CLOGMANIA – Worden Arts Centre – 22nd June.

The floor at Worden had to stand up to a fair old battering when it became host to ‘CLOGMANIA’ for the evening.

Renown clog dancer and tutor – Alex Fisher was the driving force behind this marvellous event, her vision is simply to ‘Engage young people and make this heritage live on into the 21st century’ and from what I, and the rest of the ‘packed to the rafters’ crowd at Worden, witnessed tonight Alex is certainly delivering the goods.

The four ‘teams’ of clog dancers came from four local schools,
Three Primary;
• St Mary Magdalen’s – Penworthaham
• Our Lady & St Gerards – Lostock Hall
• Coupe Green – Hoghton
& One High School
• Lostock Hall
Each group of young people danced for 10 minutes or so delighting a crowd that was made up from parents and general public alike (not forgetting South Ribble’s Mayor & Mayoress). These were 4 completely different routines all performed to a very high standard – a credit to Alex who has only had seven workshop sessions with each group.

My thoughts when watching these young people perform were first and foremost it was more than obvious that not only did they really enjoy dancing but they were all ‘bought in’ to ensuring that the event was a total success in the way that they conducted themselves whilst other groups were performing giving each other lots of support and encouragement. Secondly I was pleasantly surprised to see so many young lads involved.

It was also nice to see that at least one teacher had donned her clogs and got involved with this ‘new’ extra curricular activity.

When I arrived the four groups were running through a last-minute rehearsal of the ‘Grand Finale’ whereby they would all take to the floor together ‘en-mass’. I noticed that the majority of the youngsters had gone for the ‘traditional look’ of flat caps, waistcoats and shawls whilst others wore modern casual attire – jeans and T-shirts emblazoned with ‘Pop’ slogans . I wasn’t sure whether this would somehow spoil the image of the clog dancing. It didn’t – in fact it was a plus – these youngsters made clog dancing look ‘cool’ which can’t be a bad thing if the idea of the exercise is to encourage more to become involved.

Musical accompaniment for the dancing was in the hands of Carolyn Francis (Striding Edge) who played fiddle and drum whilst the cloggers did their thing.

Musical interludes were provided by ‘The Becky Taylor Band’ with Becky Taylor on Irish pipes, Frances O’Rourke on fiddle and Pat O’Reilly on bazouki. They treated us to a selection of lively slip jigs and Bretton tunes and it was quite obvious from the way that 36 or so pairs of ‘Clog-shod’ feet clattered in time to the music that the youngsters liked what they heard.

During the interval there were displays by ‘Clatter of Clogs’ (Michael & Janet Jackson) – Roger Dower (The clog-maker from Oswaldtwistle Mills) and Leyland Morris Men. There was also a fine display of ‘Clog-related art’ from Our Lady & St Gerards school.
Clogmania received funding from – Awards for All, Lancashire Folk, Eccleston Heritage Clog and South Ribble Borough Council who all deserve our thanks for helping maintain our musical heritage.

If you would like to know more about clog dancing or Clogmania then contact Alex Fisher (Eccleston Heritage Clog) on 01257 453185

Graham Dixon

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