Dance Stage

Performance Times:

9:15 a.m.
11:30 a.m.
2:30 p.m.

Two hundred years ago, settlers from the Scottish Highlands and Western Islands immigrated to Cape Breton, an isolated island off the tip of present-day Nova Scotia. They brought with them a form of hard-shoe dance then performed in Scotland. These steps have largely died out in the old country but have been preserved in the kitchens and living rooms and on the dance floors of Cape Breton Island. Similar to clogging, Irish step, and tap-dance, they are performed to fiddle or bagpipe or even puirt-a-beul (singing without instruments).

The Sacramento Valley Cape Breton Step Dance Class began in 1997 in the classic tradition of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia: in the living rooms of two homes. The teachers, Gail Erwin and Bob Schuldheisz, wanted to share the steps they had learned in Cape Breton. Within two years the class outgrew the houses and moved to the school lunchroom at St. Francis School in Sacramento. Class members have performed at Scottish Games and Celtic events in the San Francisco Bay area, Sacramento, Grass Valley, Modesto and south to Bakersfield. The performance group took the name "Caper Duck"--Caper from the term by which Cape Bretoners identify themselves, and Duck for the class's stuffed mascot decked out in the Cape Breton tartan.

Classes are now held in Galt and Berkeley. Contact class manager – Bob Schuldheisz (209) 251-9948 or email bobschul@softcom.net for information.