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Appalachian Dance: Creativity and Continuity in Six Communities. By Susan Eike Spalding. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014. Pp. xi + 288, preface, afterword, notes, works cited, 34 black-and-white photographs, 7 maps.)
In Appalachian Dance, Susan Eike Spalding presents the stories of the people and their dance in six communities in the Appalachian region. The collective experience of each community is reflected in square dancing, solo footwork dancing, and other social dance forms that have emerged in the last century. Spalding discusses how these communities have dealt creatively with issues of industrialization, race relations, and folk revivals by investigating the roles individuals and institutions have played in the evolution of dance traditions in the Appalachian Mountains. Moreover, Spalding explores the nature of community and the dynamic qualities of tradition in these communities.
Spalding begins by considering the socioeconomic history of the Appalachian region and thoroughly refutes the myth of the mountains' isolating effects. The region has enjoyed a thriving music and dance scene-complete with dance masters teaching new dance forms, opera houses presenting theatrical dance, and various immigrants bringing their own forms of social dance to the area. Throughout the book, Spalding shows how dance in the mountains began as a mixture of many traditions and styles and continues to be a conglomeration of movement, music, and traditions from the many people who choose to live and dance there.
Appalachian communities that continue to dance what Spalding calls "old-style" dancing- square dancing and footwork dance styles-are actively choosing how to maintain their traditions. Focusing on six dance communities in Virginia, Tennessee,...