Haywood County, North Carolina has long been known for its dancing. This was the home of Sam Queen’s Soco Gap Square Dancers, who were invited, in 1939, to perform for the king and queen of England at the Roosevelt White House. In 1993, former members of Queen’s dance team, including Richard Queen (Sam Queen’s son), John Reeves and Robert Howell (Sam Queen’s nephews), and Catherine McCrary, joined with other Haywood County dancers at a community center in Maggie Valley to demonstrate their steps and styles for the camera. By this time, steps from the Charleston (1920s) and clogging (1950s) had been incorporated into the local tradition alongside the older style of buckdancing. Each dancer performs solo, and then of the eight dancers form a set to demonstrate a few of the mountain square dance figures, called by Robert “Chief” Howell.
John Reeves (1918-1995) of Lake Junaluska recalled going to his first square dance at age fourteen. He learned to dance from his uncle Sam Queen, and before long he was performing with Queen’s Soco Gap Square Dancers. Reeves referred to his style of dancing, in which he stays up on his toes, as the “Buck and Wing,” and he had names for many of his steps: “The Walk,” “The Running Walk,” “The Broken Wing,” “Wring the Chicken’s Neck,” “Dust the Pigeon Toe,” “The Shuffle,” “The Double Shuffle,” and “The Backstep.” Reeve’s dancing can also be seen in Mike Seeger’s 1987 documentary film, Talking Feet, online at: www.folkstreams.net/film,121
Catherine McCrary (1923-2006), Maggie Valley
Troy D. Cutshaw (1916-2000), Waynesville
Pearl Owen (1920-2004), Waynesville
Dallas Mathis (1917-2003), Maggie Valley
Alaska Pressley (b. 1923), Maggie Valley
J. Claude Caldwell (b. 1931)
Hattie Caldwell Davis (b. 1927), Maggie Valley
Gene Ferguson (b. 1935), Waynesville
Marlene Blalock (b. 1935), Maggie Valley
Richard Queen (1918-2004), Maggie Valley
Lois Pryor Queen (1922-2008), Maggie Valley
Robert “Chief” Howell (1912-2010), Maggie Valley.
Howell was also filmed dancing at his home at Jonathon Creek.
See: th-cam.com/video/uYxh1ZCo1YU/w-d-xo.html
Music: Liz Shaw (fiddle), Lynn Shaw (fiddle and guitar), Trevor Stuart (fiddle and guitar), Travis Stuart (banjo and bass)
Recorded: Maggie Valley, NC (May 7, 1993)
For more about this Folklife Documentary Project, see “WNC Buckdancers, Flatfooters, and Charleston Dancers (1993)” at: www.philjamison.com/
Additional video with more dancing is available at the Southern Folklife Collection at the University of North Carolina. See: search.lib.unc.edu/search?R=UNCb4866448
This project was made possible by sabbatical funding from Warren Wilson College.