Old time Banjo & Dance Performance with Ben Nelson & Becky Hill

The Handmade Music School presents an Old Time Banjo & Dance Performance with Ben Nelson & Becky Hill

Admission is $20 – proceeds benefit The Handmade Music School.

The concert will follow Flatfooting From Scratch: An Appalachian Percussive Dance Workshop with Instructor Becky Hill.

60 minute workshop starts at 6PM – Workshop 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.