Annotation:Waltz Clog

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WALTZ CLOG. The waltz clog was a late 19th century variety stage dance form that, according to Edward B. Marks (They All Sang, 1934, pp. 64-65), grew out of American clog dancing style.

Minstrel men had conventions, traditions. All passed through the same species of apprenticeship. They went with the minstrels as boys, for eight or ten dollars a week. Under the unrelenting taskmastership of the Gormans, or Fagan himself, they learned the minstrel dance technique. A man danced clog or “song-and-dance” (soft shoe). If clog, he specialized in either Lancashire, American, or trick. Waltz clog grew out of American clog, statue out of the Lancashire style. “Buck and wing,” says old Tom Barrett, as he reclines on the N.V.A. club mezzanine, “started all the trouble. Buck-and-wing is a bastard dance, made of clogs and jigs and song-and- dance together, and it makes for faking. In a clog, or a sand jig like the one Paddy Hughes did you can spot faking in a minute. Well, now they’ve got no dancing at all, only acrobatics.”