Local woman teaches Irish and clog dances
During the six weeks prior to St. Patrick’s Day, a local woman dedicated some of her time teaching a weekly Irish dance class for those who wanted to get into the holiday spirit.
Grace Freeman, a school nurse at Irene-Wakonda Elementary and self-described “clogging nerd,” first learned Irish dances in Florida from an Irish instructor in the 1990s. She moved back to Vermillion from Florida in 1997 and began to teach clog and Irish dancing at studios in town.
“I’ve been clogging since 1992,” Freeman said.
And as far as Irish and clogging dances go, “it’s not Zumba.”
The annual Irish dance classes are taught in the basement of the Varsity Pub, which owner Diane Wirth lets the class use for free.
Freeman said she enjoys teaching the classes in the basement, whose wood floors give “that Irish feel.”
The steps taught by Freeman include three-beat “jigs” and four-beat “reels.” Both dances involve “a lot of hopping,” she said.
Both this year and this past year, Freeman has had two students for the 45-minute long classes.
In past years, Freeman and her students have performed for the Vermillion Arts Council’s St. Patrick’s Day festival, though they didn’t perform this year because there was no festival.
First-year Irish dance student Michele Ramakrishnan said she liked the classes, especially because she got to spend time with Freeman. The dancing is also “a fun way to exercise,” Ramakrishnan said.
In her year-round clogging classes at the Vermillion Area Dance Organization (VADO), Freeman said she has about six adult students and three “kinder-cloggers,” some of whose parents are adult cloggers.
The people in her dance class are regular community members, Freeman said.
“These are people that don’t take dance usually,” she said.
In past years, Freeman has also taught clog dancing at the MUC during the Make-A-Wish Dance Marathon.
As a dedicated clogger, Freeman has attended clogging conferences across the country, in places as distant as Kentucky, Tennessee, New Orleans and Kansas City.
