Western North Carolina Buckdancers, Flatfooters, and Charleston Dancers (1993)

In 1992, I received a grant from the North Carolina Arts Council to document traditional dancers from western NC, who knew the older forms of step dance that existed prior to the advent of modern clogging. That fall and during the spring of 1993, I located, interviewed, and filmed over forty buckdancers, flatfooters, and Charleston dancers in Buncombe, Burke, Clay, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Madison, Swain, Watauga, and Yancey Counties. I have now edited the original videos (which are at the Southern Folklife Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill) into nineteen short films, featuring thirty-eight dancers. Most of these folks are now deceased, but I am pleased to finally be able to share their dancing, wisdom, and stories of earlier times in the southern mountains. To these dancers, I dedicate this project. 

For more about this Folklife Documentary Project, see “WNC Buckdancers, Flatfooters, and Charleston Dancers (1993)” at: http://www.philjamison.com/