Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 24, 1995                   TAG: 9506260020
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-8   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: SALLY HARRIS Special to the Roanoke Times & World-News
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

CONFEDERATE CLOGGERS GO TO SEA TO PERFORM FOR CRUISE PASSENGERS

Her first recital tutu now resides on a Cabbage Patch Doll in her Dancer's Dream Studio in Christiansburg.

This week, another dream came true as the Confederate Cloggers, housed at Dancer's Dream, began five days entertaining as part of Dolphin Cruise Line's trip to Nassau, Blue Lagoon and Key West.

Clogging is a hybrid of the dances of several cultures and was once done with wooden clogs. The dancers now use heel and toe taps to enhance the foot-stomping rhythms.

Twenty-three cloggers, aged 6 to 49, will perform during the day by the ship's pool and at night in the main lounge. They have designed new costumes around traditional styles and include a variety of dance styles and music in the routines for the cruise, according to Lynn Shaffer, Amy Rush's mother.

The mother-daughter team teaches at Rush's dance studio, and they emphasize family activities. Some 90 family members will accompany the 23 dancers on the tour, and all got reduced rates in exchange for the cloggers' performances.

The cloggers got the gig on the cruise ship by sending in a professionally done video, in which they had different costumes and different kinds of music, including island music in a routine called Montego Bay. They sent a photograph and a resume and then waited, biting their fingernails and keeping their fingers crossed, Shaffer said.

The dancers have been working for a year with Kerry King of Cruises Only in Miami. King will host a party in honor of the cloggers on the cruise. The cloggers plan to present the captain with a plaque.

The group also is taking along a Christiansburg cup and bicentennial plate, as well as a Wilderness Trail cap. The dancers will perform in front of the Christiansburg flag.

The Confederate Cloggers perform on occasion at Mountain Lake, where they have entertained delegations from China, Taiwan, Indonesia and Russia. They perform free for area functions such as Count Pulaski Day, the Newbern Fall Festival and Christiansburg High School's Heritage Day. They also perform at nursing homes and retirement centers.

Rush choreographed the routines the cloggers will do on the cruise. "We put the show together using the best dances, the ones audiences really reacted to," she said.

Rush began dancing in Alabama when she was 4. She continued studying in Columbia, Mo., under Russian Ballet Mistress Juskolva and with Ballet Master Michael Simms at Stevens College for Women, where she performed in the Nutcracker for two years. She and her family moved to Christiansburg when her father took a position at Virginia Tech, and she began assisting at several dance studios before starting Dancer's Dream in 1991.

The studio offers tap, ballet, pointe, pom-pom, jazz , clogging and more. The Confederate Cloggers was started at the same time as the studio. Dance groups from Dancer's Dream have performed in competitions ranging from the Stars of Tomorrow, Rising Star, I Love Dance and King's Dominion Dancefest.