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Wednesday, May 31, 2006
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How to.. Clog dance
OF all the people I did not really want to see again on my “how to” travels, the cruel group who painted my face black and white and made me wear a dress last month are probably quite high on the list.
So imagine my surprise when I walked into the Crosskey Clog’s weekly meeting only to discover half of the Pig Dyke Fen Molly group were also members.
But this time there was no facepaint or borrowed dresses. Instead, I was just asked to wear a rather fetching navy blue polo shirt and dance with a brightly-coloured pair of blue and yellow sticks.
Contrary to what I expected, the clog-dancers do not actually practice in their clogs, partly because of the noise they create, although the footwear is compulsory for their outside shows.
The clogs themselves have to be specially made to fit to the dancer’s foot. Traditionally they have a wooden sole and leather uppers and can cost about £50. That said, Crosskey Clog bagman Pete Stafford-Honeyball has only had to replace his twice in 30 years.
The clog dancing group started off as an all-female group in 1982 from a Northampton-based group called Poly Obion. Recently, the group began to allow male dancers, many of whom were former morris dancers.
Although closely related as folk dances, the two styles are very different, as Pete explained.
He said: “Morris dancing often seems to be located about a foot up in the air, while clog dancing is very much carried out down on the ground with the distinctive heavy thump of the wooden clog sole on the floor.”
The Crosskey Clog normally wear very distinctive red and navy kit when they dance in public, featuring a leather badge showing crossed keys – which form part of Peterborough’s coat of arms and symbolises St Peter’s role as the holder of the keys to heaven.
I was led through two different dances, a Horbury and a polka known as Annie’s by some of my former molly dancing partners to the sound of a melodeon and bass drum.
The dances were not nearly as energetic as the very bouncy molly dance, but were still just as tiring with lots of swings and changing positions.
The hardest thing was remembering where you should be standing at different times, as with a maypole dance if you got in the wrong place you could really foul up the routine.
The Horbury was very much a skipping dance, moving in squares and swinging your partner around ever four beats. The moves were all called out as we did them after a basic walk-through of the dance.
The polka required learning a basic polka move involving crossing your feet in front of yourself that you had to carry out every few beats.
By the end I was feeling sorry for the poor person who had to wash my borrowed top as sweat poured down me. That said, the dance was made up of very gentle movements and I wasn’t completely exhausted.
It didn’t take me long to get used to the dance-style, and the group encouraged me as I went, dragging me to the right position when I moved the wrong way.
The Crosskey Clog is calling out for more members as numbers of practitioners are beginning to dwindle. And after an initial bout of self-consciousness, I have to admit, I found it very easy to fit in – and certainly felt the benefit the next day.