The Fire-on-the-Mountain Cloggers
at the Texas Folklife Festival

 

 

TheTexas Folklife Festival” conjures up images of dancing bodies, pulsing drums, and exotic ethnic foods.  This annual festival provides an opportunity for over forty different cultural groups to display a heritage passed from generation to generation.  There are over 150 different ethnic foods, including Lebanese shish kabobs and tabouli, Cajun gumbo and boudain, Belgian mussels, Filipino lumpia, El Salvadoran pupusas, and Scotch eggs. 

In addition to mouth-watering food for every culture, this festival features stages with exciting entertainment, as well as “Back Forty” craft demonstrators:  egg decorating, blacksmithing, whittling, bread making, and more.  The Fire on the Mountain Cloggers have proudly participated in the Texas Folklife Festival since 1983 and have enjoyed every exciting minute of it.  

In 1994 Fire on the Mountain Cloggers initiated the “Giant Routine” which has become an annual ritual at the Texas Folklife Festival. 
We invite various ethnic groups to participate in a routine during one of our performances at the Festival.  Each culture designates one couple to represent them during this grand routine.  Although each dancer demonstrates traditional steps from his or her ethnicity, the participants are unified by common figures accompanied by bluegrass music.  Fire on the Mountain Cloggers dance alongside German and Scottish folk dancers.  Lebanese and Ukrainian, as well as Belgian and Norwegian, dancers display their elaborate costumes and intricate steps.  Hawaiian dancers hula in time with the fast-paced music.  Chinese Lion Dancers wave multicolored streamers as they glide gracefully across the stage.  Dutch Klompendancers proudly flaunt their wooden shoes and authentic costumes from Holland.  The lively procession becomes a magical blend of ethnic cultures following one steady rhythm.  The colorful group merges into a traditional mountain figure known as Rise and Shine, where each couple gets to showcase steps of their choosing as they travel down the center of the stage.  Intermingling of ethnic groups is common as Fire on the Mountain Cloggers sometimes partner with Norwegian Vikings and Irish feet keep time with Polish.  Smiling faces fill the stands and the crowd applauds for each couple that dances past.  The Fire on the Mountain Cloggers’ Giant Routine is truly a group effort that represents the Texas Folklife Festival at its best.


 




 

 




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