Mary Beth Yakoubian's City Stompers - Clog Dancing in Manhattan

ABOUT MO

We are pleased to welcome Mo Chamble Thomas as instructor of our new class, Advanced Clogging and Flatfooting. A skilled Appalachian clogger, she began dancing in 1999 with North Carolina's Apple Chill Cloggers. Mo has clogged throughout the United States, Switzerland, Belgium and Mexico as a member of Apple Chill.

When Mo moved to New York City in 2004, she immediately began searching for a place to continue clogging. The nearest clogging groups at that time were in New Jersey, and all were of the modern "precision" type of clogging. Mo joined one of these groups, quickly adapting to and mastering their contemporary style. But the call of traditional Appalachian clogging never abated. A few years later, through a fortuitous meeting with Mary Beth, Mo learned of City Stompers. As director of City Stompers, Mary Beth had been searching long and hard for a traditional dancer to join the instructional staff, so the fit was perfect.

Mo Chamble has always been a missionary for the arts. She first realized she was an artist when she landed the role of an old man in a middle school play. In high school, she performed in every play, dance recital and chorus performance presented by the school. Mo received a choral scholarship to attend North Carolina State University, where she continued performing throughout her college career, and then on into the workforce. In 1999, she joined the Transactors Improv. Co., and later joined the Apple Chill Cloggers. Both groups were members of the North Carolina Arts Council and conducted school performances and workshops. Mo enjoyed this work with kids so much that she accepted a position teaching at a parochial school in Durham, NC.

After teaching performing arts and language arts for 5 years, Mo moved to New York and began working with an arts-in-education organization where she is currently the Director of Special Education and Residencies. She is seeking her master's degree in Special Education at City College and intends to continue spreading the arts to all.

Though Mo was born in New York City, she moved to North Carolina at the tender age of 10. She has been involved in some form of dance her entire life. Since childhood, she has taken a variety of dance classes, including ballet, jazz and tap. As she matured, tap became her primary focus, which she continued to study through high school. After a brief teen-age hiatus, when going to the mall was cooler than going to dance class, Mo returned to tap in college. There she excelled and was soon invited to become a member of the school's dance team. Majoring in Communications, Mo was the only student in her graduating class with a triple concentration: Mass Communications, Theatre, and Interpersonal Communication.

Mo has many diverse interests and manages to do well in each: singing, improvisational theatre, tennis, and swimming. Mo also works part time on the weekend where she teaches movement to physically and cognitively disabled adults and musical theatre to students 7-12. In her spare time she loves to read and do some challenging sudoku puzzles. Mo was married in the summer of 2007 to a handsome husband, Keith Thomas, whom she describes as " ...my total opposite, but my perfect fit."

When asked to describe flatfoot clogging, Mo explains, in brief, that it is characterized by multiple sounds, close to the ground, and is traditionally done in a non-tap shoe. The main difficulty in teaching flatfooting is that it is folklore and more is gained simply by watching other people dance. With Mo's outstanding teaching and inspiration, we hope City Stompers will grow into a solid group of dancers knowledgeable in all styles of clogging.

Contact Mary Beth at ykoubian@optonline.net