Walking on wood has good, bad sides
Pride of the Dutchmen Marching Band perform at Tulip Festival
By Duane Beeson Journal correspondent| Posted: Thursday, May 15, 2008
ORANGE CITY, Iowa -- There are good things about marching in wooden shoes, says Steve Connell, who has directed the MOC-Floyd Valley High School Pride of the Dutchmen Marching Band since 1975, and there are bad things.
First the good: It’s almost impossible to march out of step.
"The process is you basically just shuffle down the street," says Connell who will shuffle alongside his 160-member band at twice-daily parades during Orange City’s Tulip Festival today through Saturday. "It creates a heavy pulse throughout your body," he says, referring to the rhythm of the wooden shoe-enhanced cadence.
Then the bad: "It’s a completely different marching style than anything else you do. After students have street-marched in wooden shoes, they sometimes forget what we've taught them on the field during the fall."
Also in the bad category would be the pain that the inflexible "klompen" can inflict.
And the blood.
"When we first got the wooden shoes, they were a little thinner on the bottom, so we would staple scraps onto the bottom to build them up," says Connell. "The staple would work its way through to their feet, and they’d have blood all over."
The good category, though, gains another point from the unique identity that marching in wooden shoes has given Connell’s band. That, along with a wide-open sound and numerous award-winning field competition performances, has helped the Pride of the Dutchmen Band garner a national reputation. The band has performed at the Tournament of Roses and Orange Bowl parades and, next January, will march for the second time in the three-mile-long Fiesta Bowl Parade in Phoenix.
The band will order a fresh supply of shoes, made out of basswood and imported from the Netherlands by Orange City’s Old Factory, for the Fiesta Bowl, complete with the parade’s logo painted on them.
Even in years in which the band doesn’t make a big trip, it purchases at least 100 pair of klompen.
"At $35 per pair, it’s a recurring expense no other band in the country has," says Connell.
Over the years, marchers have tried a variety of methods to lengthen the life of their wooden shoes--including shellac and aircraft aluminum. The latter, says Connell, was somewhat effective, but hindered the band’s distinctive clomping sound.
Musicians have used everything from carpet to foam rubber to five pair of heavy sweat socks to protect their feet. Connell, who estimates he’s marched more than 200 miles in wooden shoes, says two pair of socks are enough for him.
This year’s Tulip Festival theme is "Wooden Shoes on Parade," and Connell says the wooden shoe-clad band makes an impact on parade crowds.
"They think it’s awe-inspiring to see tall Dutch kids play powerful music in straight lines. When we first went to other parades, kids from other schools would see the wooden shoes and snicker. That changed once we played," he says.
You'd think four years of marching with the Pride of the Dutchmen Band in the early 1980s would be enough for Kris McDonald to retire her wooden shoes.
Instead, she's moved from marching down the street to dancing on it as a member of Orange City's adult Dutch dancers for 18 years. She and her husband, Todd, now help teach Dutch dancing to the group.
What’s it like to dance in wooden shoes?
"It kills the tops of your feet," she says. "You put those shoes on and by Thursday night your feet are killing you. If you can get them on your feet Friday, the rest of the festival isn’t so bad."
McDonald’s solution is to put a piece of foam in between her layers of socks.
And, like the marchers, she recommends shuffling.
"Then the tops of your feet don’t get smashed up in them, and it makes a better sound. If you have to pick up your feet a lot, that makes it tougher."
There have been a few casualties over the years: One woman suffered a stress fracture from Dutch dancing and was on crutches by Saturday. The ambulance was called once when a man blew out a knee.
Sometimes a shoe breaks in half or wears through at an inopportune time.
That hasn’t happened to McDonald yet. She still wears the pair of klompen she got in 1991.
First the good: It’s almost impossible to march out of step.
"The process is you basically just shuffle down the street," says Connell who will shuffle alongside his 160-member band at twice-daily parades during Orange City’s Tulip Festival today through Saturday. "It creates a heavy pulse throughout your body," he says, referring to the rhythm of the wooden shoe-enhanced cadence.
Then the bad: "It’s a completely different marching style than anything else you do. After students have street-marched in wooden shoes, they sometimes forget what we've taught them on the field during the fall."
Also in the bad category would be the pain that the inflexible "klompen" can inflict.
And the blood.
"When we first got the wooden shoes, they were a little thinner on the bottom, so we would staple scraps onto the bottom to build them up," says Connell. "The staple would work its way through to their feet, and they’d have blood all over."
The good category, though, gains another point from the unique identity that marching in wooden shoes has given Connell’s band. That, along with a wide-open sound and numerous award-winning field competition performances, has helped the Pride of the Dutchmen Band garner a national reputation. The band has performed at the Tournament of Roses and Orange Bowl parades and, next January, will march for the second time in the three-mile-long Fiesta Bowl Parade in Phoenix.
The band will order a fresh supply of shoes, made out of basswood and imported from the Netherlands by Orange City’s Old Factory, for the Fiesta Bowl, complete with the parade’s logo painted on them.
Even in years in which the band doesn’t make a big trip, it purchases at least 100 pair of klompen.
"At $35 per pair, it’s a recurring expense no other band in the country has," says Connell.
Over the years, marchers have tried a variety of methods to lengthen the life of their wooden shoes--including shellac and aircraft aluminum. The latter, says Connell, was somewhat effective, but hindered the band’s distinctive clomping sound.
Musicians have used everything from carpet to foam rubber to five pair of heavy sweat socks to protect their feet. Connell, who estimates he’s marched more than 200 miles in wooden shoes, says two pair of socks are enough for him.
This year’s Tulip Festival theme is "Wooden Shoes on Parade," and Connell says the wooden shoe-clad band makes an impact on parade crowds.
"They think it’s awe-inspiring to see tall Dutch kids play powerful music in straight lines. When we first went to other parades, kids from other schools would see the wooden shoes and snicker. That changed once we played," he says.
You'd think four years of marching with the Pride of the Dutchmen Band in the early 1980s would be enough for Kris McDonald to retire her wooden shoes.
Instead, she's moved from marching down the street to dancing on it as a member of Orange City's adult Dutch dancers for 18 years. She and her husband, Todd, now help teach Dutch dancing to the group.
What’s it like to dance in wooden shoes?
"It kills the tops of your feet," she says. "You put those shoes on and by Thursday night your feet are killing you. If you can get them on your feet Friday, the rest of the festival isn’t so bad."
McDonald’s solution is to put a piece of foam in between her layers of socks.
And, like the marchers, she recommends shuffling.
"Then the tops of your feet don’t get smashed up in them, and it makes a better sound. If you have to pick up your feet a lot, that makes it tougher."
There have been a few casualties over the years: One woman suffered a stress fracture from Dutch dancing and was on crutches by Saturday. The ambulance was called once when a man blew out a knee.
Sometimes a shoe breaks in half or wears through at an inopportune time.
That hasn’t happened to McDonald yet. She still wears the pair of klompen she got in 1991.
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Mary DeYoung wrote on May 15, 2008 6:50 PM:
I grew up in Sioux Center, so I'm familiar with Tulip Time in Orange City. Now I live in Holland, Michigan where Tulip Time also occurs every spring. The Holland High School band also marches in wooden shoes. So the MOC-FV band has lots of company in the wooden shoe speciality. "