
Susan Spalding, author of “Appalachian Dance: Creativity and Continuity in Six Communities.”
After interviewing black and white Virginians, Kentuckians and Tennesseans over a twenty-five year span, Susan Eike Spalding has authored “Appalachian Dance: Creativity and Continuity in Six Communities”, a book that explores the evolution and social uses of dance in each region. Spalding’s book analyzes how issues as different as industrialization around coal, plantation culture, race relations, and the 1970s folk revival profoundly influenced freestyle clogging and other dance forms like square dancing. Her research identifies how African Americans and Native Americans, as well as European immigrants drawn to the timber mills and coal fields of Appalachia, brought movement styles that added to local dance vocabularies. Continue reading Retired Berea College Faculty Member Authors Appalachian Dance Book →