Like much of Appalachian culture, flat foot dancing draws from Scots-Irish styles brought here centuries ago when immigrants came to the mountains. “You should be able to look through the church window and fool the priest into thinking you’re just standing there,” said Doris Brown, 48, who won Galax’s dance competition in 1996. Everything above the waist should be as still as possible. The feet tickle the floor like fingers on a piano. The legs and knees don’t buck in the air like an Irish clogger.įlat foot is about control. ![]() The arms don’t swing and the hands don’t clap. What he’s doing is called “flat foot,” a style that’s best defined for what it doesn’t do than for what it does. His feet skip and slide across the floor as if moving on ice. But like anyone who is good, he’s able to cheat gravity a little. Monahan is built more like a high school linebacker than a dancer. The jam sessions run until early morning as banjo pickers and dancers and fiddlers learn just how good they really are. Galax’s convention, which boasts the oldest and biggest celebration of old time and bluegrass music in the country, draws thousands of amateur dancers and musicians each year. ![]() So did 150 others, and as they lined up, he stuck close to his buddy, Don Makay, a bear of a man in leather dance shoes who’d come to dance too. Monahan, 36, had come for Saturday’s dance competition. This was the working side of the Old Fiddler’s Convention, the side where farmers and schoolteachers transformed themselves into stars, whispering their songs one last time before taking the stage. Kenny Monahan hadn’t been on this side of the yellow tent before.
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