We are both trained dancers who use our footwork in our singing act. We both perform Appalachian Precision Clogging and the more traditional Flatfooting. Sue was trained in tap dance and also does a fair English traditional clog dance and Irish-style jig when pushed. Both of us have also danced traditional Cotswold Morris for the last fifteen years with our local village side, Hereburgh Morris. Ian first started dancing as a Morris dancer, but has now expanded his repertoire to include Appalachian Precision Clogging and his particular favourite, Appalachian Flatfooting.

In 1998, in response to local demand, Sue ran an Appalachian Precision Clogging workshop that was intended to run for ten weeks only. The new members were so enthusiastic that they had mastered the initial curriculum long before the end of the ten weeks and Sue was forced to find more dance steps for them. At the end of the ten weeks, and with three American members who had all danced the steps in their native States, the inevitable decision was taken to form a performing squad, and they took the name Kick Start. Since then, they have gone from strength to strength, appearing in fetes, concerts and invitation dance outs at Festivals. Four times now Sue and Ian have taken part in Ira Bernstein's Intensive Flatfooting course and we are the only people in the world to have completed all of his advanced Graduate courses. We now reckoned by Ira to be amongst the best exponents of thie dance style in both the UK and USA!

Kick Start are lucky to have a fine fiddler, Dave McInnes, who is an expert in the traditional fiddling techniques of the Old Tyme Appalachian fiddlers and provides a rich and rhythmic accompaniment. Ian also lends accompaniment, when not dancing, on fiddle and mandolin. 

Appalachian Step Dancing originates from the South Eastern United States and was probably developed by the early settlers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The dance style is a mixture of steps and movements, due to the many nationalities who contributed to its present form. There are aspects of Irish Step Dancing and English Clog Dancing in the dancing style and it may have also drawn on the many hard shoe dance traditions from France, The Netherlands and Scandinavia. The rhythmic music that accompanies the dancing is traditionally provided by fiddles, banjos and guitars and is itself an amalgam of many influences and styles.

Appalachian Precision Clogging was first developed by the Green Grass Cloggers of the University of East Carolina and, like most UK dance sides, we favour and maintain this style of dancing.

We teach both Flat-footing and Precision Clogging to Advanced standard and have run many workshops in Folk Festivals and village halls. If you want to know more, check out our Workshops and Consultancy page.

Where and when to see us:

January 2008                                                                                                      12th  Straw Bear Festival  -  Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire