clogging teams were found throughout America as well as in Europe and Japan. New step combinations of increasing complexity were being created, sometimes using techniques from English, Irish, and Canadian step dances. Books, records, videotapes, and periodicals about clogging began to be sold. In Novemher 1984, the first-national clogging convention was held in Mobile, Alabama. Alter little more than a half century, a regional folk dance had become a significant international recreational activity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bernstein, Ira. Appalachian Clogging and Flatfooting Steps. Malverne, N.Y., 1992.
Bonner, Frank X. Clogging and the Southern Appalachian Square Dance. Acworth, Ga., 1983.
Duke, Jerry. Clog Dance in the Appalachians. San Francisco, 1984. Jones, Loyal. Minstrel of the Appalachians: The Story of Bascom Lamar Lunsford. Boone, N.C., 1984.
Popwell, Sheila. Clogging. Huron, Ohio, 1975.
Popwell, Sheila. Teaching Clogging. Huron, Ohio, 1980.
Whisnant, David E. "Finding the Way between the Old and the New: The Mountain Dance and Folk Festival and Bascom Lamar Lunsford's Work as a Citizen." Appalachian Journal (Autumn-Winter 1979-1980).

ROBERT G. DALSEMER

(Article courtesy of Sharon Isaac.)