Clog Blog #2: Featuring The Girly-Man Skirt

It's time once again for the Eclectic Cloggers to get ready to hit the road for the summer touring season! I am excited to be back in action after taking maternity leave as of last August. Even with five months off, I was able to enjoy nearly a full summer of shows, with baby Theo along for an exciting ride! His prenatal performances included University District Street Fair, Northwest Folklife, Shoreline Arts Festival, Yakima Folklife, and Olalla Bluegrass Festival.

Olalla @ 5 months

If you recall from my last Clog Blog, we are a diverse group of dancers, but experience a bit of gender identity confusion due to our disproportionate ratio of women to men. Last year we came up with a solution to this problem with the introduction of the Girly-Man Skirt: Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman! Making it's debut at the University Street Fair, the black skirt is worn by a lady playing the part of a gent in some of the dances. This helps the audience distinguish between the two roles, and allows the lady to still show off her bloomers!


Another way that we like to compensate for our shortage of testosterone is to do a little improvising, DIY-style. Using ordinary household objects, such as brooms, mops, and wine corks, we are able to create our own dance partners! Meet Slim and Jim...






If you've missed the Eclectic Cloggers in the past, not only did you miss pregnant dancing, broomstick gents, and girly men, you've also missed out on a lot of energetic, foot-tapping, hand-clapping fun! Plus, you never know when the roof might blow off the stage, a tap shoe might fly off mid-kick, or a suspender might unsnap mid-jump....

Be sure to check us out this summer! Here is a partial listing of where you can find us. And if you really "like" us, become our Fan on Facebook! We'll be posting more details and updates there as we finalize our schedule.

May 31 NW Folklife Festival
1:50 PM International Dance Stage
June 27 Shoreline Arts Festival
1:00 PM Shoreline Room Stage
July 10 Yakima Folklife Festival
2:00 PM
July 31 Lake Wenatchee Campground
Fireside show at dusk.
August 21 Olalla Bluegrass Festival
12:00 PM
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**Special thank you to Jenny Grand of CE Photos for all the great shots at the University Street Fair last year!!

Clogging up the Works

As you may or may not know, I've been dancing with a group called the Eclectic Cloggers for about a year and a half. Summer is our busiest time of year, with lots of performances at bluegrass and folk festivals throughout the state. To prepare for our upcoming summer shows we've been working on some new routines, and brushing up on old ones.

Our summer tour schedule can be found below, but first I thought I'd share a few tidbits about clogging.

First of all, we do not wear clogs!! Our group practices traditional Appalachian style clog dancing, which is very relaxed, energetic and fun, and includes a lot of chugs, stomps and "woos!". We wear regular tap shoes for our fancy footwork and percussive pounding, and (almost) always perform with a live band playing traditional folk and bluegrass fiddle tunes.

Like tap dancing, there are some basic steps involved with clogging. These basic steps, such as shuffles, steps, and chugs, are then combined in various sequences to create rhythmic and/or flashy moves, often named after the person who made them up. It's fun to imagine the ancient characters coming up with their signature steps. I often wonder if they had any idea way back 200 years ago, that their "name" would be carried on through all these years in the form of a clogging move. Here is a list of some of those steps, so you can see if you have a clogging namesake:
Betsy, Earl, Eddie, Bertha, Mark, Pearl, Rita, Paul, Old McDonald, Hoochie(?), and Cotton Eye Joe. I'm sure there are lots more, but I am fairly new to the sport, so my knowledge is still limited. (Coincidentally, there is also a move called The Grapevine, just like my blog!)


In our group, the women tend to outnumber the men by quite a bit. This means that sometimes a lady will have to play the part of a gent. When there are 3 or 4 "same-sex couples" practicing a new dance, it can sometimes get confusing. In an attempt to avoid any gender confusion issues, we sometimes call the roles "A" and "B". That doesn't always make things any easier, especially in dances where there is a lot of partner switching. (Not only are we bi-sexual, we're also swingers!!)

