And he painted Grandad's bike and next-door's cat and dog
On Saturday the mother (who was visiting) and I were up bright and early, on an overground train to Camden Road. We were heading to Cecil Sharp House (headquarters of the English Folk Dance and Song Society) for a day's clog-dancing.
Every year Camden Clog, a team based at C# House, runs a one-day course of workshops. Camden Clog is a dance team with very high standards. I'd like to go to practice with them, but they meet on the same day as my rapper team's practice night. I probably wouldn't like to join them as a display dancer: partly their very high standards would scupper me, but also they have one of the hot contenders for worst costume in the country. Really.
Also, fashion considerations aside, I'm not really a big fan of team clog displays. Camden Clog go in for carefully choreographed routines[*] but really, I'd rather watch (or be) a solo dancer. Maybe a duo. Apart from anything else, keeping eight sets of clogged feet dead in time with each other is a nightmare, you don't have that problem if you're dancing by yourself :)
Anyway, the mother opted to go and learn what was advertised as an 'intermediate' routine. It was also advertised as 'mixed rhythmn'; the first few steps are a hornpipe, then the next few are a waltz, and so on. This makes for a nice dance - but if you're me, and you only ever dance out on spec. when you've collared a spare musician, it doesn't make much sense as a thing to learn. Trying to explain what you want in a noisy pub is a lot easier if you can say to your hastily-acquired muso "er, play a 32-bar hornpipe until I say stop".
Accordingly, I boldly opted for the 'advanced' class. Which turned out to be more of a bijou classette with just me and Dan[**] in it. There are two kinds of advanced clog steps, in my experience: the kind that are physically difficult to do, and the kind that are merely difficult to learn. This was the latter kind: lots of beats, very little repetition, not much in the way of structural patterns to catch hold of. Dancing it is a feat of memory, rather than a feat of feet.
(As it turned out, my memory failed me in the 'showcase' later on. Just Dan, me, and our class tutor Ru in a massive hall, dancing for the other attendees, and I was forced to resort to interprative mime for small sections when I forgot what came next.)
However, Ru is a very good teacher and I think it's all gone in. Now I just need to find somewhere to practise :( As far as I can tell, there ain't any way of practising clog-dancing, if you live in a second-floor flat, which doesn't count as cruel and unusual punishment for the neighbours. If I don't practise, I'll have forgotten it in a week or two. Dances I learned years ago appear to have stuck firmly - on Saturday the showcase ended with a request that anyone who "knows all or part of Pat Tracey's 'A' routine" get up and dance it, and I went right through it (with only a hissed question of "is this the step with the surprise ending?" to the mother). Stuff I learned a year ago? Forget it (I certainly have).
One step of Saturday's routine will stay with me, though. When teaching steps to kids (or new adults), my old display team always used rhymes. You say the words, and they tell you the rhythmn to move your feet in. A newcomer to Cleveland Clog could expect to learn as their first step "Johnny had a fat cat". Improvers would move on to Johnny's other pets (a kangaroo, and a fat wallaby). Eventually the fate of the fat cat would be learned ("Johnny had a fat cat, it bit the spotted dog"). I can only do step 8 of the hornpipe I've just learned by chanting to myself "George, the elephant, went on his holidays packing his trunk with skill and dexterity".
[*] There is plenty of footage on youtube - I recommend this one for an example of team choreography. You can tell the video was taken by a non-dancer - it carefully focusses on the faces, and mostly ignores the feet ;)
[**] In the world of clog-dancing, men are inexplicably uncommon. I think each of the four classes had one bloke in it (and all the others had considerably more than one woman).
Every year Camden Clog, a team based at C# House, runs a one-day course of workshops. Camden Clog is a dance team with very high standards. I'd like to go to practice with them, but they meet on the same day as my rapper team's practice night. I probably wouldn't like to join them as a display dancer: partly their very high standards would scupper me, but also they have one of the hot contenders for worst costume in the country. Really.
Also, fashion considerations aside, I'm not really a big fan of team clog displays. Camden Clog go in for carefully choreographed routines[*] but really, I'd rather watch (or be) a solo dancer. Maybe a duo. Apart from anything else, keeping eight sets of clogged feet dead in time with each other is a nightmare, you don't have that problem if you're dancing by yourself :)
Anyway, the mother opted to go and learn what was advertised as an 'intermediate' routine. It was also advertised as 'mixed rhythmn'; the first few steps are a hornpipe, then the next few are a waltz, and so on. This makes for a nice dance - but if you're me, and you only ever dance out on spec. when you've collared a spare musician, it doesn't make much sense as a thing to learn. Trying to explain what you want in a noisy pub is a lot easier if you can say to your hastily-acquired muso "er, play a 32-bar hornpipe until I say stop".
Accordingly, I boldly opted for the 'advanced' class. Which turned out to be more of a bijou classette with just me and Dan[**] in it. There are two kinds of advanced clog steps, in my experience: the kind that are physically difficult to do, and the kind that are merely difficult to learn. This was the latter kind: lots of beats, very little repetition, not much in the way of structural patterns to catch hold of. Dancing it is a feat of memory, rather than a feat of feet.
(As it turned out, my memory failed me in the 'showcase' later on. Just Dan, me, and our class tutor Ru in a massive hall, dancing for the other attendees, and I was forced to resort to interprative mime for small sections when I forgot what came next.)
However, Ru is a very good teacher and I think it's all gone in. Now I just need to find somewhere to practise :( As far as I can tell, there ain't any way of practising clog-dancing, if you live in a second-floor flat, which doesn't count as cruel and unusual punishment for the neighbours. If I don't practise, I'll have forgotten it in a week or two. Dances I learned years ago appear to have stuck firmly - on Saturday the showcase ended with a request that anyone who "knows all or part of Pat Tracey's 'A' routine" get up and dance it, and I went right through it (with only a hissed question of "is this the step with the surprise ending?" to the mother). Stuff I learned a year ago? Forget it (I certainly have).
One step of Saturday's routine will stay with me, though. When teaching steps to kids (or new adults), my old display team always used rhymes. You say the words, and they tell you the rhythmn to move your feet in. A newcomer to Cleveland Clog could expect to learn as their first step "Johnny had a fat cat". Improvers would move on to Johnny's other pets (a kangaroo, and a fat wallaby). Eventually the fate of the fat cat would be learned ("Johnny had a fat cat, it bit the spotted dog"). I can only do step 8 of the hornpipe I've just learned by chanting to myself "George, the elephant, went on his holidays packing his trunk with skill and dexterity".
[*] There is plenty of footage on youtube - I recommend this one for an example of team choreography. You can tell the video was taken by a non-dancer - it carefully focusses on the faces, and mostly ignores the feet ;)
[**] In the world of clog-dancing, men are inexplicably uncommon. I think each of the four classes had one bloke in it (and all the others had considerably more than one woman).