Communities in Motion Dance, Community, and Tradition in America's Southeast and Beyond

Subjects:

• The Arts » Dance
• Popular Culture » American Studies
• Anthropology » Folklore

Reviews:

• The book is at its strongest when it works from Byam's direct experiences as actor, playwright, and facilitator in various theater-for-development troupes in the late 1980's and early nineties. She also makes good use of interviews conducted with organizers of these theater groups, and she draws on otherwise unavailable unpublished documents collected from theater organizations and departments.
  —African Studies Review

Table of Contents:

• Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Continuity and Change
• Frolics, Hoedowns, and Four-Handed Reels: Variations in Old-Time Dancing in Three Southwest Virginia Communities by Susan Eike Spalding
• "You Have to Watch Your People": Calling Old-Time Appalachian Square Dance: An Interview with Veronica Miller by Susan Eike Spalding and Jane Harris Woodside
• Square Dancing in the Rural Midwest: Dance Events and the Location of Community by Paul L. Tyler
• "There's a Lot of Pride Wrapped Up in What We Do": Reminiscences of a Fraternity Stepper: An Interview with Charles Collier by Jane Harris Woodside
• Stepping, Saluting, Cracking, and Freaking: The Cultural Politics of African American Step Shows by Elizabeth Fine
• Anglo-American Dance in Appalachia and Newfoundland: Toward a Comparative Framework by Colin Quigley
• Conserving Tradition
• Finding the Way Between the Old and the New: The Mountain Dance and Folk Festival and Bascom Lamar Lunsford's Work as a Citizen by David E. Whisnant
• Wild and Yet Really Subdued: Cultural Change, Stylistic Diversification, and Personal Choice in Traditional Appalachian Dance by Gail Matthews-DeNatale
• Carrying on the Old Mountain Clog Dance: Thoughts about Freestyle Clogging: An Interview with Bob Phillips by Gail Matthews-DeNatale
• "Clogging is Country": A Precision Clogger's Perspective: An Interview with Barbara Bogart by Jane Harris Woodside
• "I Want To Show These Young People What We Used To Do": A Cherokee Revivalist Remembers: An Interview with Walker Calhoun by Jane Harris Woodside
• "Everybody Needs Identity": Reviving Cherokee Dance by Jane Harris Woodside
• Inventing Traditions
• The Green Grass Cloggers: The Appalachian Spirit Goes International by Phil Jamison
• "We Tended to Project a Lot of Energy": Reminiscences about the Early Days of the Green Grass Cloggers: An Interview with Dudley Culp by Susan Eike Spalding and Jane Harris Woodside
• Folk Dance in the Early Years of the John C. Campbell Folk School by Douglas Day
• Old-Time Fiddling and Country Dancing in North America: Some Reconsiderations by Richard Blaustein
• Dance, Our Dearest Diversion: Historical Dance Reconstruction in Colonial Williamsburg by Merry Feyock
• Yuppies Invaded My Tradition at Midnight: A Sociological Study of a Contemporary American Contra Dance by Richard Carlin
• Practical Suggestions for the Documentation of Dance
• Collecting Traditional Appalachian Square Dances by Robert G. Dalsemer
• How to Document Dance: From the Notes to Talking Feet by Mike Seeger
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Contributors