Flatfooting From Scratch Dance Workshop

The Handmade Music School presents – FLATFOOTING FROM SCRATCH: An Appalachian, Percussive Dance Workshop
with Instructor Becky Hill. Class admission is $20 – proceeds benefit The Handmade Music School.

60 minute class will be followed by an Old Time Banjo & Dance Performance featuring Ben Nelson & Becky Hill

Concert starts at 7:30 – Admission: $20 • Combo Price for the 60 Workshop and the Performance: $35

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION: Learn the Appalachian percussive dance basics to invigorate you to get you up on the dance floor at the Floyd Country store, a square dance or in your kitchen. We will spend an afternoon together working on the clogging fundamentals and Robert Dotson’s Tennessee Walking Step. No prior experience necessary. Come ready to dance in either leather bottoms or smooth soled shoes.

Becky Hill and Ben Nelson have been friends for over a decade, and recently started crafting banjo and dance duets together. Ben grew up in southwest Virginia in a family of old-time musicians, and now makes his home in the North Carolina mountains. Becky is musically rooted in West Virginia, where she studied with percussive dance luminaries and elder square dance callers. Their arrangements of traditional tunes from southern Appalachia re-envision percussive dance as a primary instrument to explore the nuanced conversation between melody and rhythm. The goal of the project is to celebrate the traditions of Appalachian old-time music and dance, while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of those traditions. They have performed on the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, the Baltimore Old-Time Festival, Blackpot Festival and numerous others.