My children and I started clog dancing in Wichita Falls, Texas in 1986 with Rosellen Sheetz and her Texas Quicksteppers. I performed and competed as a team member for several years before taking over teaching duties before moving to Xi’an, China for two years. In Xi’an, with no language skills, I decided to offer free dance classes to anyone interested in participating. Classes were always full of enthusiastic students students, eager to discover this totally new music and dance form which would became our common language.
From China, my husband and I moved to a small community on Montreal Island in Canada. The experience I had in China of offering my classes for free as a cultural gift to my new neighbors encouraged me to try it again. The town gave us the use of the perfect venue without charge in exchange for free classes. The Baie-D’Urfé Red Barn has been our home for the last 10 years – and classes are still free and open to anyone. Hope you’ll stop by if you are ever in the Montreal area.
