Buck Dancing [1]

Buck Dancing

by Bruce E. Baker, 2006

See also: Clogging [2]; Step Dancing [3].

[4]Buck dancing is a folk dance [5] that originated among African Americans [6] during the era of slavery. It was largely associated with the North Carolina Piedmont [7] and, later, with the blues [8]. The original buck dance, or "buck and wing," referred to a specific step performed by solo dancers, usually men; today the term encompasses a broad variety of improvisational dance steps.

In contemporary usage, "buck dancing" often refers to a variety of solo step dancing to fiddle-based music [9] done by dancers primarily in the Southern Appalachians. Among North Carolinians, buck dancing is differentiated from clogging [2] and flatfooting by the use of steps higher off the floor, a straight and relatively immobile torso, and emphasis on steps that put the dancer on his or her toes rather than heels.

Reference:

Mike Seeger and Ruth Pershing, Talking Feet: Buck, Flatfoot, and Tap: Solo Southern Dance of the Appalachian, Piedmont, and Blue Ridge Mountain Regions (1992).

Additional Resources:

Emmylou Harris: Buck Dancing, YouTube video, 3:28, posted by 1000Magicians, Oct 13, 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsIBS0l7Hqg [10] (accessed October 11, 2012).

Driggs, Jeff. "A Brief History of Clog Dancing." Doubletoe Times Magazine. http://www.doubletoe.com/history.htm [11](accessed October 11, 2012).

Bradley, Sandra Lee. "The Social Context of Buck Dancing in North Carolina in the 1940s [12]." M.S. Thesis, University of Washington. Seattle, Wash. 1978.

Image Credits:

Topp, John Rastus. "The Shuffling Coon." New York: Jos. W. Stern & Co. 1897. http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/hasm_b0405/ [10]

Subjects:

African Americans [13]

Art [14]

Culture [15]

Performing arts [16]

UNC Press [17]

Authors:

Baker, Bruce E. [18]

From:

Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press. [19]

1 January 2006 | Baker, Bruce E.