An Editorial Ledger · Boone · Blowing Rock · Banner Elk · Newland
The High Country
Step & Set Ledger.
A working catalog of the traditional Appalachian dance carried through the Watauga, Avery, Ashe, and Alleghany headwaters — clogging and flatfooting, square and contra, the Shufflers, the Mountain Dance Convention, Folkmoot USA, the dance barns, the callers, and the fiddle bands that drove it all night.
Clogging & Flatfooting
Two solo percussive forms that share a foot but not a shoe — the regional dance's two founding idioms.
Clogging
klawg · nounA percussive team dance with hard-tapped double steps, heel-toe strikes, and choreographed floor patterns. In the High Country, clogging arrived as a dance of precision — performed by groups like the Green Grass Grannies, the Mountain Misfits, and the Carolina Mountain Dance Team. The tradition blends Cherokee step patterns with English, Irish, and African American percussive dance filtered up through coal-country juke joints. Costume is the giveaway: short dress, petticoats, taps on the shoe. The dance lives at conventions, on competition stages, and in workshops run through the ASU Hayes School of Music and the JAM program.
Flatfooting (buckdancing, rhythm tap)
flat · foo · tingThe improvised solo form. The dancer listens to the fiddle and answers it — a syncopated conversation between foot and string. Steps are loose, individual, and follow the phrasing of the tune rather than a fixed routine. The foot never leaves the floor for long; weight shifts and shuffles carry the rhythm. Carried into the High Country by African American fiddlers and dancers traveling the tobacco and string-band circuit, then absorbed into the regional jam culture. The best flatfooters sound like one more voice in the band.
Smooth & buck (two clogging styles)
smooth · buckClogging itself splits. Smooth is the formal, choreographed, costume-and-competition form taught through studios and the Mountain Dance Convention stage. Buck is the looser, more improvisational cousin — closer to flatfoot, with heel drops, stomps, and a heavier downbeat. Most High Country cloggers carry both styles and switch between them the way a fiddler switches keys.
"You don't learn flatfooting. You listen until your foot finds the fiddle, and then you stop thinking about it." — Phil Jamison, Appalachian State University
Square & Contra
The set dances — four couples in a square, two couples in a line, the caller binding them both.
Square dance is the public form. Four couples, eight dancers, a caller on a riser, a band at the back of the hall. The caller walks the dancers through figures — allemande left, do-si-do, promenade home — while the band plays a 64-bar tune that loops until the figure is complete. The tradition goes back to the barn dances of the 19th century and continues through the modern revival: the Asheville halls, the Floyd Friday Night Jamboree, the weekly Boone dances at the Appalachian Theatre. The choreography is fixed; the music is improvised. That tension is the dance.
Contra dance is the older, line-based cousin. Two lines of couples face each other; figures move up and down — balance and swing, ladies' chain, right and left through. A "set" of three or four contras runs without stopping, with the band choosing a tune that matches the figure's energy. The High Country's contra community runs through Asheville (where the longest-running weekly dance in the region continues), Boone, and Sylva. New England brought the revival south in the 1970s; the locals have been running it ever since.
Both forms share one rule: the caller speaks, the band follows the caller, the dancers follow the band. The triangle is the dance.
The Dance Halls
Ten rooms that held the dance — the marquee venues and the rural barns between them.
The Rex Theater Marquee
Galax, VAThe 1939 art-deco downtown theater that became the Saturday-night anchor of the Galax old-time scene. Clogging on the orchestra-level floor; bands on the stage; the Old Fiddlers' Convention overflow crowd every August.
Carter Family Fold Marquee
Hiltons, VASaturday-night music and dance venue built around the original Carter Family cabin. An A.P. Carter grandson runs the floor; square dance and flatfoot on a wooden floor that has not been replaced.
Thomas Wolfe Auditorium Asheville
Asheville, NCInside the Asheville Civic Center. The civic room where the Mountain Dance & Folk Festival and Folkmoot USA have held headline nights for decades. Larger floor than the barns, smaller soul than the bars.
