| Bailey Mountain Cloggers |
The
Bailey Mountain Cloggers were
organized in 1974 by students
at Mars Hill College in the mountains
of North Carolina, near Asheville.
The Bailey Mountain name is derived
from the mountain adjacent to
the college campus.
This college clog team caries
influence from an older championship
team in Mars Hill called Bailey
Mountain "Square" Dance
Team. Comprised of young adults
from the college and town, these
dancers in the spring of 1950
toured the Southwest with Bascom
Lamar Lunsford, who is credited
for giving the name Bailey Mountain
to the team. By the late 50's,
precision clogging entered the
Mountain Dance and Folk Festival
in Asheville with James Kesterson
and the Blue Ridge Mountain Dancers.
Until then, only Smooth Big Circle
Dance, called Mountain "Square
" Dance, and freestyle clog
dancing were part of the folk
festival. One such precision clog
team influenced the Bailey Mountain
Cloggers in their early years;
the Green Grass Cloggers.
During the 1980's Bailey Mountain began competition clogging and expanded its clog repertoire to include more than precision clog routines: Big Circle Smooth, Freestyle, Country Hoedown, Kentucky Running Set, Line Dance, Show, and Percussive dance routines. Today, the students who comprise the dance company, 45+ from 12 different states, come from various dance traditions, representing a number of ethnic and religious backgrounds. Each student clogger becomes a unique part of the Bailey Mountain tradition, blending the old with the new into a larger mosaic for the future. Each year this long championship tradition recreates itself anew, and showcases its traditional and contemporary dance routines in an annual clogging concert each spring.
Being one of a
few college-based performing clog
teams in the nation, with art
performance grants and college
credit courses, the Bailey Mountain
Cloggers serve as ambassador of
goodwill for the college and the
folk
dance traditions of the Southern
Mountains.
During
their 30-year history, the Bailey
Mountain Cloggers have performed
throughout the United States and
internationally in Canada, Mexico,
England, Scotland, Austria, and
Ireland. From the Kennedy Center
in 1996 to the Austrian Alps Performing
Arts Festival in 1997; from the
world premier in 1998 of "Mountain
Legacy" in Asheville, North
Carolina to the Ulster-American
Folk Park's Appalachian Festivals
in 1998-2001; from the "Making
A Difference" performance
for the BBC from Belfast, Ireland,
viewed by over 5 million throughout
Europe to a performance on Broadway
in 2000; the Bailey Mountain Cloggers
Folk Dance Company has established
a national and international reputation
for American clog dance excellence.
For more information about the Bailey Mountain Cloggers, visit their website
at: http://www.baileymountain.org
Sources: Mars Hill
College Archives
Bailey Mountain Cloggers Collection
Bascom Lamar Lunsford Collection
Scrapbook
