THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 11, 1997 TAG: 9702110047
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 129 lines
DAZZLIN' IMAGE clatters onto the dance floor in a flash of sequins, fringe and pure energy, kicking aside any preconceived notion of what clogging is all about.
With precisely synchronized footwork executed to a driving rock beat, the young dance team seems as far from the traditional, gingham-check image of clogging as a Broadway chorus line is from a mountain hoedown.
Dazzlin' Image, recently proclaimed ``America's Winningest Team'' by the American Clogging Hall of Fame, consists of a dozen, immensely versatile area residents.
Temporarily shedding the glitz for ruffles and jeans, they clogged their way to a grand championship in the traditional, open hoedown division of the national dance-off sponsored by the national clogging organization, C.L.O.G.
``We are awesome,'' Kelly Bowen, Dazzlin' Images' founder, director and choreographer, answered proudly and with a broad grin when asked what makes his team so competitive in contemporary and traditional clogging.
Bowen, 23, is a reading teacher in his native Portsmouth. He grew up dancing with area clogging teams, mastering traditional freestyle clogging in which each dancer does his or her own footwork while following the generations-old patterns of Southern Appalachian folk dances, popularly known as square dances.
After 10 years of traditional clogging, Bowen was ready for the challenge of contemporary clogging.
``Modern precision style has everybody doing precisely the same thing, on the same foot at the same time, and incorporating lots of head and hand movements to make it more showy,'' he said. ``It is Dazzlin' Image's focus and our love.''
The team was born two years ago when five young cloggers met in Bowen's double garage in the Simonsdale section of Portsmouth. In their teens and early 20s, they had been dancing most of their lives, developing impressive skills in traditional clogging. But like Bowen, they were ready for something new.
``I was excited about competing and traveling to competitions, and I knew Kelly was a really good instructor,'' said Barbara Shultz, one of the original dancers. A 20-year-old college student from Suffolk, Shultz has clogged for 12 years.
And like Bowen and four other Dazzlin' Image Cloggers, she has been named to the All American Team by the American Clogging Hall of Fame.
The fledgling Dazzlin' Image team practiced in their homes, schools, the Bennetts Creek Rescue Squad building - anywhere they could find a floor and neighbors tolerant of music played loud enough to be heard over the synchronized thunder of two dozen double-tapped feet.
Currently the team is rehearsing at the Kingman Heights Recreation Center in Portsmouth, readying routines for a schedule that includes at least a dozen competitions and even more exhibitions over the next year.
In 1996, Dazzlin' Image gave more than 30 performances, including two at the Virginia State Fair. They were the only clogging team selected to perform. They danced at festivals, nursing homes, hospitals, schools and charity fund raisers. They also performed at Williamsburg's First Night gala and arts festival on New Year's Eve.
Dazzlin' Image competed in seven competitions with 35 routines, winning 31 first places and 11 overall grand champion awards. The team holds titles as the Maryland, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina Grand Champions.
Bob Johnson, a retired electrical engineer and leader of Chesapeake's Flatland Cloggers, has followed Dazzlin' Image's success. He taught several of the dancers while they were part of his team, and he knows they have a good basic clogging foundation.
``They are good dancers, and they do a good job, but they don't want to be traditional cloggers,'' he said. ``That is the way the clogging world is going.''
JoANN GIBBS, director of C.L.O.G., explained that clogging, like all folk dances, is an evolving art form. The rising popularity of country music and all things country in the 1970's generated broader interest in clogging.
Traditional clogging requires an equal number of men and women on a team to perform strictly couples routines, but clogging teams everywhere were short on men, with ever increasing numbers of women eager to join.
Younger dancers soon recognized the challenge of synchronizing traditional clogging footwork and combining eight-count to 16-count sequences or steps with partner-less country line dancing.
``The evolution of line dancing into clogging was the catalyst for more people to get into clogging,'' Gibbs said.
``Festivals featuring only traditional clogging would not make enough money to pay for themselves,'' Earl Powell said. Powell, from Horse Shoe, North Carolina, is president of the American Clogging Hall of Fame.
To survive, he said, regional clogging competitions began designating new show and open categories. Teams could now compete with unequal numbers of male and female dancers and with routines that bore little resemblance to the mountain hoedown roots of the dance.
``Young people love the challenge of the difficult precision footwork,'' said Lib Mills, vice president of the American Clogging Hall of Fame.
The precision dancing has brought more young people into clogging and kept them there, she said.
``With the show and exhibition categories, they can use any music they want, and they do, including rap,'' she said.
``SHOELESS JOE,'' a prize-winning show routine for Dazzlin' Image, is a favorite with Shultz. Performed to the Broadway show version of ``Shoeless Joe,'' the dancers, dressed in borrowed little league uniforms, position baseball bases on the dance floor and clog their way through a mock baseball game.
Another of Shultz's favorite routines has the Dazzlin' Image dancers back in traditional kelly green and white gingham but performing a precision routine to the upbeat version of ``Amazing Grace'' from the movie ``Maverick'' sound track.
``There is a great movement toward more contemporary dance forms, but we have not forgotten the traditional clogging forms,'' Gibbs said.
A contemporary clogging routine today may include some of the Scotch-Irish Southern Appalachian influence, mixed with a touch of folk dancing from other European countries and African American culture.
Bowen choreographs routines that hark to classic Irish folk dancing similar to that popularized in ``Riverdance'' but uses contemporary music and adds a large measure of jazz dance moves.
``I have tried to take the traditional things that I love and just improve on them,'' he said.
It was the vitality of precision clogging that drew Forbes Lowe, 17, to Dazzlin' Image. For Lowe, a high school junior from Southampton County, rehearsals mean an hour commute each way, but ``I loved the precision, the uniformity and the energy,'' he said.
Pressed, Lowe 'fesses up to another, more social, reason to clog. Two years ago, he was watching his sister Hannah at a mostly female clogging rehearsal in Franklin.
``This guy, a little older than I was, walks in to practice, and the girls all gather around him right away,'' Lowe said. ``I looked at him and thought, `I could do that,' and it worked!'' ILLUSTRATION: BETH BERGMAN PHOTOS/The Virginian-Pilot
Charlene Bowen, left, and Kelly Bowen, who aren't related, clog
during a recent dress rehearsal in Portsmouth.