Champion Cloggers Discuss Their Feat
For Dana Vance, 14, of Dana Point and Gino DePercifield, 17, of San Clemente, clogging is everything.
Their competitive routines of the foot-stomping, hand-clapping clog dancing, which originated in the Appalachian Mountains, have been so dazzling that the two have won the Pacific Coast Advanced Duet Dance championship two years running.
At first, Gino didn’t think much of clog dancing. “I scoffed at it because it didn’t look like much fun,” he said. His clog-dancing mother, Lee Hulnick, “talked me into trying it.”
A friend convinced Dana to clog after she viewed a dance team at Knott’s Berry Farm. “I knew I had to become a dancer,” she said. “Everyone was having so much fun.”
Both Dana and Gino “are naturals,” Hulnick said. “They have rhythm, a sense of timing and a good memory to recall all the routines they perform.”
Despite all their accomplishments, both “came out of the closet” only when they become champion cloggers.
“It’s becoming a lot more acceptable with other young people now,” said Gino, who had to bear the brunt of peer pressure when he started. “At first I didn’t want to admit it. The other kids would call me a country lover.”
Dana, who also kept her participation in clog dancing under wraps for a short time, said she feels clog dancing has much to offer besides the exercise and competition. “It’s a social thing where a lot of people meet and have a good time,” she said. “A lot of people are involved.”
Gino said “clog dancing now is pretty much across the country and just about every state has entries in the national competition.”
The quick-stepping routines--which often combine lively country-style dancing and tap dancing and is played to up-beat country-western tunes--are also being changed to fit the more contemporary music being used these days for clogging, Gino said.
He and Dana also dance with the Cripple Creek Cloggers, an exhibition group with 25 members who range in age from 11 to 45. The group performs at Disneyland, Knott’s, Magic Mountain and at charitable functions for churches and hospitals.
But in most competitions, “an individual can get out there and do his own dance,” said Gino. “At one exhibition I danced for 14 hours. I don’t remember sitting out a dance.”
Town and Gown, a support group for UC Irvine, has a membership of 1,300 women and 250 men. Only one of the men is active.
He is Dr. Albert Ellenbogen, a retired clinical psychologist from Newport Beach, and on May 22 he will be installed as president of the 22-year-old organization. The group helps members and the community understand the goals of the college.
“We thought it was amazing,” said spokeswoman Ruth Goulet of Irvine, “that at a time when women are breaking into men’s organizations, here is a gentleman breaking into a women’s organization.”
Remember when doctors used to make house calls?
Veterinarian Matthew S. Brady, 35, of San Clemente has made a business with the concept by using a state-of-the-art mobile unit to make house calls for dog, cat and bird patients from El Toro to San Clemente.
“It’s really fun and much more personal service,” said Brady, who refers animals that need hospitalization to other veterinarians. “It’s so much easier for me to come to the homes of such people as the handicapped and senior citizens rather than have them bring the animal to me.”
His mobile unit offers a laboratory, pharmacy, oxygen, anesthesia and X-ray unit as well as facilities for dental and minor surgical outpatient care. His office is in his home.
On Sundays he parks the unit at the Saddleback College swap meet for low-cost vaccinations and health checks.
His regular house call fee is $18. “That’s about what most veterinarians charge,” said Brady, who aptly named his business Veterinary Housecalls.
Kinora Narcessian, 69, of Westminster read that Ernest Hemingway got 22 rejections before “The Sun Also Rises” was published, so she kept the faith even after getting 17 rejection letters for her book “Arax,” a love story set in World War I.
“I was willing to go him one better,” said Narcessian, an Orange Coast College student in a fiction fundamentals class.
But she didn’t have to wait that long. The 18th letter was an acceptance from a book publisher and “Arax” is now selling in stores. “You just have to believe in yourself,” she said.
Flushed with victory, she is writing a second book.