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Traditional Dance

Phil Jamison is nationally known as a dance caller, old-time musician, and flatfoot dancer. He has called dances, performed, and taught at music festivals and dance events throughout the U.S. and overseas since the early 1970s, including close to forty years as a member of the Green Grass Cloggers. For eighteen years (1992 – 2009), he served as the Dance Stage coordinator at MerleFest. Phil's flatfoot dancing was featured in the film, Songcatcher, for which he also served as Traditional Dance consultant. Over the last thirty years, Jamison has done extensive research in the area of Appalachian dance, and his recently-published book Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics: Roots and Branches of Southern Appalachian Dance (University of Illinois Press, 2015) tells the story behind the square dances, step dances, reels, and other forms of dance practiced in southern Appalachia. Phil teaches mathematics as well as Appalachian music and dance at Warren Wilson College, in Asheville, North Carolina, where for twenty-five years, he coordinated the Old-Time Music and Dance Week at the Swannanoa Gathering.

Published in 2017

Phil Jamison

Dudley Culp saw the Smoky Mountain Cloggers perform in 1971 at the Old Time Fiddlers Convention in Union Grove, NC, he knew he wanted to learn to clog. Evelyn Smith Farmer of Fries, VA, showed him a basic step that he took back to friends in Greenville, NC, hoping to start a team. With their energetic dance style informal costumes, the Green Grass Cloggers transferred their offstage personalities to their performances so that they were a team, yet all still individuals. In 1972, the team debuted at Union Grove on April Fools’ Day, and they later won ’72 and ’74 World Championship titles at the Square-Up against polished teams. They felt validated in knowing that what they had created was actually recapturing a more earthy spirit of the dance. To follow the increasing performance invitations, in 1977 a Road Team of full-time dancers was formed. Those who couldn’t travel became the Home Team. The Green Grass style has maintained partner-based choreography and prioritized live music. The traveling and teaching that the group did in the seventies and eighties had such a wide influence that much of the clogging around the world can be traced back to the Green Grass Cloggers.

Published in 2014

Green Grass Cloggers

Traditional Dance: Willard Watson

Published in 2011

Willard Watson

Sam Love Queen, Sr. was born in Haywood County, North Carolina. The Soco Dance Team, organized and led by Sam Love Queen, Sr. changed the style of square dancing and became the winner of more competitions than any other. Queen is also credited with taking Buck Dancing to a new level, helping to start what we call “clogging” today. Albert Burnett describes square dancing as “body language and body expression”. Without doubt, Sam Love Queen, Sr. was a great communicator and known as the “Square Dance King”.

Published in 2008

Sam Love Queen, Sr.

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