The Dakota Prairie Cloggers performing group is celebrating more than two decades of dancing for audiences throughout the Midwest. Founded in 1985, the clogging ensemble has performed for thousands of people at hundreds of venues, ranging from the South Dakota State Fair to the Brookings Summer Arts Festival to the National Oldtime Country and Bluegrass Music Festival.

In this age of technology it’s difficult to imagine a time when most people lived all their lives in one community with little outside influence. These hard-working pioneers stayed busy all week, but when Saturday night came they made their own entertainment. They danced. They gathered in a barn or somebody’s house. Someone brought a fiddle and often the rhythm section was washboard. Usually they danced in groups rather than couples, so everyone could take part. The steps were gay and lively, for they were dancing to enjoy themselves.

So was born a style of folk dancing called “clogging” – named for wooden shoes called clogs, that resounded when stomped against the wooden floor. Today clogging is performed in tap dancing shoes instead of clogs.

Like square dancing, it’s a folk dance. Clogging comes out of people’s way of life and was started as a solo dance for men and children – but not women. The Appalachians have been the home of clogging in the United States for many, many years. People would vie with each other to see who could dance the fastest and perform the most complicated steps.

In recent years, the popularity of clogging has spread from the southeast and now there are clogging groups in virtually every state in the union.