Cloggers showcased at event
New Plymouth’s Horseshoe Daze kicks off Saturday
By Johna Strickland
Argus Observer
Friday, June 20, 2008 11:16 AM PDT
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| Gem Cloggers Kamill Satchwell (left) and Shanda Rowley dance a traditional all-around solo at the Emmett Cherry Festival. The Gem Cloggers will perform at Horseshoe Daze at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Payette County Fairgrounds in New Plymouth. |
New Plymouth — Their feet, laced into white shoes with metal plates on the soles, clog in rhythm to the music.
They move in sync, smiling at the crowd.
The people at the Emmett Cherry Festival responded and applauded each performance of the Gem Cloggers as they clapped to the beat.
Saturday this end of the Treasure Valley will have a chance to see the Gem Cloggers too, at Horseshoe Daze in New Plymouth.
The sixth annual event will showcase plenty of family fun at the Payette County Fairgrounds, including a breakfast at 7 a.m. cooked by Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 9036 and a number of other events slated throughout the day.
As part of the festivities, clogging teams from Fruitland and Emmett will dance at 1 p.m. at the fairgrounds.
Gem Cloggers studio owner and dance instructor Leah Coffman said the award-winning cloggers got started in 1994 when Kari Hale began teaching a few kids in Sweet, Idaho. Soon she added classes in Emmett.
“It just started as this little thing and just grew and grew,” Coffman said, adding the staff now teaches about 140 students during the nine-month season.
Coffman herself teaches for about five hours each week while managing other responsibilities — billing, costuming, choreography, selecting music, editing music.
Though Coffman and her husband, Dan, recently purchased the business in 2006, Leah Coffman’s association with the Gem Cloggers is not new. She first began clogging with Hale, her aunt, when Emmett classes opened.
“From the first day I did it, I was hooked. It’s a lot of fun, it’s fast-paced,” she said. “I clogged there for five years, then I went to college (and) I just did stuff on my own. I did duets with my sisters just to kinda keep up on it.”
When Coffman returned from college in 2004, she taught clogging classes for then-owner Dian Streeby.
Now she works with Hale and other teachers to train about five competition teams each year and teach cloggers of all skill levels in Fruitland and Emmett.
“We have grandmas who did it, and I’m pregnant and dancing,” she said.
Some people take up clogging for the competitiveness and performances, others come to the Junior Olympic-recognized sport to exercise and socialize, Coffman said.
The style they teach is a modern interpretation of this American dance. Clogging has its roots in the Appalachian mountains, she said. Though the exact origin is debated, clogging shows influences of tap-style dances in other cultures that mixed in the Appalachians.
“You had all those different cultures coming together, and you had all those Scottish and Irish step dance (elements),” she said.
The students Coffman instructs are mainly female, but clogging began with men. Early cloggers found the dance too athletic for women, Coffman said. Other events on tap at the Saturday event include a book sale from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., a silent auction and bicycle rodeo from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. along with an antique tractor pull from noon to 3 p.m.
In addition, belly dancers will perform at 4 p.m. and the outlaw lawn dragster will race at 3 p.m. until 5 p.m. A garage band will play at 3 p.m. Contestants in the Noble Ditch duck race, with a 2 p.m. start time, will have a chance to win some cash. A rubber duck can be purchased for a dollar from New Plymouth merchants, Chamber of Commerce board member and city clerk Beth Earles said. The ducks will be numbered, then dumped into the canal for a race. The first place duck’s owner will win $200, second $100 and third $50.
All events are free with the exception of the VFW breakfast and the duck race.
