Origins of Phoenix Clog

It all started for us because a few people, who danced traditional English dances were bewailing the fact that there was no Side locally, who not only danced North West Morris, but that was also open to both men and women. The only solution seemed to be to form a Side of their own, hence the inception of Phoenix Clog, in June 2009.

The name came quite naturally, from the name of the CIU Club, where we first began to practice, every Wednesday evening, from 8:00 to 10:00.

The term “Morris” is a  broad church, and  the name is applied generally to all the ritual dances of England - Cotswold Morris from the Oxfordshire/Gloucestershire area, Border Morris from the Welsh Marches, Molly Dances from the Fen Country, Long Sword Dances from Yorkshire and Rapper Sword Dances from the North East, as well our North West (Clog) Morris, from the Lancashire/Cheshire area.

North West Morris is danced in clogs, which are believed to have developed from wooden soled Roman bath shoes. The clogs found in England are not like the sabot, found in mainland Europe which are carved totally from wood, for ours have leather uppers, like normal shoes, but with wooden soles, shod with rubbers or maybe irons. To see a dancer strike sparks from his clogs, while dancing with irons, is a quite spectacular sight. Clogs were once worn as the normal agricultural footwear, but with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, with its associated mass production, their cheapness made clogs the usual footwear of the working people, especially in the north of England. Clog dancing probably developed, as the average man realised he could earn a little extra beer money by dancing for change on street corners or outside the pubs and Phoenix Clog are whole heartedly continuing this tradition.