What is clogging?

Clogging is an American dance form that began in the Appalachian Mountains. It now enjoys widespread popularity throughout the United States and around the world.

The word “clog” comes from the Gaelic, and means “time.” Clogging is a dance  done to the downbeat of the music with the heel keeping rhythm. It has nothing to do with wooden shoes.

In the mid 1700’s as the Irish, Scottish, English, Dutch and Germans settled in the Appalacians, the folk dances of each area met and combined into an impromptu foot-tapping dance. That mix was the beginning of clog dancing or clogging as we know it today. Accompanied by rousing fiddle and bluegrass music, clogging was a means of personal expression in a land of newfound freedoms.

As clogging expanded to the flatlands, dances from other cultures shaped it, including Cherokee Indians, African Americans and Russian Gypsies. Clogging enveloped many different traditions to become the American “melting pot” of step dances.