Floyd Country Store Dance hall
Floyd, VAFriday Night Jamboree: a general-store floor cleared for clogging and square dance. Twenty miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway; the High Country's most-cited weekly dance.
Appalachian Theatre Marquee
Boone, NCThe restored 1938 theater that hosts Spring and Fall dances, caller workshops, and the occasional contra series. Walking distance from the ASU campus.
Jones House Community
Boone, NCTown of Boone cultural center. Weekly jams and the off-season clogging nights. A porch that pulls a smaller crowd in winter.
Della Hicks Auditorium Asheville
Asheville, NCHome to the longest-running weekly contra dance in the region. Tuesday nights, two callers, two bands a month, walk-ins welcome.
The Rural Dance Barns Barns
Watauga · Ashe · AveryThe unnamed family barns and VFW halls where the dance has run continuously since the 1920s. Look for the hand-painted signs on Route 194, at Cove Creek, at Newland. No website. Ask a fiddler.
Calls & Callers
The voice at the front of the hall — half musician, half conductor, half auctioneer.
A square-dance caller is the only performer in the room who is also the choreographer, the scriptwriter, and the announcer. The caller walks a square of eight through a sequence of figures, calling each move two beats before the band plays it — a running patter that is itself a regional vernacular. "Allemande left with your corner, allemande right with your own, now promenade that lady home." The caller doesn't sing the tune. The band does. The caller stays out of the band's way and one figure ahead.
The High Country caller bench runs deep. Some callers sing a walk-through first and a hot patter second; some teach every figure before the band starts. Both schools are valid. Asheville's caller scene — Diane Silver, Steve Kitch, Phil Jamison — sets the regional standard. The rotation at the Floyd Country Store, the Boone caller workshops at the Appalachian Theatre, and the Galax convention floor produce a steady crop of new voices.
Contra callers work differently. They call the figures but not the sequence; dancers know the routine and the caller chooses the figures. The best callers teach the room, keep the band honest, and let the figures speak.
The Bands
Old-time fiddle bands — the music that drives the floor, the bands that kept the form alive between dances.
The New River Shufflers Founders
Watauga · SurryThe 1970s string band that carried Round Peak north into the High Country jam circuit. Fiddle-led, banjo-driven, and the reason clogging survives on the Boone floor.
The Freight Hoppers Revival
Asheville, NCTwo-finger banjo and fiddle duo that produced the most danceable recordings of the late-1990s revival. Still play the square-dance circuit.
The Biscuit Boys House band
Asheville, NCThe house band at a long-running Asheville square dance. Fiddle, banjo, guitar — three players, no PA, a floor that fills the room.
The Bear Swamp String Band Old-time
Asheville, NCAsheville's anchor old-time band, descended from the Freight Hoppers and still booking the regional dance halls.
The Krackerbox String Band Old-time
Boone, NCHigh Country string band with a fiddle that cuts through the clogging taps. Plays the Boone and Blowing Rock dance circuit.
The Stoney Creek Boys Revival
Asheville, NCAsheville's weekly contra band. Fiddle, piano, guitar — and the cleanest rhythm guitar in the southern contra circuit.
The Galax Bogtrotters Heritage
Galax, VAThe Galax house band, descended from the late-1920s Carter-era bands. Plays every Old Fiddlers' Convention weekend.
The Suggins Ramblers Old-time
Floyd, VAThe Friday Night Jamboree house band. Fiddle, banjo, and the kind of uptempo shuffle the cloggers need.
The Black Twig Pickers Edge
Asheville, NCFiddle and two-banjo band that pushes old-time toward noise. Plays the dance hall one night and the rock club the next.
What the Dancers Wear
Costume is not costume — it is the costume of a working tradition, and it has rules.
Clogging dress is the most codified. The female tradition is a full, swirling dress — usually mid-calf — over a tucked petticoat that gives the skirt its swing. Above the waist, a modest blouse; below, taps on the shoes (not jazz taps; metal plates screwed into the sole and heel). The dress must clear the feet so the taps show. Competitors add ribbon trim; recreational cloggers keep it simple. Male cloggers wear trousers and buck-style shoes; the costume is muted because the footwork is the point.