We may look a little hokey in our baggy bloomers, tiered pioneer skirts, and red suspenders, but we try to keep things as authentic as possible, while still expressing our eclectic selves. We are also having the time of our lives, and getting great exercise while we're at it!

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If you're in the Seattle area (or Yakima, or Olalla, or Lake Wenatchee), please come check out one of our shows this summer:

Sunday, May 17th
University District Street Fair
University Way, Seattle
2:00 pm

Monday, May 25th
Northwest Folklife Festival
Seattle Center
International Dance Stage
6:50 pm

Sunday, June 28th
Shoreline Arts Festival
Shoreline Center
18560 - 1st Ave NE
Shoreline Room
12:00 pm

Saturday, July 11th
Yakima Folklife Festival
1:00 pm

Saturday, July 11th
Lake Wenatchee
Campsite Fireside Show
8:00 pm
(tentative)

Saturday, August 15th
Olalla Bluegrass Festival
Time & Stage TBA

Lucky Green Bird Contest

With St. Patrick's Day quickly approaching, this month's challenge comes a little earlier, and will be a little shorter than usual...

The prize at stake: A Lucky Irish Green Gift Package! And what, exactly is a Lucky Irish Green Gift Package?? It is a collection of handmade goods and thrift store treasures, guaranteed to make this year's St. Patrick's Day the best one ever!! The winner will receive:




1) One Green Energy CD-- the newly released album by The Irish Experience, which features clogging tracks by yours truly :)










2) One Clover-Adorned Mug, one of my latest thrift store finds








3) One set of wacky Clover Leaf Antennas! (You can't properly celebrate the holiday without them)

[special thank you to Noah for being such a good sport]








4) One "Good Luck Wood Duck" handmade photo greeting card
(This one is doubly GREEN-- made with recycled green card stock and secondhand thread, and comes with a 100% post consumer recycled envelope)






I would also include my Irish Drinking Socks in the package, but they are too dear to my heart to part with. Plus I don't think I would get very many entries for a pair of old stinky socks...

(Irish Drinking Sock--NOT included!)

To win this collection of fabulous green prizes, all you have to do is tell me what your favorite GREEN BIRD is and why you like the bird. A link to an online photo of the bird must also be included with your entry. The winner will be selected randomly out of all the entries.

Entries can either be emailed directly to me (aguavino@gmail.com) with the subject "Green Bird", or you can post your entry in a comment here on the good old blog. Be sure to include your email address so I can contact you if you're the lucky bird!

***DOUBLE YOUR LUCK*** Become a "Follower" of this blog, or subscribe to my mailing list to get a double entry to the contest! (that means I put your name into the hat twice)

This contest ends @ noon PST on (lucky) Friday the 13th!

GOOD LUCK!!

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Green Energy is Here!

Tom's band, The Irish Experience has just released their second album, Green Energy. It is a lively collection of traditional Irish and Appalachian folk music, featuring lightening electric fiddle by Joe Bowbeer; rocking guitar by Tom May, and the energetic thumping of the upright bass by Tom Hotchkin. This release also features some unique and fun instruments (tabla, cajón, djembe, dunun, bongos, congas, harmonica, synthesizer), plus a special Clogging appearance by yours truly! This summer I had my very first studio experience (at Egg Studio!) and recorded my fancy footwork of Appalachian Clogging, taught to me by the lovely and talented folks in my group, the Eclectic Cloggers.


Green Energy is available at lots of online music retailers, where you can download individual tracks (14) or the entire album, including:
iTunes
CD Baby
Rhapsody
Amazon MP3
eMusic
Shockhound

OR, you can purchase a hard copy of the album directly from us! We'll even give you a sweet deal: Only $8, including shipping!! We can accept payment through PayPal, Amazon, or Google Checkout:

PayPal

Come dance a jig with The Irish Experience this St. Patrick's Day at Finnegan’s Irish Pub in Renton, WA.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Two shows: 3 pm and 8 pm
201 Williams Ave S,
Renton, Washington 98057