Clogging may not be enjoying the same mass media as other dance styles, but when it does show up, it will definitely make your feet dance.
You can hear the quick clopping on stage but it seems like their feet don’t match the sounds they’re making. And what’s even more amazing is that while these dancers are doing the same moves faster than your eyes could follow, they’re all doing it at the same time!
In a video that’s been seen and replayed over 6 million times when it was posted last 2016, this dance team from Nebraska wowed their audience with impeccably precise and synchronized movements tied together by a tightly paced rhythm.
The seven performers started bobbing to the beat when Andy Grammer’s famous song “Honey, I’m Good” blasted out.
The simple moves only lasted for a few seconds, though. before the performance quickly escalated into a unified tapping extravaganza.
Tap This! is a four-time national champion cloggers based in Lincoln, Nebraska. They blended four different dance forms in percussive footwork that leaves their audiences in awe and on their feet.
The fourteen-strong group has traveled to various places in the country to showcase the high energy and the mesmerizing art of clogging.
Clogging, a close relative of tap dancing is a dance style that was catapulted into fame in the 1920s when Bascar Lumar Lunsford, host of the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville, added a team clogging competition into the festival. This dance was brought by Northern European settlers like the Dutch, Germans, and British people to the Appalachian region of the United States. It has since evolved as an American traditional dance style with various influences from different migrant and native nationalities beyond the original ones.
Although they sound and look almost the same, tap dancing is different from clogging.
For one, tap dancing is usually performed solo while clogging is performed by a line or a group. And while tap-dancing follows the melody, clogging follows the song’s beat. Tap dancing also strikes the floor with the balls of your feet, comparing it to clogging that strikes the beat on the heels.
Differences and influences aside, though, this troupe made this highly intricate art into a mesmerizing movement clockwork. Doing the moves alone is one thing, but doing it in perfect timing with the whole team requires precision, awareness, agility, memory, and endurance.
Even if the video is only a minute and a half long, you could feel how they built and maintained the energy throughout the performance.
Their enthusiastic steps electrified the crowd and just by watching the video, we understood why.
They performed in various competitions and shows, including the children’s TV show Wonderama. They also participated in a world campaign for the International Dance Day together with cloggers all over the United States.
This feel-good performance definitely puts clogging into centerstage and hopefully, more people can get inspired and try out the dance style.
Be amazed by their lightning-quick steps in impeccable synchronicity by watching the video below!
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
