Talking Feet: Solo Southern Dance: Buck, Flatfoot, and Tap [Paperback]

Mike Seeger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 29, 1993

Compiled by musician/folklorist Mike Seeger and dancer Ruth Pershing, Talking Feet introduces us to dancers from the Appalachian, Piedmont, and Blue Ridge Mountain regions of the South. In its various forms—flatfooting, buckdancing, hoedown, rural tap or clogging—Southern dancing involves a great deal of personal style and innovation as dancers create the rhythm of old-time country music—talking blues, bluegrass, hand-patting and western swing. Traditionally, people have danced at corn shuckings, apron hemmings, weddings, and house parties. Nowadays, clog dancers compete at festivals and competitions. Talking Feet is a precious record of the experience of old-timers and an inspiration to younger enthusiasts who want to absorb the tradition and make it their own.

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: North Atlantic Books (January 29, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556430809
• ISBN-13: 978-1556430800
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #937,923 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun but essential to understand old time music and black dance, December 24, 2008

By 

Tony Thomas (SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Talking Feet: Solo Southern Dance: Buck, Flatfoot, and Tap (Paperback)

In the film associated with this book you can see a grizzled old white Mountaineer do an African animal dance, one that friends of mine have filmed folks doing in Mali today. This book is the best thing available on the old time dance traditions that once thrived in the mountains and valleys of the South, a the mix of African and European dances. This book provides not only an outsider's explanation of the dances, but tries to take as many of its words from the dancers themselves, not just about their dancing, but about their lives, and the music they dance to. Diagrams of the dancing steps are even provided at the end of the book.

Those of us interested in old time music, blues, and other traditional musics forget that so much of it was born as music for folks like these to dance to. As a musician, I have learned so much from studying the dancing that the tunes I play on the banjo, fiddle, and guitar was made for. As a musicologist studying the history of black banjo music, I do not think I could have gotten as far as I have without the aid of this and other studies of Black and European-American dance.

I heartily recommend the accompanying DVD of the same title which is even more fun than this book