American Footworks is a folk dance ensemble for youth in the heart of the Rocky Mountains in Idaho, USA. Our repertoire reflects our diverse heritage, ranging from Hula to Charleston, Hoe Down to Hip Hop, Southern Waltz to Lindy Swing, as well as the numerous forms of clogging. Clogging is a uniquely American percussive dance form, a cross-pollination of various early European immigrant, Native American, and African Slave percussive dance forms with roots primarily in the southern Appalachian Mountain region. What was once an improvisational individual display in the South has become a national and international movement, with its growth incorporating elements of tap, French Canadian, and Irish step-dancing, jazz, and hip-hop. Today it is one of America's most entertaining, competitive, and exciting dance genres!

Our artistic director, Gary Larsen, has a Master's degree from UCLA and a PhD in Ethnochoreology from the University of Limerick in Ireland, and literally wrote the book on dance history, which he teaches at Brigham Young University - Idaho. He wrote his dissertation on clogging, its history, and its transformative stages through the last three centuries. Our medleys reflect our decades of research and choreographic experience, for shows that are both historically insightful and highly entertaining. Our dancers are some of the highly trained cloggers and dancers in the country, and our bluegrass band leader Cat Larsen has decades of touring experience.