Carroll County Cloggers at the Apple Blossom Festival in Arendtsville, PA, May 5, 2012
The next performance of the Carroll County Cloggers will be held at Valley Baptist Church in Lutherville from 10am-11am.
On June 2, from 12pm-1pm, we will be dancing at Messiah Lutheran’s annual Strawberry Festival, held at the Sykesville Fire Company fairgrounds. Always a fun time!
Want to learn to clog? Click on the link above (classes/practice) for more info on our beginner classes.
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We are the Carroll County Cloggers. The Carroll County Cloggers are the oldest active clogging group in Maryland. We are a non-competitive contemporary group. Most of the dancing we do is line dancing, which does not require a partner. Our group does do performances for the public, but this does not mean you must dance in performances. You can simply learn clogging for fun and exercise!
Brief History of Clogging: The origins of clogging come from the Appalachian Mountain folk dances of the 1800′s. Folk dances were often a mix of the jigs and step dances brought to America by English, German, Scottish, and Irish settlers, eventually turning into the traditional American folk dance. Clogging gained national attention in the 1920′s when Sam Queen’s Soco Gap dance team from Maggie Valley, North Carolina danced for President Franklin D. Roosevelt.Clogging is a form of dance that can be done individually or with a group. Clogging is characterized by the footwork. Contrary to popular belief, modern American clogging does not involve wooden clogs. Clogging is generally done in leather-soled shoes with some form of metal tap on the balls and heels of the shoes; two common types of taps are solid and jingle.
Contemporary clogging today is less improvised and more complicated than the simple folk dances done in our early history. New influences are coming from multiple styles of dance such as tap dancing, Canadian step dancing, Irish hard shoe and even street dancing and hip-hop, all these styles are affecting the type of steps, the music, and the dances done by cloggers today.
Contact: Mark Wilson, Email: clogger@supernet.com
