This note is a specially expanded version of one written in 1984, for a 'resource package' on various aspects of folk music. It aims to give some of the social and historical background - especially through, the bibliography - rather than to describe steps and technique. The emphasis is on English dance, but there are references to other parts of the British Isles and to North America. In 'The Morris Book' [1] in 1911, Cecil Sharp refers to Step Dance as "the most popular folk dance at the present time" - "a standing proof of the capacity of the village dancer to create and execute extremely complex and intricate movements". Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1971) defines it as "A dance in which steps are emphasised rather than gesture or posture; especially: a solo dance characterised by clogging, tapping, brushing or kicking." Thus, perhaps, the sixteenth century Galliard [2], pre- and post-Restoration (1660) Morris dancing, the Highland Fling, although they require much clever foot and leg work, are not usually thought of as types of step dance. Nevertheless, there may be some overlap of technique. Strutt offers an Anglo Saxon picture (3) of two men apparently stepping or springing from foot to foot in a crouching posture and clapping their hands. This is very like a simple step still seen today, variously known as the 'Monkey Hornpipe', 'Kibby Hornpipe' [as used to be performed on the cast iron manhole covers in streets in Northern mill towns], 'Cossack Dance', and, in Welsh clog - broom dancing 'Toby.' [The dance is also known in Southern Ireland, and sometimes features as part of a brush or broom dance.] Some of the sixteenth century Branles [2] had mimic movements, including tapping the floor in the 'Horses Branle' and the 'Branle of the Wooden Shoes' ('sabots'). But this seems to bear no resemblance to our [British] step dancing. When this emphasis of steps came into solo dancing is not clear, but it was well established by the middle of the 18th century when a list of some hornpipe and jig steps taught by a dancing master in South-West Scotland was published in 1755 [4]. Hornpipes were frequently advertised in theatre posters from 1713 (e.g. in Drury Lane, London) and in the USA after the 1780s (New York, Philadelphia) [4]. In 19th century rural England, floors, furniture and even ceilings were really getting a battering [5] and the women were pulling up their skirts to join in [4]. Strutt [6] relates how a man stood on his head on a porter pot on public house tables (before 1801) and danced a hornpipe on the ceiling - sometimes to the disruption of the latter and the displeasure of the publican. Dancing in clogs is mentioned early in the century [5] and in 1819 in Edinburgh [7]. Children were being sent to lessons by itinerant dancing professors [7, 8, 8a, 9, 10] to learn etiquette, country dances, reels, fancy dances, hornpipes and clog hornpipes as well as the new quadrilles and round dances as they came in. [This has also been extensively documented in Ireland, ref: the so-called travelling dancing masters and so-called 'hedge schools.']
There was often an element of competition amongst many step dancers, and to hold and win contests became a matter of local pride [13, 14]. Dartmoor still holds a stepping competition and there were until recently well established clog championships at Durham, Fleetwood and elsewhere. These owed their existence to a revival of clog dancing - especially amongst folk enthusiasts during the last thirty years [, well since the 1960s onwards]. In many communities, especially ones isolated from external influence, the competitions tended towards strict rules and stylisation. On the other hand, "go as you pleases" or talent contests, perhaps in more cosmopolitan districts, lead to a more extrovert and creative approach, with more interest in entertainment. [In the 1930s Sammy Bell ex-miner and champion clog dancer used to enter these. They were usually held during the intervals between films at local cinemas such as in Ashington, Northumberland, where Sammy lived for many years.] These also sometimes set amateur performers on the road to the professional stage. The revival competitions have tended towards strict rules, which may have given a false impression of little variety in step dance. As a counter to this, some festival organisers are starting free style competitions. Also there is a growing interest in the less familiar stepping traditions, often associated with the dancing of reels, from such areas as Southern England and the Scottish Islands. Deliberate teaching of the steps almost died out in the 1920s [and 1930s], but fortunately some of the old timers have been delighted - sometimes after a break of forty years - to recollect their steps and teach them to young revivalists. There are a few magnificent dancers who kept their dancing going all through the decline and are still performing today. In addition to learning their steps, some of the younger generation are, with financial help from many clog dance groups, making films and videotapes of interviews with the old dancers, about their background as well as showing complete step routines [15]. Older and younger experts can be found in specialist clubs, running courses, and at folk festivals all over the country. A newsletter called INSTEP from Newcastle was published in the 1980s [16]. The bibliography gives some publications containing details of steps, but do not, as a beginner, attempt to learn steps from books. Find a good teacher or club. The clubs often put on shows (as long as there is a good floor) at all sorts of events - international festivals, steam rallies, street fairs, charity concerts etc. Some broaden the interest by including reels and country dances incorporating appropriate steps [, e.g. the now defunct Reading Cloggies that has evolved into Aldbrickham Clog and Step Dancers].
