City Clickers Clog Workshop October 20th 2007

Workshop Details

• Geoff Hughes
• Huw Williams
• Jo Harmer
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Tutors and Classes

• Geoff Hughes will teach Mrs Marhoff's Single Hornpipe. Only four steps and each one builds on the movements of the previous one so it's a really good dance for beginners.

  Geoff is probably best known as the author of "Clog Steps for Beginners", published by EFDSS, which he wrote while still at school. He has been dancing for over 40 years as both a solo performer and workshop tutor at Festivals throughout the country and also in the USA.

  He will be teaching Mrs Marhoff's Single Hornpipe which he collected from Mrs Marhoff in the early 1970s after meeting her when he was running a workshop in East Anglia. After interviewing Geoff and making him dance his "most difficult step" and also a step he had made up himself, she announced that she would teach him her own dances. During visits to her bungalow in Cambridgeshire, she taught him both her Single and Double Hornpipe dances and was very insistent that he danced them in the way she had been taught them by her grandfather, a former Durham Pitman's Champion, at home in Sunderland.

  This routine has only four steps and each one builds on the movements of the previous one so it's a really good dance for beginners. As well as teaching the steps Geoff will also be concentrating on getting the basics right so that the dance can be used as a good starting point for learning further dances in the future.

• By popular demand Huw Williams will return to teach Welsh Clog steps in reel time. Please note that this class will not be suitable for dancers who are new to Welsh stepping.

  Huw Williams has been performing Welsh step-dancing since the age of fifteen. Since then he has become a major force in the field of folk music and dance, and his book on clogging is in its third printing. He won several titles at the Welsh National Championships and is in great demand from both radio and television in the U.K. His style of performance is unique, blending traditional steps with contemporary ideas, and as one expert said, "...is the best by far of anything that has ever been seen."

  He is also well known as a singer-songwriter, part of the folk duo Huw and Tony Williams and a quarter of the Welsh supergroup Crasdant.

  His workshop was a great success in 2004 and we are very pleased to have him back. This year he will be teaching steps in reel time and we are intending that this will be a workshop for dancers who have some experience of Welsh stepping.

• Jo Harmer will teach a Canadian step dance - the Ontario Clog Waltz - this class will be suitable for those with some experience of step-dancing.

  Jo is based in Hampshire and took up clog dancing after seeing her husband Simon performing in Portsmouth some 27 years ago. She then discovered that her grandfather, David Steele, had regularly stepdanced up in Carlisle back in the early 1900s, but that none of the family had bothered to take much notice! With Simon, she has danced with Devil's Jumps Clog Dancers, and from 1990 onwards with Chequered Flag.

  A visit to Canada in 1993 led to contact with Judy Waymouth, an Ontario based performer and teacher, as well as dancers further east in New Brunswick and Cape Breton Island. Ontario has a thriving stepdance community, and there are regular competitions where hornpipes, jigs and reels are judged. Judy developed the Clog Waltz from older traditional steps, and there are obvious British links in the platform steps for instance, but the style is visually flamboyant and rhythmically interesting, some steps crossing the music, and with different breaks for each step.

  Jo intends to teach a five step sequence, allowing time for consolidation and ideas for performance and choreography. Please note that you must wear hard-soled shoes for this class and not taps or clogs!

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