Square-dance attire is more individual. Many halls keep a "square-dance dress" tradition — full skirt, petticoat, prairie blouse — but modern dancers dance in jeans and boots and the halls have stopped enforcing. Contra is even more relaxed: cotton skirt or khakis, whatever shoes won't stick on a wooden floor.
The flatfooter wears whatever they were wearing that night. The form is informal by definition. You will see a flatfooter in work boots and a Carhartt jacket. That is the costume.
Regional Dance Traditions
The annual conventions, festivals, and touring ensembles that carry the dance forward.
Mountain Dance & Folk Festival Festival
Asheville, NCHeld every August since 1928. Clogging competitions, mountain dance teams, and the region's most concentrated week of old-time dance in one building. The heritage festival of the High Country circuit.
Folkmoot USA International
Waynesville · CherokeeA two-week international dance and music festival running since 1984. Performance troupes from across the world meet Appalachian clogging and Cherokee dance on the same stage. The closest the High Country comes to a global dance gathering.
The Shufflers Dance troupe
Watauga · SurryA regional clogging troupe affiliated with the Round Peak tradition. Performs at festivals, teaches at JAM workshops, and keeps the choreographed clogging form alive in school programs.
Junior Appalachian Musicians (JAM) Education
Watauga · Ashe · AlleghanyThe after-school pipeline that teaches clawhammer banjo, fiddle, guitar — and clogging. Started in 2000 in Alleghany County; now in forty counties across six states. The next generation of callers and cloggers is in JAM right now.
Bascom Lamar Lunsford "Festival" Festival
Mars Hill, NCAnnual dance and music festival named for the founder of the Mountain Dance & Folk Festival. A smaller, friendlier alternative to the Asheville week. Clogging contests on a side stage.
Old Fiddlers' Convention Convention
Galax, VASince 1935. The longest-running old-time convention. Clogging competitions are the second stage; fiddle and band contests are the headline. The weekend the dance floor in Galax is busiest all year.
Union Grove Fiddlers Convention Convention
Union Grove, NCSince 1925. The North Carolina standard. Clogging competition Saturday afternoon, fiddlers Saturday night.
MerleFest Dance Tent Festival
Wilkesboro, NCThe dance tent at MerleFest: a daytime clogging workshop and an evening dance. Where festival audiences meet the regional tradition without driving to a barn.
Cherokee Roots & the Courtship Floor
Two threads woven into the dance — older than the fiddle band, older than the square.
Appalachian dance and Cherokee dance share a deeper ground than the conventions let on. The Eastern Band of Cherokee, anchored on the Qualla Boundary just south of the High Country, kept a dance tradition that pre-dates the British Isles arrivals by centuries: the Friendship Dance, the Corn Dance, the War Dance, and the social round dances performed at every gathering. The Cherokee round dance — two lines facing, partners traveling up and down — looks like a cousin of the contra. It may be the original.
The Trail of Tears (1838) scattered Cherokee families across the southern mountains. Many settled the hollows of Watauga, Ashe, and Cherokee counties and married into the settler communities; steps traveled with them. Modern clogging — particularly the buck and smooth styles taught through JAM and the Mountain Dance Convention — carries Cherokee foot patterns that pre-date the British Isles traditions they are usually credited to. The Carter Family learned "Kitty Puss" from Cherokee neighbors in Poor Valley. The floor never stopped being shared.
Courtship is the dance's other root function, and the one the halls were built around. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the regional dance was the supervised place where a young man and young woman could spend three minutes in physical proximity and call it respectable. The square put them in the same set; the figures put them across from each other; the swing your partner closed the distance. Generations of marriages began in a square-dance promenade. The dance hall was the mountain's most reliable matchmaker.
"If you couldn't get your girl to the dance, you weren't going to marry her. There was nowhere else for the meeting to happen." — Lloyd Buchanan, Watauga County, recalling the 1930s
The courtship floor is also why the dance persists at the scale it does. People still drive to the barn on Saturday night for the same reason their great-grandparents did — because the dance is the place the region meets itself.