HOTEL INFO

FEATURING NATIONAL INSTRUCTORS

Gary Larsen

     GaryL.MOV

Gary is a professional dancer, teacher and choreographer specializing in world and percussive dance forms.  He holds a Master’s Degree in Dance from UCLA and a PhD in Ethnochoreology (Sociocultural Anthropology of dance) from the University of Limerick in Ireland.  As a performer he has travelled to dozens of countries.  He has taught and created choreography for workshops, performing groups and schools throughout the United States and in numerous other countries for over 20 years.  He is a Professor of Dance at Brigham Young University-Idaho where he oversees and/or teaches courses in clogging, tap, world dance, dance history, theory, philosophy, humanities, choreography and performance.  In his spare time, he owns and directs a dance company that travels the world performing American traditional and vernacular dance with his wife and three children.

Matt Koziuk
      Matt

Matt hails from Jacksonville, Florida, and is a graduate of Mars Hill University in North Carolina.   His clogging career spans over 30 years, and he has had the honor of working closely with and befriending many of the top names in the Art.  He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and is an alumnus of the now-28-time National Champions, the Bailey Mountain Cloggers, based out of Mars Hill.

During his tenure with Bailey Mountain he toured the U.S. East Coast with the troupe and participated in several cultural exchange programs, performing throughout Europe in 1997 and again in 2000, and helped the team earn 5 of their National Titles over the course of his time there.

After graduating from Mars Hill in 2001, for nearly a decade, Matt served as co-Director of the Electric Rhythm Cloggers, based out of Jacksonville, Florida, and helped guide them to winning two State of Florida Championships.

During his seven-year tenure as team Captain of the Carolina Fusion Cloggers, based out of central North Carolina, Matt secured three more National Championships when Fusion won Overall Traditional Team at the 2017 CCA Showdown of Champions, and overall Freestyle Team of 2018 and 2019 at the United Clogging Association’s World Championships.

He is grateful to have the opportunity and privilege to teach at venues large and small – from intimate one-room workshops in Florida, Texas, Kentucky, and Indiana, to the Smoky Mountain Encore, the Fontana Clogging Jamboree, the World of Clogging Memorial Day Spectacular, all the way to Germany in Fall 2014 with Jeff Driggs to celebrate and teach at the Renegade Quicksteppers 25^th Anniversary workshop celebration!  Teaching a 100+ person circle mixer in another country was absolutely a high point in his career!

In addition to attending and teaching these workshops, Matt is also a certified Competition Judge in multiple competition Sanctioning Organizations, eager to share his knowledge and experience (and be thoroughly entertained!) to further enrich and promote competitive clogging throughout the country. You can always pick Matt out at the Judge’s Table – he’s bopping along to any jam that gets his own toes tappin’!

Matt also is incredibly proud to be working with his amazingly talented clogging students at Dance Express, his home studio in nearby Fleming Island, Florida.  His kids fill him with joy, amusement, and the satisfying sense that he’s making a positive impact in children’s lives, and not ‘just’ being their clogging teacher. 

When not spending quality time with his wife enjoying good food, good wine, and good company with friends, he’s traveling regularly to attend and teach Workshops, or judge clogging and dance Competitions up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

He’s over the moon and humbled to have been invited to be a part of the Texas Rally, and can’t wait to see familiar faces he doesn’t get to see that often as well as meet some new ones!