"Dancing to the Music: Domestic Square Dances and Community in Southcentral Kentucky (1880-1940)"
This detailed examination of the role of square dances in south central Kentucky is written by a folklorist, who based his findings on interviews with 20 musicians, dancers, and callers in that region.
(Another look at Kentucky dancing, by researcher LeeEllen Friedland in the late 1970s, can be found here.)
In his introduction, Feintuch writes: "This article is the result of the use of oral historical means - interviews with twenty dancers, musicians, and callers, supplemented whenever possible by written documentation - to examine domestic square dance events in one area. In southcentral Kentucky from at least as early as the 1880s until the years of World War II, a vigorous tradition of square dancing in neighbors' homes flourished. Domestic square dances were a valued and frequent part of social life; a means for members of small communities to gather for expressive events, to be with friends and families, and implicitly to reaffirm many of the ties which bound them together in their social networks."
Subjects: Southern Appalachian - general
Tags: article, Burt Feintuch, Dancing to the Music, Kentucky, square dances
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(Another look at Kentucky dancing, by researcher LeeEllen Friedland in the late 1970s, can be found here.)
In his introduction, Feintuch writes: "This article is the result of the use of oral historical means - interviews with twenty dancers, musicians, and callers, supplemented whenever possible by written documentation - to examine domestic square dance events in one area. In southcentral Kentucky from at least as early as the 1880s until the years of World War II, a vigorous tradition of square dancing in neighbors' homes flourished. Domestic square dances were a valued and frequent part of social life; a means for members of small communities to gather for expressive events, to be with friends and families, and implicitly to reaffirm many of the ties which bound them together in their social networks."