Folk Alliance, Day 3: Praise the Women

 

“In Appalachia, it’s not traditional for a dancer to fiddle or a fiddler to dance. We typically do one or the other. But here at Folk Alliance, I’ve met three other dancing fiddlers, who I’m thinking will be lifelong friends,” Nashville-based Hillary Klug said this as part of her endearing (earnest and funny) patter that accompanied what she presented as a sort of demonstration regarding her beloved buck dancing.

Klug said, “Now, how many of you all are familiar with buck dancing?”

Pause.

“Three people?” She paused again. “Now this is embarrassing. I’m the national champion of something only three of you ever heard of.” It was the oh-so-natural laugh line, and we laughed, hard and natural. 

That's the way the whole evening went.

“You’re probably familiar with clog dancing. They come from the same tradition, but buck dancing is older, and while clog dancing is fun to watch with all the high kicks”—Klug jumps and kicks heels together to illustrate— “buck dancing is all about the sound, and boring to watch.”

Klug was anything but boring to watch. Running through an array of standards from “Oh, Susanna!” to “Cotton-Eyed Joe” and “The Cuckoo,” her almost marionette-like movements were emotionally moving. As she fiddled with abandon and danced (though visually understated) much the same way, something that could only be called joy filled the room. Her set was the original concept of the North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance in the microcosm of one person.

Hillary Klug

Hillary Klug, “Cotton-Eyed Joe” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lNkCt1CDc0

Noting the difference in Canadian dance fiddlers and Appalachians, mentioning the loss of her accompaniment that night as serendipitous because the approach she now used would be more traditionally Irish, Klug tied together the traditions in the “Women of Note” room, a room created by Dublin’s Aoife Scott to pay homage to a yearly Irish Tradfest where women gather and sing in the round at Dublin’s Saint Patrick Cathedral. (This past January Scott performed with Wallis Bird and Peggy Seeger.)

Last night, Scott opened for Klug, a brilliant and funny warm up for the buck dancer. Scott managed to render stories of the interminable Irish Lockdown and dark days of depression (including sad jam sandwiches) in a way that brought laughter and tears intertwined.

“One thing about the lockdown, before, I didn’t know who I was without gigging. I found out I am someone when I’m not gigging, and that was grand.” The sweet humor in that brief, confessional comment was, in many ways, a theme that ran through the evening. We're more than all this, but isn't it grand that we're all this, too?

Aoife Scott, “Sweet October” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjqljZ8ZyFE

Each night of the conference, at midnight, Scott is gathering a group of women to sing in the round. Last night, she was joined by Thea Hopkins, a member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe in what is today Massachusetts, who calls her music Red Roots Americana. With her full-throated yet ethereal vocals, Hopkins sang of having wings to fly like an angel and compared the power of love to rain feeding the dry earth.

Thea Hopkins, “Love Come Down” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORJrXrkwJOQ

Sands, Lowry, Scott, and Hopkins

Another indigenous American singer, of the Lumbee/Tuscarora tribes of North Carolina, Charly Lowry spoke thoughtfully about her own life story, how she moved from a predominantly native American hometown to a university town where most people were not indigenous, acknowledging she went through a profound culture shock, leading up to her celebratory anthem, dedicated to women, “Brown Skin.” Later in the set she called upon all of us to celebrate our backbones as well.

Charly Lowry, “Backbone” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlOsH5zbYKs

Cork’s Clare Sands furthered the celebration with a song called “Praise the Women” in Gaelic, “Awe na Mna,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rhmX4fV-Uo Then she closed the evening with two fiddle tunes accompanied by dances from another native of Cork, Louise O’Connor. At one point or another, Lowry and Scott playing hand drums, the room giddy with our common humanity.

 

O'Connor, Sands (almost hidden in red), Lowry, Scott, Hopkins