Our 20-24 dancers are selected from some 100 core students in our clogging studio in Idaho on an annual basis for our prestigious Festival Team. We choose dancers based on their skill, commitment, attitude, and performance abilities. All must be accomplished cloggers and display adeptness in the other dance styles we undertake as well. Our favorite aspect of dance is that of International Dance Festivals and the friendships and rich cultural experiences we have encountered at these Festivals.
DIRECTORS
Gary and Mindy Larsen
Gary Larsen PhD is a professional dancer, teacher and choreographer specializing in World and percussive dance forms, and the Artistic Director of American Footworks. As a teenager he won every clogging category available before joining an American dance troupe and traveling to dance festivals. During his four years at Brigham Young University he was president of the 200-member folk dance club and was a four-year dance full scholarship recipient. He received a Masters Degree in Dance from University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA) while dancing professionally as a regular member of the Aman Folk Ensemble. After two years lecturing in Dance and Liberal Studies at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, he moved to BYU-Idaho where he teaches clogging, tap, world dance, dance history, humanities, choreography and performance. He graduated with his PhD in Ethnochoreology from the University of Limerick in Ireland in 2016, and his academic and performing experience has taken him to dozens of countries as team member, choreographer and soloist. He has taught and created choreography for groups and schools throughout the United States and in numerous other countries, and is a National Teacher and Adjudicator for all of the major national clogging organizations. He met Mindy, who has taken dancing since she was three, while both were members of the BYU International Folk Dance Company. They toured Canada, the United States, Russia and Scandinavia before marrying in 1996. Mindy also teaches adjunct at Brigham Young University Idaho and oversees the world and clogging programs. She also choreographs musicals (Newsies, Singing in the Rain, Oklahoma, Cinderella, many others) for large high school and community organizations.
Gary and Mindy have three children who have all grown up loving and dancing in international folk dance festivals, and they own and operate Footworks Dance Studio, specializing in clogging and step dancing.
MUSICAL DIRECTOR:
Catherine Larsen hails from Midway, Utah. She practices international law by day and unwinds with music in the evenings and on weekends. She studied jazz piano, the Middle East, and law at Brigham Young University and has toured playing the guitar, singing, and arranging music with various folk music groups for over 20 years. So far she has been to over 80 countries, speaks Dutch and Spanish, and creates magic with our bluegrass band for American Footworks. She also performs and records with the professional bluegrass band Silver City Pink.
