'Use the feet to make the beat'

"If you can walk, you can learn to clog."

So says Jessica Price, who has been clogging and teaching clog dancing for half of her 30 years.

Price and her clogging comrades of the Country Fire dance company based in Ellsinore, Missouri, will take to the stage from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday at the SEMO District Fair, where they will furnish the footwork while The Lewis Family brings the bluegrass.

While about a dozen dancers will perform at the fair -- it's the troupe's fifth SEMO fair appearance -- Country Fire has about 46 members, ages 6 to 62.

"For the fair, we'll do more traditional partner-style dancing with the bluegrass music. It's like doing a hoedown; it's similar to square dancing," Price said. Beyond that, individual dancers may step up to do a freestyle dance to hip-hop or other contemporary music.

Similar to tap shoes, the shoes of the Country Fire cloggers produce the sounds of the taps hitting the floor as well as pieces of metal plate hitting together. (Laura Simon)

"It gives them the opportunity to perform their favorite steps, to show off what they know," Price said, adding that some of the dancers encourage audience participation, whether an experienced clogger or a novice who wants to put their feet to the test.

Clogging, Price explained, is a type of folk dance.

"It's really a combination of dances," she said. "People like to make it their own. It has roots in Irish step-dancing and tribal dances of early African-Americans. The Scottish had their style. People would get together at barn dances and they'd teach each other their form of dance."

Clogging is known as a percussive dance. The dancer's footwear creates music as it strikes against the floor.

"We use the feet to make the beat," Price said, explaining the dancer's shoes are similar to those of a tap-dancer. "No, we don't wear wooden clogs. The shoes are double plated. The taps are two metal pieces that are loosely held together so when you move your foot, you not only get the sound from the taps hitting the floor, but you get sounds from the pieces of metal hitting together."

Members of Country Fire cloggers demonstrate some of their performances, Monday, Sept. 7, 2015, in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

As a child, Price had lessons in jazz, ballet and tap dancing and said she first started clogging at age 11. At age 14, she began dancing with a clogging crew out of Springfield, Missouri, led by Scott Leach, when that group would travel to Van Buren, about 20 miles west of Ellsinore.

"When I was 15, I had no one to dance with," Price recalled, so she took it upon herself to create some partners by convincing the principal of East Carter County High School to let her teach a class.

"They told me I could use the gym lobby. I started with about a dozen kids, and we'd dance a while. And they came back," Price said.

From Ellsinore, a hamlet with a population of about 360 nestled in the Mark Twain National Forest about 100 miles west-southwest of Cape Girardeau, clogging has taken Price to competitions in Branson and Nashville and well beyond.

As a teenager, she traveled with a group to the Australian Alps Performing Arts Festival in Kitzbuhel and Innsbruck.

Members of Country Fire cloggers demonstrate some of their performances, Monday, Sept. 7, 2015, in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

In 2005, Country Fire won a gold medal in the Junior Olympics for its Smooth Mountain Square Dance, a silver medal for its a capella routine -- no music; the dance is judged on the sound and rhythm of the steps -- and a bronze for its show routine. The troupe in 2011 traveled to Hawaii, performing at the Polynesian Cultural Center and Haleiwa Arts Festival. Price and her brother, Josh, twice have made the trip to Washington, D.C., where they danced with other cloggers in Independence Day parades.