Step dancing can be divided into two types. In one, the performer fits a selection of his steps to the music on the spur of the moment. This is found in the Yorkshire Dales, East Anglia [7, 14], with Travellers [Romany Gypsies], Irish jig [and 'sean nos'] dancers, Appalachian 'cloggers' or flat-footers and, sometimes, tap dancers including some of the most famous [11], although many remember groups of steps that fit particular tunes. The other type - much the more popular in the revival - is more structured. It usually fits 8 bar tunes with the last 2 bars occupied by a Finish, Shuffle Off, Cast Off or Break corresponding to the full close of the music. (The term 'break' may also be used for a break in the music when the dancer continues, or for a change of rhythm.) A typical arrangement is for the first 6 bars to contain a pattern of basic step groups on alternate feet - maybe two long ones (2 bars each) followed by two short, related ones (1 bar each), or three long ones, or they may be filled up with repetitions of 1/2 or 1 bar steps. The best known step dance is surely the Hornpipe. This may use a straight hornpipe tune
such as 'Soldier's Joy' - 4/4 Jig steps are sometimes more or less hornpipe steps fitted to jig tunes, or they may be
quite different in feel, as in Irish and Lancashire jigs and rapper sword dance stepping,
to double jig tunes like 'Father 0' Flynn' - 6/8 Clog Waltzes are often done as an encore or a novelty number in a fancy "Dutch" costume [13]. They frequently alternate a basic "platform" step with elaborate steps. They are often made into group formation displays. People often wonder what is the difference between clog and tap dance? In England, people who learned tap as children seem to find clog easy to pick up, whereas clog dancers often find difficulty with tap. But this may just be a matter of age. Those who do both say that they are not so different but that the emphasis comes in different places - tap is more syncopated. The Stearns give many references to American dancers' comments on this difference, and also on the distinctions between Jazz, Flash and Stage dancing [17]. A lot of this seems to have depended on how much of the original Lancashire clog dance remained.
Clogs. These are an ancient form of footwear [18] which, in the nineteenth century was particularly associated with Lancashire, although used all over the British Isles. [In Lancashire they were worn because they were cheap, and they kept the feet warm in the damp conditions of the cotton mills - dampness being necessary to stop the cotton threads from breaking.] [In the coal mines they were again used because they were cheap and hard wearing in the rough conditions underground and at the pit-head by the 'pit-brow lasses.'] Presumably the wearers found that they could make a good sound when step dancing, and gradually developed a technique, sometimes mimicking the sound of looms and other machinery [19]. [Listen here to the sounds of traditional clog dancing: Gateshead Garden Festival.] The rather loose work clogs - somewhat resembling the present day French sabots or galoshes - gave way to close fitting ones with fine leather uppers cut from the same patterns as ordinary shoes. These were sometimes in two colours such as red and blue or scarlet and purple. Dancers have preferences for various shapes of sole, degree of spring - the upward curve of the toe - and type of wood used. Ash is often recommended for sound, alder was recommended for lightness, but many of the old (and present) hand made dancing clogs were of beech [which unfortunately tends to split easily]. High heels are helpful if toe-heel taps are to be featured. Few, if any, of the old cloggers still working made these step dance clogs, although some will make 'dandy' clogs for the North-Western type morris dancing, which can be very serviceable for step dancing. Accompanying the dance revival, is at least one clog maker [Trefor Owen], and several other young cloggers are producing clogs specially for step dancers [, see: http://www.morrisdancing.org/clog2004.html]. Step dancers have often performed with the help, or hindrance, of hardware other than shoes:- Things held in the hand:-
Things to dance over and amongst:-
Things to Dance Upon:-
You will hear reference to regional styles of dancing and people will altercate - especially when championships are at stake. Many now feel that the style of dancing owes much more to the dancer's teacher than to geographical location. It sometimes turns out that well known traditional performers of a particular regional style actually came from somewhere quite different. The more you get into step dancing the more you find the same step turning up in widely separated places. The bulk of the current revival has been in clog dancing described as Lancashire, North-East England, and more recently Lakeland (although the area covered by this category is Furness - previously in Lancashire - and the adjacent part of Westmoreland). These are the chief areas where dance teaching was pursued well into the present century and also the chief clog wearing areas (although a lot of step dancers in Lakeland never wore clogs). Other regions with extant or recently defunct step dancing traditions are the Hebrides, generally in Scotland, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex (where they had a 'clog dance' and a 'step dance' both done in clogs), the New Forest, Dartmoor, Cornwall, [Mendips], Wales (where clog dancing is usually associated with dancing to a candle or over a broom), the English Midlands, and Yorkshire. Some excellent performers are the travelling people [, i.e. Romany Gypsies, some of whom had specially decorated shoes for step dancing] who will step at their social gatherings usually in pubs [, e.g. Tommy Orchard in Zeal, Dartmoor]. Of course there is Irish step dancing with innumerable classes catering for it, albeit in a rather stylised form all over the British Isles and the USA. [Although there has recently been a revival of the nearly lost 'sean nos' freestyle step dancing from Connemara.] Although there is a strong following for the Highland Fling etc, there seems to be relatively little interest in many of the Scottish step dances. [There is a major debate as to whether the recently revived Cape Breton step dancing is of Irish or Scottish origins.] Some of the present day step dance groups - following particularly the work of the Fletts [7, 8] - feature the use of regional steps in the 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 hand reels still well known in Britain. At the same time, fancy stepping is being put back into country dances and quadrilles - in place of ordinary Setting or Balancing or as a shuffle off to terminate a figure - where it often used to be employed by good dancers. [Reference: the 'Campaign for Real Reels' by the Reading Cloggies in the 1970s to 1990s.] [Many performances of modern day [1990s/early 2000s] step and clog dancing can be seen at Tony Barrand's: The Digital Video Research Archive of Morris, Sword, and Clog Dancing at Boston University, this especially includes Ian performing his famous 17-step routine of Lakelend steps.]
|
Email: Chris Brady |
Top # Home | |
and so
sounding like a Single Jig). The old timers liked 'Woodland Flowers', 'Lily of Laguna',
'Narcissus', etc, whilst the revivalists tend to go for Irish hornpipes. But, in any case,
the 8th bar is 
corresponding
to the three stamps of the shuffle off. The counting may need to be further broken up as
1&a2&a …. or 1an&a23an&a4 …. etc.
ending in 
. Some, particularly Scottish jigs, have fewer beats and are
suited by mixed 6/8 rhythms 
etc. 9/8 Slip or Hop Jigs are used, especially in Ireland.
