Sunday, March 20, 2016

Clog dancer card


I started clog dancing about 4+ years ago and this was my third year dancing with a team. It is great exercise!! Clogging is a type of folk dance rooted in traditional European dancing from the British Isles, in which the dancer's footwear is used musically by striking the heel, the toe, or both in unison against a floor or each other to create audible percussive rhythms. Clog is from a Gaelic word meaning "time." 

            Clogging was social dance in the Appalachian Mountains as early as the 1700's. As the clogging style has migrated over the years, many localities have made contributions by adding local steps and rhythms to the style. Welsh seamen appear to have adopted the dance very early on and may have been those who introduced it to the British Isles. As the dance migrated to England in the 1400s, the all wooden clog was replaced by a leather topped shoe with a one piece wooden bottom. By the 1500s, a more conventional leather shoe with separate wooden pieces on the heel and toe called "flats" became popular, from where the terms "heel and toe" and "flat footing" derive. 

            In later periods it was not always called "clogging", being known variously as flat-footing, foot-stomping, buck dancing,clog dancing, jigging, or other local terms. What all these had in common was emphasizing the downbeat of the music by enthusiastic footwork.  We have fun making noise with our feet lol!

I also help with the costumes and after we have our performances, I make up a card with a clog dancer on it for our director.  The dancer is dressed in the same fabric and costume that we wear.  She enjoys getting these cards and saves them so she has a fun memento of our costumes!

Here are a few more pictures of my clog dancer and our outfits:



We had little bows on our shoes, black panne velvet flippy skirts, and sparkly turquoise tops with black sequin trim.  Also we had turquoise/black neckbands, bracelets, and turquoise earrings (I forgot to put the earrings on my dancer!).




Along with my Stampin' Up products, I used a Prima doll stamp - I just love those stamps!  Sorry these pictures are not as clear as they could be; I finished the dancer up late at night so my eyes were a little tired and not completely recovered from that flu bug.

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