Buck dancing is a folk dance that originated among African Americans during the era of slavery.
Soft-shoe dancers usually dance alone and in a small amount of space. At first, only men did the buck dancing routine, but today, the form has spread all around the world. It’s creative and not as simple as it looks.
But what about a buck dancer who plays the fiddle at the same time?
That’s what Hillary Klug does and the result is an impressive multitasking video of her performing “Cotton Eyed Joe.” Doing even one of the two requires a lot of concentration, but she handles it all at once!
This young fiddler from Nashville, Tennessee has a fantastic skill of combining two demanding tasks at once.
Imagine reading a book and writing an important document at the same time—hard to do, right? Well, the same goes for Klug. The video features a young, blonde girl whose smile lit up the room as soon as she entered: She is dressed casually in shorts and boots with her fiddle in hand. Before long, she’s ready to start the show.
The performance took place in a big room, but she uses only one small platform for her buck dancing.
A performance like this is the epitome of the musical diversity we can find on the internet. This is American music, and we were happy to see a young person striving to uphold these fiddle and dance traditions!
Any musician will confirm that orchestrating moves like hers while performing an instrument flawlessly is a feat in and of itself.
The girl has enormous talent and a lot of self-control when it comes to her movements. Most of us couldn’t imagine playing the fiddle and tapping on such a small platform without falling off. Klug’s performance is fun to watch and generally phenomenal—and her fiddling skills are on point. One thing to notice about the video is that her dance platform is so worn out. As it turns out, Klug says she takes this dancing platform to all of her gigs, whenever she’s busking around the Music City.
Despite her talent, Klug comes from a family that has no ties to music.
Even so, Klug’s talent emerged in early childhood.
She says that she used to turn on the radio, dance and do her choreography in front of the mirror. She started clogging classes when she was eight, focused on clogging and buck dancing for a while, and then discovered the beautiful sound of fiddle and fell in love with it.
Klug combined dancing and playing fiddle by pure coincidence.
She was teaching a dance class and needed slower music for her students. Because she couldn’t find any, she decided to play it herself! With each passing class, she was able to play the fiddle and demonstrate perfect dancing techniques to her students—and that’s how it all began.
With an album behind her and 74,000 subscribers on YouTube, Klug is on her way to remind us all, once again, of the beauty of American tradition.
As it turns out, Klug has already released a debut self-titled album with minimal instrumentation.
Since it was posted, this video got more than four million views since 2018. Though she’s not necessarily a household name as of yet, we’re guessing that Klug has plenty more success on the horizon!
Be sure to check out her entire performance in the link below:
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